Ocean Vuong Finds the Gladness on the Fringes of Society

Title: The Emperor of Gladness

Author: Ocean Vuong

First, a brief synopsis from the publisher:

"One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong’s writing -- formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness -- are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance."

An Authentic Minnesota Start to Our Meeting 

Although we have strict book club rules -- 20 minutes for general chitchat before digging in, mild punishment for anyone starting the discussion with either "I loved this book" or "I hated this book" -- sometimes we are more dithery (is that a word?). So, first we had to mill around in the driveway, greeting each other, hugging, asking questions about Blanche's peonies, looking at the yard. Then, we made it to the front steps where we hung out for a bit for no particular reason. Next, into the house but just inside the door for more random motion. Then into the kitchen for beverages and snacks while discussing the weather, the pottery, each other, and who was going to sit in which chair. 

 

Finally, we made it into the living room, but apparently at this point, everyone decided that the 20 minutes for chitchat was just starting. Topics covered included what to stream on TV and why isn't there anything good to watch that's not Hallmark or super violent or derivative, followed by a brief foray into the definition of objectivism and what was Ayn Rand's deal, anyway? Next was a philosophical discussion about the ethics of offering authors money to allow their books to be used for AI training. And then we had to pillory David Brooks for awhile for complaining in his recent New York Times editorial that there are no good novels anymore after which we watched an Anne Patchett video in which she gives him a good pasting.

 

Finally, somebody was able to get us on track, although only slightly.

 

Insights and Opinions 

+ The opening chapter of The Emperor of Gladness is both poetic and grim. Vuong introduces us to "wide stretches of thumb-sized buds shooting lucent through April mud" and tells us about how "In spring the cherry blossoms foam across the country from every patch of green unclaimed by farms or strip malls." He tells us "Look how the birches, blackened all night by starlings, shatter when dawn's first sparks touch their beaks." He surrounds the reader with nature's beauty before introducing us to East Gladness, which he does by wielding a devastating, slashing prose. Witness: "Our lawns are overrun with ragweed and quack grass, one of them offering a row of red and pink tulips each spring, heads snared through the chain-link they lean on. The nearby porch overflows with rideable plastic toys, a wagon, tricycles, a fire truck, their primary colors now faded to Easter hues. A milk crate with a flap of old tire nailed across its opening is a mailbox set on a rotted sideboard, Ramierz 47 written on the rubber in Wite-Out. Beside this is a tin bird feeder in the shape of Bill Clinton's head." This is the scene he sets for Hai, our protagonist, as he readies himself to jump off a bridge.

 

+ Lois noted that Vuong is writing about people who are on the very fringe of the fringe -- people who are barely hanging on and none of whom fit the definition of what would "make America great again." All of the characters, from the elderly Grazina who is losing herself to dementia, to Sony, Hai's autistic cousin, to Hai's fast-food-restaurant workmates, are barely hanging on. "They're all hurting, but they may not be aware that they aren't making it, as they are all hanging on," she said. Vuong finds what's working for each of them and shows it to us.

 

+ Several of us confessed to starting the book and putting it down several times before picking it up again, perhaps overwhelmed by the unrelenting sadness. Per Margy: "It was definitely not Hollywood, and it was pretty gritty. I'd have to think hard between going back to this book."  And from Liz: "Is there nothing in a ruined town that isn't grim or depressing or requires the saddest possible metaphor?" We all agreed that the slaughterhouse section was more than any of us could handle and would have been better served by a more brief treatment. Briefly drawn, we would still have grasped the horror of it.

 

+ On the other hand, we all agreed that the quality of writing is very high. The characters are rich, the prose is lyrical, and we care very much about all of these people, which is, perhaps, why reading about their circumstances is so painful. The one exception, we felt, was Grazina's family, who seemed cartoon-like in their despicableness. Grazina, on the other hand, is richly drawn and, in many ways, the heart of the book. Through her as well as through Hai, we have the story of ancestry, immigration, and the failure of dreams. As Grazina is being hauled off to a nursing home by her son, she wonders where she is going and then realizes "She was heading to America after all. The truest version of it. The one where everyone pays to be here."

 

+ Linda felt there were many ways to interpret the book. "There were parts of it I loved and parts I was totally confused by. But the community that was formed in that kitchen, and the relationship between Hai and Sony, and the wonderful example of showing real autism -- these were great details that brought the whole thing to life." 

 

+ Surprisingly, there is a great deal of humor in this book. Vuong's careful eye finds the ludicrous in the painful, and the joy in sadness.  

 

+ What happens with Hai at the end is ambiguous. In fact, there is much ambiguity throughout. "The hardest thing in the world is to live only once" is the first line in the book. Vuong loops back to this theme at the very end, when he closes with "Soft, simple people, who live only once." None of us were entirely certain what he means. Linda felt Vuong's intention was not to write a happy ending. Both she and Blanche agreed the ambiguous ending was intentional. Linda said "This book is so much about memory. Grazina, at the end, asks 'if I'm still me if I don't remember who I am." Is this part of what Vuong means about living only once?

 

+ We also wondered, during the final pages, why the slaughtered pigs reappeared. Steve's theory is that Hai's mother had told him that his role in their deaths was all right, but he needed to pray for them. He hadn't prayed for them, so he was carrying that guilt." Steve admitted to loving books that keep him off balance, and this one fell into that category for him.

 

Our Next Read

There will be no meeting in August due to people's schedules. We will group up again in September at Linda's house. Our next selections are:

 

September meeting

Title: Trust

Author: Hernan Diaz

Host: Linda 

 

October meeting

Title: The Bee Sting

Author: Paul Murray

Host: TBD

 

Blanche and our photographer Margy

 

The brainiacs among us

Listening and note-taking happening

 

As I said, can we get back to the book now?

 

Laurie Frankel Questions What Makes a Family Family

Title: Family Family

Author: Laurie Frankel

 

First, a brief synopsis from the publisher:

"India Allwood grew up wanting to be an actor. Armed with a stack of index cards (for research/line memorization/make-shift confetti), she goes from awkward sixteen-year-old to Broadway ingenue to TV superhero.

Her new movie is a prestige picture about adoption, but its spin is the same old tired story of tragedy. India is an adoptive mom in real life, though. She wants everyone to know there’s more to her family than pain and regret. So she does something you should never do ― she tells a journalist the truth: it’s a bad movie.

Soon, she’s at the center of a media storm, battling accusations from the press and the paparazzi, from protesters on the right and advocates on the left. Her twin ten-year-olds know they need help – and who better to call than family? But that’s where it gets really messy because India’s not just an adoptive mother…

The one thing she knows for sure is what makes a family isn’t blood. And it isn’t love. No matter how they’re formed, the truth about family is this: it's complicated."

 

Insights and Opinions

 

+ From page one, it was easy for each of us to think we'd inadvertently chosen a cozy beach read for our book club selection. The prose is snappy and breezy, Ten-year-old Fig is entirely too precocious, the banter between their mother India and the children Fig and Jack is clever but maybe a bit too Aaron Sorkin in its rapid-fire back and forth. Chapters are short, and zip between present day and scenes from India's childhood and formative years with a speed that made some of us dizzy. But, being us, we all stuck with it and were entirely glad we did. As Steve pointed out, "the more you get into it, the deeper it is." And, Linda said "I went back and forth between thinking this book is great and this book is cheesy, but ultimately, I liked it a lot." This is definitely a story that sticks with one after the last page, making you consider what you know about abortion, about adoption, about what it means to be a family, and about being one's authentic self.

 

+ To prove this point, witness what happened to the discussion that followed. After dipping our toes briefly into our usual habit of thoughtful lit crit, our group members began to tell their own stories. Some stories were personal. Others were stories about relatives or close friends. All of these stories were examples of how people define family as opposed to "family family." Eventually, we got back to discussing the book, having to admit that our "cozy beach read" was not that at all.

 

+ It's hard to say much about this book without introducing spoilers, so we will avoid that in this summary. Frankel is an expert at the slow reveal, and part of the pleasure in reading this book is discovering important facts along the way. Some of these facts are explosive and wholly unexpected, but all are well-earned.

 

+ This is a book of contrasts. It's laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreaking at the same time, if that's possible. Somehow, Frankel pulls it off. 

 

+ Liz felt that, during sections of dialogue, some of the characters sounded too much like each other -- the children too adult, the adults too childish, the dialogue too similar in tone. Yet, as one reads on, each character molds into a discrete individual with his or her own recognizable bent. India emerges as someone uniquely herself. Unerringly honest, she is unable to dissemble, even when it would be the wise thing to do. Over time and circumstance, her edges are softened by experience, but her commitment to honesty never wavers. It's what she's honest about that shifts.

 

+ Frankel is dealing with many themes, and every one of them is a big one. She tackles celebrity, internet trolling, abortion, adoption, childhood trauma and loss, all within 384 pages, and manages it expertly. Although we may not be able to relate to the choices India makes, we believe them, which is no small feat for an author. Because there are so many important themes, some get a bit of short shrift. Lois, for instance, felt there should be more focus on the struggles of the children who'd been given up for adoption. Everyone seems remarkably untroubled and healthy, despite their backgrounds.

 

+ One of the main themes in the book is that not all stories of adoption are tragic. This is certainly India's point of view and the personal petard on which she is hoist. She is adamant that some of these are sad stories and some are not. Somehow, India manages to be pro-choice and pro-life, pro-adoption, and pro-family, all at the same time. If one has taken a specific position on any of these topics, Family Family will question it and make you stop and think. Per Blanche: "There is no black and white here, only gradations. That's what this book is about."

 

+ Both Steve and Blanche were taken with the details about the life of a performer, both on Broadway and in the movies, and wondered how Frankel was able to write about both with authority, opening doors to the industry a reader wouldn't otherwise have.

 

+ Bottom line: We all thoroughly enjoyed this book, despite the fact that at some point along the way, each of us didn't want to. Linda loved the humor, the quirky characters, the inside look into the entertainment industry, and felt it was a page-turner. Chris loved the book and said the fact that India was an entertainer made her particular character all the more believable. Steve summarized, "I thought it was brilliant in its execution. She pontificated sometimes, but the fact that she turned a book with so much depth into a page-turner was impressive." 

 

Our Next Read

 

For July, we will read the following:

 

Title: The Emperor of Gladness

Author: Ocean Vuong

Location: Blanche's house 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding Your Way Through the Dark via Crimes of a Lesser Degree

Title: How to Find Your Way in the Dark

Author: Derek B. Miller

 

A finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and winner of the Jewish Fiction Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries, this book has received high praise from the likes of the New York Times and the author Richard Russo, among others.

 

As the story opens, 12-year-old Sheldon Horowitz is still recovering from his mother's death the prior year when his father is killed in a suspicious traffic accident near their home in rural Massachusetts. As the publisher's blurb states "It is 1938, and Sheldon, who was in the truck, emerges from the crash an orphan hell-bent on revenge. He takes that fire with him to Hartford, where he embarks on a new life under the roof of his buttoned-up Uncle Nate.

 

"Sheldon, his teenage cousins Abe and Mirabelle, and his best friend, Lenny, will contend with tradition and orthodoxy, appeasement and patriotism, Mafia hitmen and angry accordion players, all while World War II takes center stage alongside a hurricane in New England and comedians in the Catskills. With his eye always on vengeance for his father’s murder, Sheldon stakes out his place in a world he now understands is comprised largely of crimes: right and wrong, big and small."

 

Insights and Opinions

Some of us had already read two earlier works by Miller, Norwegian by Night and American by Day, two satisfying Nordic mysteries. So it was with some surprise that we approached this work, which is not a mystery but does include an element of mystery and the same propulsive forward motion one finds in a good mystery.

 

Spoilers ahead. Be forewarned!

 

+ Miller has peopled this book with a cast of fascinating, well-wrought characters. Sheldon, the protagonist, is brilliant, damaged, and still an unformed teenager, fiercely clutching a burning rage and unformed plan for ultimate revenge against those he blames for his father's death. We come to know his father Joseph, even though he dies in the first few pages, as a kind, steady, gentle soul who has a profound impact on his son. Uncle Nate is the quintessential "keep quiet and get ahead" guy until subsequent events transform him into a shadow. Several years older than Sheldon, cousin Abe is fierce, idealistic and angry, appalled by injustice, anti-Semitism, and the gathering pre-War cloud in Europe. Abe's sister Mirabelle hides in plain sight, presenting herself as brash and practical while hiding her own deep wounds.

 

+ One of our first questions for each other was genre. Where should one slot this book? It's not a classic mystery, but there is a central mystery. Some sections include all the elements of a caper. There is humor, but it's not a comedy. Nor does it fall cleanly into the category of historical fiction, although the Nazis, anti-Semitism, and Jewish resorts in the Catskills all play an important role. Ultimately, we decided, it's a coming of age story and wondered if the way this book slides across multiple genres is the reason it hasn't received more of the attention it deserves.

 

+ Margy suggested that if the book had been titled Twilight Crimes, which are defined on the opening page of the novel as "a. crimes of a lesser degree b. crimes of a questionable moral nature c. crimes of possible moral virtue (controversial)," the book would have been slotted squarely in the crime fiction genre.

 

+ Vicky quoted Miller as calling this work an epic and a project for which he is very proud. "And he should be. This book reflects a lot of effort in term of complexity, coming of age, history. I applaud him," she said.

 

+ We wondered about the title of the book and its meaning and ultimately decided to take it quite literally -- that the story is about Sheldon finding his way out of the dark. Lois noted that the scene in which Sheldon and his friend Lenny are stumbling around in the dark in the Catskills, looking for their way back, is a direct metaphor. Sheldon is in the dark and needs to find his way.

 

+ Our reactions to the book varied with the methods that we used to read it. Those of us who were able to read it more or less uninterrupted enjoyed it thoroughly. Those who, through the busyness of life, read it in fits and starts, were less ardent in our praise. The book holds a big cast of characters, and unless you are taking notes along the way, it's easy to lose track of who is who and why they are important. On the up side, Miller is careful to insert brief recaps from time to time to remind the reader of what's occurred in the past.

 

+ Linda felt that Sheldon's conversations with himself in the mirror were an effective and creative way of letting the reader inside his head. The Sheldon in the mirror, as Lois pointed out, could read Sheldon's mind. Sheldon used his mirror self to argue, to talk through options, to figure out his next move, often with unexpected and delightful humor.

 

Example: "What do you think?" Sheldon asked the idiot in the mirror. "Shoot Lorenzo and join Abe in Canada? I could leave a note for Lenny saying I had to run. " 

"You'll never feel Miriam's breasts in your palms if you do," came the reply.

 

Strictly speaking, this should not have been a consideration. He shouldn't be weighing vengeance for his father's death against the chance to feel up Miriam in a broom closet.

 

Still: Once you get an idea like that in your head, it's hard to shake." 

+ We wondered about the source of cousin Abe's burning anger at such a young age, especially without a specific motivating incident. Margy proposed the possibility that it was due to the fact his father was willing to do anything to get ahead. Liz offered that his mother's death in a tragic fire would have left a terrible mark. Chris noted that he was well-read and up on current events, seeing anti-Semitism both from a distance as well as near at hand.

 

+ A few things struck us as either a bit jarring or perhaps under-developed. Liz felt the section in the Catskills with the moving of jewelry back and forth was suddenly very comic and a bit of a tonal shift veering toward Keystone Kops. We all felt that what happens to Abe is sudden and perhaps gratuitous, and that the end of the book is perhaps a bit too tidy.

 

+ Linda asked whether others had a hard time with Sheldon's actual age versus the adult manner in which he spoke and functioned. Is this believeable? But the story takes places in the 1930s and 40s, when people grew up faster and a teenager was as likely as not to emancipate at an early age. Linda also was quite taken with Sheldon's method of turning things over in his mind, imagining three or four scenarios in great detail before making a decision.

 

+ Overall, while we found some things to criticize (we always do) we were all impressed with Miller's writing and his ability to wrestle a really huge plot into 351 pages. If Miller makes good on his promise to write more Sheldon in the future, we'll be there to read it.

 

Our Next Read

 

For June, we'll be reading this:

 

Title: Family, Family

Author: Laurie Frankel

Location: Liz's house 

 

 

 

 

Gathered round for chat and chewing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vicky provided the lovely cake. Margy provided the lovely venue.

Sipsworth and Time of the Child: A Mouse, a Baby, and Much To Discuss

Title: Sipsworth

Author: Simon Van Booey

 

Title: Time of the Child

Author: Niall Williams

From the publishers, brief descriptions of our two reads:

Sipsworth

"Following the loss of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to the village of her childhood after living abroad for six decades. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss. She retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and habit: “Each day was an impersonation of the one before with only a slight shuffle—as though even for death there is a queue.”

Then, one cold winter night, a chance encounter with a mouse sets Helen on a surprising journey. Over the course of two weeks in a small English town, this reclusive widow discovers an unexpected reason to live."

Time of the Child

"From the author of This Is Happiness, a compassionate, life-affirming novel about the Christmas season that transforms the small Irish town of Faha.

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father's shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love – and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy's lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter's lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

Set over the course of one December in the same village as Williams' beloved This Is Happiness, Time of the Child is a tender return to Faha for readers who know its charms, and a heartwarming welcome to new readers entering for the very first time."

First, A Bit of Background

In a departure from our usual routine, we took a field trip to the University of Minnesota, where we met in the recently renovated Pillsbury Building in honor of one of our esteemed members, Shirley Garner. A long-time professor of English at the University, Shirley was instrumental in helping to make the stunning renovation of this building a reality.

Also, due to heavy-duty March schedules all around, we combined our March and April reads into a single session. After welcoming home our good friend Vickie and killing a fair amount of time as we waited for our people to find parking on a crowded campus, we dug in.

Insights and Opinions

+ One of the main drawbacks to reading and discussing two books at once is also one of the unexpected advantages. On the downside, we slip quickly past one of them to get to the discussion of the second one quickly. On the upside, we find the parallels between them, the common themes that unite otherwise very different stories. On this day, our discussion definitely fell into the second camp.

+  Linda felt that Sipsworth and Time of the Child are perfect companion novels. Both feature a character late in life, adrift without purpose. And then both characters are given a tremendous gift after everything else seems to have passed them by. Unwittingly, and in some ways against her better judgment, Helen Cartwright takes on the care and feeding of a common field mouse, which she names Sipsworth. Gradually, simple maintenance becomes much more until we find them watching TV together on the couch. In Time of the Child, Dr. Jack Troy has spent a lifetime caring for the sick in his small community with little money or friendship to show for it. All he has is the company of his daughter Ronnie, whose future happiness he fears he has destroyed through his discouragement of an early suitor. But the unexpected delivery of an abandoned baby to his door reignites a fire he's lost long ago. In both cases, the choices made by these main characters take them someplace other than they had planned, and both in satisfying ways.

+  After reading Sipsworth, Vicky reread the opening pages and was struck by the similarities between Helen and the mouse. Helen has lived in her house for three years now, but it's still empty and she knows no one in the village. And the mouse is also in a strange place, found in a box of someone else's junk. He becomes an effective metaphor for Helen -- he's transplanted, he's unimportant, until suddenly he is.

+ The structure of Sipsworth, in Margy's opinion, is something special. "It's so in the moment. There are no flashbacks. We don't know much about Helen. We don't know how her son died. It's just day by day and then we have a few days when it's just blank." Simple, straightforward sentences carry the reader forward. This structure gives the reader a deep dive into Helen's reality and highlights how absolutely alone she is, until through her own unexpected actions, a community starts to rally around her.

+ One of the few memories Helen returns to often is one of being trapped in a well when she was a child. We wondered about the significance of that memory. Why does the author want us to know this? How does it color Helen's world, even more so than the unexplained death of her son and whatever it is that happened to her husband? This led to a bit of a side conversation in which Liz recounted surviving a tornado and Chris shared a story about being trapped in a malfunctioning elevator, and how those are things one never forgets.

+ Jocey pointed out that Helen's story at the beginning is the common tale of the old woman, a creature who is invisible and of no use to anyone anymore. The village has ignored her for three years. It's only through her own forays into heretofore unvisited places in the village, to get what she needs for Sipsworth, that she makes connections and the community begins to rally around her.

+ Turning then to Time of the Child, we immediately set about pointing out all the ways in which these two novels are completely different. While the prose in Sipsworth moves along at a spare and simple clip, each of Williams' sentences is a world unto itself. His Faha world is almost entirely internal. There is little dialogue since nothing in Faha is ever uttered but is only implied, through a look, an absence, a shoulder raised, and the occasional "Oh, now." Williams is a deep and unstinting observer of human motive and, throughout his prose, finds ways to communicate the deepest truths without words ever being exchanged.

+ Time of the Child is best savored rather than just read. There's no way one can read it quickly. Every sentence requires concentration. Liz said: "Every sentence is so deep and so carefully written, I feel like it must be exhausting to write like that. It's all so slow and so beautiful." She admitted to occasionally skipping over a paragraph, feeling the need for a break. Chris said the book routinely put her to sleep, three pages being her limit. Vicky pointed out that that's not necessarily a bad thing, stating her opinion that sometimes we place too much emphasis on plot and story. Chris said "He's such a good writer, you want to stop after every sentence and think about it."

+ Williams' constructions are surprising and delightful. Very early on in the work, on page 14, he describes the moment in which Dr. Troy and Ronnie leave the church after morning services. "Circumvention was a preferred way in Faha, so, between the doctor's care and the church gate, those parishioners who wanted a word did not gather, but stood sentry in by the wall or on the fringes of conversations in which they played a non-speaking part. These were always women. Although invisible to Church and State, it was women who knitted the country together, and in Faha, on Sunday morning after Mass, you could see the needles." 

+ There was some comparison made between Time of the Child and This is Happiness, another Williams work we read for an earlier session. Both take place in the same community and feature many of the same characters, which is apparently Williams' intention as he continues his writing career. Both Chris and Liz found Time of the Child to be a more compelling read as the stakes in Child are higher.

+ Both Sipsworth and Time of the Child deal, in their own ways, with the pain and joy of aging. At the close of Child, Dr. Troy has these thoughts: "Only through the birth of a child, he thought, is the lure of death conquered. It was a statement worthy of his father. And he recalled then the fantastical notion of the old man, who, in his last year, claimed that the purpose of aging was to grow into your soul, the one you have been carrying all along. Yes, Jack Troy thought. The one you had as a child." We can all learn from these words.

Our Next Read

For our May meeting, we will read How to Find Your Way in the Dark by Derek Miller. 

The habits of serious readers (Vicky).

Shirley holding forth.

 

 

 

 

Liz and Chris pretending they are in charge.

 

Lois making her opinions known.

 

Thrilled to have found a parking spot.

Poetry and art come together in Pillsbury Hall.

My Life in Books

Editor's Note: This is a departure from our book club blog's usual fare. As the owner/operator of this publication, I post only summaries of our book club discussions. But having written the following for another purpose, it seemed to me that it could also have a home here.

 

Do I appreciate the way the sun streams in to the front room where I sit to have my morning coffee? And the aroma that rises from my coffee as I hold the warm cup between my hands? Yes, I do.

 

And, what about time spent in the garden, pruning, staking, weeding, making a home for beauty, vanquishing weeds and volunteer tree seedlings, and clearing a path for flowers to bloom? Most definitely.

 

But there is one thread that knits through all of the many pleasures life affords me — time spent with books.

 

Not long ago, I counted the books I own. There were 937. But that was after sending four cartons – 200 books in all – to a local thrift store. So that makes less than 1,000, which isn’t so bad, right? Bad in the sense of insane or profligate.

 

It’s not that you’d ever notice my books unless you were looking. There are two tidy bookcases in the ground floor hallway, another two on the lower level, several small bookcases that serve as end tables in bedrooms, and then various drawers that hold purpose-specific volumes. Spiritual reading goes in the drawer next to the bed, “how to paint” or draw or do calligraphy or knit or make baskets out of things that grow outside are all organized by subject in the sewing room. Gardening books are by the back door and cookbooks sit near the kitchen.

The coffee table books are a history of my various interests over time. How to survive in the wilderness, what the voyageurs ate, all of the satellites exploring the galaxy along with their pictures of Neptune, Mars and Saturn, the Jeffers petroglyphs, the basics of weather, how to build a tiny home, Russian folk tales, antique postcards from around the world, the principles of aerodynamics, the Ojibway people, the history of cheese, the contents of the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, to name a few.

 

Books on writing are up in the tower, which is where I do my writing when I feel inspired or disciplined. It’s not really a tower, but I like to call it that, having read most of Dickens and all of Jane Austen. Foreign itineraries, atlases and books on how to speak German, Italian, French, and Russian are in the guest room, the idea being that since said guests have traveled to get to me, they are most likely interested in doing more of it.

 

Novels are organized alphabetically by author, with hardbound volumes on the main floor and paperbacks in the lower-level cases. Non-fiction (not really my favorite, except for World War II) is organized in the same way. My favorite non-fiction titles are those that read like novels, which really makes the people involved come to life. Who would think one would ever be interested in John Adams, fuddy-duddy that he was, until they’ve read the David McCullough biography?

 

Then, there is the set of books that date from when I thought the apocalypse was imminent. Books on how to make soap, which wild plants are edible, how to build a log home, the preservation of food, how to make bullets, identifying mushrooms, and how to treat a festering wound with plants. That was in the 1970s, when the world seemed to be falling apart, but when has it not seemed to be?

 

I don’t even count the more than 200 books on my e-reader as they don’t seem to really exist. Which is puzzling, given the fact that I can revisit them from time to time (I do) but yet they don’t occupy space in the physical world.

 

These are the books that count, the 950 I own (not counting the 200 that are just bits and bytes but counting the new ones I’ve brought home since my last counting day). But there’s another set of volumes that belong to others. There are the books the children left behind when they grew up and moved away, boxed up and stored in their old closets. Nick’s books on aviation and the Civil War. Lindsay’s collection of Box Car kids and Sweet Valley High chapter books. Austin’s Anna McCaffrey’s and Chronicles of Narnia and science fiction books. The small set of books kindhearted friends have brought over with a recommendation that I read them, but I don’t want to because they don’t appeal. I have to admit that all of these books count, too. But they count to others.

 

I’ve come to realize my lifelong love for books springs from an insatiable desire to know. There is no greater joy in life than learning – where something is, how something works, why people are the way they are, how things change, why we exist, and on and on. These are all stories. People are stories, the world is stories, and the universe is stories, too.

 

The author Umberto Eco, who owned 50,000 books, had this to say about home libraries:

 

“It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

 

“There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.

 

“If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That’s why you should always have a nutrition choice!

 

“Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity.”

 

Umberto, I couldn’t agree more.

 

A Relationship, Mid-life Questions, and a Rental House

Title: Rental House

Author: Weike Wang 

 

We vanquished the doldrums of a Minnesota February by gathering at Shirley's new digs downtown, where the winter sun cheered us despite the fact that it was -7° F. outside. We were greeted by an uncharacteristically lavish spread provided by Shirley's daughter Celia and the lovely Elizabeth. After the requisite tours and general chitchat, we got down to the serious business at hand.

 

First, from the publisher, a short refresher on what this book is about:

 

From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations.

Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences. Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife.
 
Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?

 

Insights and Opinions

 

+ Overall, our reactions to this book were mixed. Some questioned the voice of Keru, the main character in the book, finding it flat and cold. Liz wondered why Keru and Nate were even together as they didn't seem to enjoy each other's company and most of their interactions were uncomfortable and strained. Others felt that Keru's insights into human motives, especially when seen through the eyes of immigrants or those who live in solidly conservative states in the U.S., were both profound and educational. Margy had read all three of Wang's novels, including Chemistry and Joan is Okay, and suggested we would all benefit from doing the same. "I wondered how we would react to this one after having read the other two," she said. "Keru is much harder and far less vulnerable in this one than she is in the others."

 

+ The central device used in this novel is the rental house, a place where Keru and Nate can go to vacation, to be together since they work in separate cities, and to spend time with each set of parents separately. In one section, Keru's parents visit. In another section, Nate's parents come to stay. Then, Nate and Keru attempt to vacation together but are invaded first by pushy neighbors who intrude in every possible way and then, unexpectedly, by Nate's ne'er-do-well brother looking for money. The cultural differences between the two sets of parents, along with their parental expectations of their children, are vast. Seeing our two protagonists in the company of their respective parents gives the reader tremendous insight into how each of these young adults have turned into the people that they are. Similarly, seeing Nate with his brother, who is clearly the family favorite despite his obvious shortcomings, is a window into Nate's viewpoint on life.

 

+ Lois pointed out what she saw as the turning point in the book -- the point close to the end of the story where Keru is finally able to explain to herself who her husband is and who she is and what each of them wants. 

+ One of Keru's odd habits is, when she is most uncomfortable, to throw things. This is how she and Nate first come together. When they first meet and are having their first interaction, she picks up objects close at hand and pitches them into the crowd. Later, on one of their vacations, she throws a rock at a woman who's upset that they're dog isn't leashed. Even later, at one of the rental houses, she throws a log. There's no explanation of this behavior and the reader is left to puzzle it out. Steve wondered what our reaction was to her "throwing things" habit. Liz felt it was an important fact that was abandoned partway through. Jocey found it troubling and wondered: was this rage? Discomfort? Uncertainty over what to do?

 

+ All parties found Nate's brother to be repellent and a con artist, but Steve admitted he admired his altruistic ideals and that he probably would have fallen for the con because of them. He found the relationship between the brothers interesting and caused him to ponder, now that he's older, if he would do things differently. "I think you can make amends," he said.

+ Steve wondered if the relationship between Keru and Nate was warmer at the beginning of the book as opposed to later in the text. Margy felt that everything in both of their lives was obligation, including their relationship. "I felt like she was committing to the marriage out of obligation because that's what you do."

 

And In Other News

+ Shirley shared with us excerpts from what she is currently reading: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson, recommending that we all do likewise.

 

+ Steve recommended Big Jim and the White Boy, a graphic novel he feels is an excellent companion to Huckleberry Finn and James. 

+ Jocey then bundled up in about 2,000 pounds of clothes to walk to her next destination. All we could see were her eyes.

 

Our Next Reads

First of all, there will be NO MEETING IN MARCH. Instead, we will read two books for our April meeting:

 

Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy

 

The Time of the Child by Niall Williams

Celia monitors Jocey's tech support activities

Time for discussion while Elizabeth toils in the kitchen.

 

 

Everything looks more beautiful with a lime.

 

Just some of our lovely repast.

 

The Struggle Betweem Hereness and Thereness

Title: The Ministry of Time

Author: Kaliane Bradley

 

We chose this book, at least in part, because it was listed as one of Barack Obama's favorite books of summer 2024 and also was dubbed "utterly winning" by the Washington Post. 

First, a brief summary from the publisher:

 

"In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

 

She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper." 

 

Insights and Opinions

For a variety of reasons, including medical procedures and snowbird-ism, our meeting took place via Zoom. While we all missed snacks provided by someone other than ourselves, we were grateful to be able to gather anyway and share our analyses.

 

The novel is constructed of two stories. One follows the "bridge," whose role is to live with, teach, mentor, and safeguard Commander Graham Gore as he comes to grips with finding himself some 175 years into a wholly foreign future. This main narrative is interrupted by short chapters that focus on Gore as he and his fellow shipmates struggle to survive Sir John Franklin's 1847 Arctic expedition. In search of the Northwest Passage, they had reached as far as the Canadian Arctic when their ships were trapped in ice, a capture that lasted almost two years. None survived.

A secret time travel program of the British government extracts Commander Gore as he is about to die, and transports him to present day. In his review for The Washington Post, Ron Charles writes "Some of what you've just read is historical fact, some is archaeological speculation, and a bit is wacky fantasy."

Given the fact that some of our group is never up for "a bit of wacky fantasy," our discussion was unsurprising.

+ Chris, Jocey and Liz were all fully on board with the novel's creative play on the question "what would happen if...," appreciating Bradley's creativity and ability to spin an entirely new story. They marveled at her deft weaving together themes of dislocation, loss, corporate politics, first-generation immigrant pain, and British adventurism into an engaging tapestry that kept them reading.

+ In contrast, Margy and Lois found the novel to be confusing and were frequently lost. Chris also suffered some confusion, but solved it by rereading just the Graham Gore chapters after completing her first read.

+ Steve was silent throughout, so we were all pretty sure he was in the "I hated it" camp, although none of us ever say we hate or love anything, much preferring to state specifics rather than generalities. Graham's story was the piece that resonated with him. "I vacillated between being fascinated with her inventiveness and being annoyed." What he did appreciate were what, to him, were the three main themes: culture and society's role in shaping who we are, how we adapt to the future, and can we control the future and change the past.

+ All agreed that Graham Gore was both a fascinating character and the heart of the book --- his sense of honor, his love for adventure, his British stiff upper lip, his disinterest in television and his love for Spotify.

+The group was universally ambivalent about the romantic relationship between the main character and Gore. Lois found it odd that the Ministry would pair each bridge with a member of the opposite sex. Jocey felt that Graham never seemed like he really wanted it, but just fell into it. Steve found it adolescent and superficial.

+ Jocey pointed out that this is Bradley's first novel, which can account for some of her lapses. Liz was bothered by a host of what she characterized as "bizarre metaphors," pointing out that if we still had some of the great editors today that worked in the past, some of these would have been nipped in the bud. Examples: "...and we'd find her sitting at the top of a long table like a mannequin awaiting the gift of demonic possession," and "when Graham got online...and learned to peck at the keyboard with the elegance and speed of a badly burned amphibian," and "I must have looked like a demented bowling ball." These and more, Liz said, stop the reader and should have been made to disappear before publication. 

+ Nobody was entirely certain what happened at the end, but that's not the first time that's happened to us. Margy loved the optimism of the last paragraph: "Forgiveness, which takes you back to the person you were and lets you reset them. Hope, which exists in a future in which you are new. Forgiveness and hope are miracles. They let you change your life. They are time travel."

+ For those who would like more details about the Franklin Expedition, this video offers an excellent summary.

 

Other Important Things

+ Much to our surprise and pleasure, our long lost Vickie Zoomed in mid-meeting. It was a real boost for us all during a crappy January.

 

Our Next Book

We will be reading Rental House by Weike Wang on February 17. Shirley will be our host.

The Zoomies

 

What Margy was drinking in secret