The most astonishing book I've read in awhile, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is a tour de force announcement of talent from C Pam Zhang. This book sThe most astonishing book I've read in awhile, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is a tour de force announcement of talent from C Pam Zhang. This book spoke really specifically to me as a second generation Chinese American reader living in the American West--sometimes quite literally so, as in the instances of untranslated, phoneticized Chinese that Ba, Ma, and Lucy all use. (That a critical piece of characterization and pivotal plot point hinged on such a moment of non-translation/non-comprehension was a formally daring choice that almost made me pump my fist during a flight.) Highly recommended to readers with my identities and without them, to anyone whose people's stories have been elided from the myth of how America came to be, to anyone looking for a compelling, heartbreaking, unputdownable read....more
I first read The Sparrow in high school and had a visceral, violently negative reaction to the ending that colored my memory of the book for many yearI first read The Sparrow in high school and had a visceral, violently negative reaction to the ending that colored my memory of the book for many years after. Recently, I realized I could no longer remember anything about the plot, other than (view spoiler)[the rocks-fall-everybody-dies (hide spoiler)] bit, and that perhaps it was time to revisit the story.
I'm so glad I did. Looking back, my fifteen year old self was clearly unprepared for the hard questions of theodicy and colonialism that this book grapples with. I think I must have felt cheated, somehow, when I reached the end, even though the novel announces pretty much at its get-go that it's going to be a difficult read, with little mystery about what happens to any member of the expedition other than Emilio Sandoz.
This time, I was in awe of how finely Mary Doria Russell is able to thread the needle of mounting tension and dread, how completely vivid and alive her characters are and how much she gets you to fall in love with them (I want to eat dinner at George and Anne's!), the verisimilitude that the dialogue has to the kinds of conversations that real, thinking people have with each other, and how she does not flinch from seeing the story through. I can see now that my younger self's reaction of feeling betrayed by the text is exactly what the text set me up to feel; Russell takes on the author-as-god role and forces the reader to feel Sandoz's emotions and ask the same questions that he asks. It's a brutal and revelatory tactic that will stay with me for a long, long time. Really incredible, difficult work....more
Fatima Farheen Mirza lists Marilynne Robinson as one of her teachers/mentors during her time at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and ILuminous and tender.
Fatima Farheen Mirza lists Marilynne Robinson as one of her teachers/mentors during her time at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and I see Robinson's influence throughout the book, especially in the final section (I literally said "Oh no" out loud when I turned the page and saw which character narrates that part, fully and rightfully expecting to be devastated). Like Robinson, Farheen Mirza has the knack for quietly, empathetically observing her characters and never taking sides, even as they unknowingly or unwillingly hurt each other, even as they keep missing or second-guessing each other's motives. The net result is both a sense of inevitability as the events of the narrative spin themselves out, and of profound loss that the characters cannot know each other as the narrator or the reader does.
But there is grace, too. Grace in the way each point-of-view character engages in rigorous introspection; grace in the ways that each is harder on him or herself than on any other family member, than any other family member is on them. These are not characters unable to recognize their own imprints on the world or to take responsibility for them.
All of this, I believe, is deliberate. The very first words of the book signal its project -- In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful -- the bismillah of Islamic faith. The question of if there are limits to God's mercy, if God's compassion overrides God's anger, overrides humanity's sin, permeates the novel. It has become a truism in Western literature that both author and narrator occupy the place of divinity for a novel's characters; if this is so, Farheen Mirza, through writing in such a deeply humane way, answers the book's central question about God's character in the affirmative. Yes, there is compassion. Yes, there is mercy. Yes, it is never too late. Yes....more
Bewitching and devastating. It's a mark of how engrossing Ko's writing (both the content and the form) is that I read the second half of this book at Bewitching and devastating. It's a mark of how engrossing Ko's writing (both the content and the form) is that I read the second half of this book at the DMV and didn't even notice the time passing. A masterpiece....more
"my anger is often mistaken as hate. when my anger is closer to love. angry is the most patriotic thing we can be." (from "fireworks")
Brief, fierce, needf"my anger is often mistaken as hate. when my anger is closer to love. angry is the most patriotic thing we can be." (from "fireworks")
I loved this book. What struck me so forcibly as I was reading it was that I'd never before seen a novel tackle the subject of rape and its aftermath I loved this book. What struck me so forcibly as I was reading it was that I'd never before seen a novel tackle the subject of rape and its aftermath with such an insistence that sexual violence need not be the defining moment of a woman's life. Johnston gives Hermione an incredible support system of peers, parents, and professionals, who help her process and heal; and the acknowledgement at the end of the book that this kind of support is nearly a fantasy in our current day and age hammers home even more the need for these narratives of survival, friendship, thriving. ...more
Embarrassing literary confession time: I have never read The Handmaid's Tale before. I somehow managed to get through all my high school English classEmbarrassing literary confession time: I have never read The Handmaid's Tale before. I somehow managed to get through all my high school English classes without having it prescribed to me. I read the other classic dystopias, written by white men -- 1984, Animal Farm, A Brave New World, Slaughterhouse V, Fahrenheit 451 -- but never this one.
I don't think that was a coincidence.
I don't think it's meaningless, that out of all these books, it's Atwood's which presents a vision of the future that terrifies me most.
I don't know how to write this review.
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The first thing I notice is how Offred notices objects. I think, It takes an object to recognize one. I think of Simone Weil on force as that which turns a person into a thing. I think about other catalogues in literature -- Homer's catalogue of ships, Joyce's catalogue of Bloom's furnishings -- and how Offred's catalogue has none of the joy, none of the exuberance of these other lists. Of course it doesn't. Overabundance isn't innocuous in this book.
The next thing I notice is how Atwood writes. No word out of place, no reference overworked, the terrifyingly pitch-perfect ventriloquization of the Biblical language of theofascism, the slow slow unbearably slow unraveling revelation of Offred's backstory, of the story of how Gilead came to be. There's something of the burlesque in how this story is told. I wonder if it invites complicity.
The last thing that takes my breath away is the entire Historical Notes section. Are we to find it hopeful or tragic? Are we to take seriously the pedantic professors' speculations about Offred? Are we watching Offred turned back into a thing to be studied, subject to a different kind of force?
Her story is a warning, but I don't want to think of her story only in terms of its use value. I don't want to think of history only as that thing which keeps us from complacently believing that the world has always been "this way."
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There is this one comfort -- that Offred, in speaking, refuses to be a thing. No matter how hard she tries, she cannot stay passive. What is repressed always returns. The Medusa will always, eventually, open her mouth and laugh....more
A stunning meditation on the hope that religion can offer, as well as the damage that it can do, within a brutal world. Should be required reading forA stunning meditation on the hope that religion can offer, as well as the damage that it can do, within a brutal world. Should be required reading for all....more
I can't review this book objectively at all, because I am in season of deep pain right now, caused by a church that I deeply loved. But I will say thiI can't review this book objectively at all, because I am in season of deep pain right now, caused by a church that I deeply loved. But I will say this -- in the midst of that pain, this book was an enormous, unspeakable comfort. It was like a lantern on the path ahead, shining hope that one day things will be better. And it was like a friendly hand holding mine in the dark, silently compassionate as I wept. I am so thankful for Barbara Brown Taylor and the wisdom she speaks in this book....more
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