Lost on Me (2023) by Veronica Raimo

 Book Review

Lost on Me (2023)

by Veronica Raimo

Translated by Leah Janeczko

  Lost on Me is another title from the 2024 International Booker longlist- the shortlist arrived next week.  Lost on Me arrives in translation on the strength of its status as an Italian best-seller.  It is, surprise, surprise, a work of Auto-fiction/bildungsroman about a woman growing up in Rome.   Nothing in Lost on Me really stood out to me, even in comparison to other works of auto-fiction longlisted for the Booker International Prize in 2024.  Specifically, I thought both The Details and What I'd Rather Not Think About were better and were also auto-fiction written by young women.  I'd be totally surprised to see Lost on Me make it through to the 2024 Booker International shortlist. 

Undiscovered (2023) by Gabriela Weiner

Book Review
Undiscovered (2023)

by Gabriela Weiner

   Undiscovered is first up from the 2024 Booker International Prize longlist.  There is already an Audiobook out, and I put my hold in when the list was announced.  Weiner is a Peruvian writer who lives in Spain.  She was writing about polyamory before that was much of a thing and she works as a journalist. Undiscovered is an appealing work of auto-fiction about Weiner and her relationship with her real-life family founder Charles Weiner, a man who was famous in his day but is today remembered as the explorer who almost rediscovered Machu Picchu.   Undiscovered flips between narrator Weiner on a trip back to Lima to mourn the passing of her father and her life in Barcelona as part of a flailing "throuple"- Weiner, her cis husband and her lesbian/bi lover. 

   Much of Undiscovered deals with Weiner's unresolved feelings about race, her existence as a dark-skin, educated, professional-class woman in multiple societies where dark skin is equated with poverty.  She explores it in terms of her family background and her erotic desires.  Finally, she explores the actual truth surrounding her family attributing their genealogy to the famous explorer Charles Weiner, readers of contemporary auto-fiction will not be surprised to learn that all her explorations end in ambiguity.

America is in the Heart (1946) by Carlos Bulosan

 Book Review

America is in the Heart (1946)

by Carlos Bulosan

  I was turned onto America is in the Heart by A Man of Two Faces by Viet Tranh Nguyen.  In A Man of Two Faces, Nguyen draws on his experience as an English professor to generate an alternate list of "Great American Novels" that don't normally get listed.  America is in the Heart is written by Filipino-American author Carlos Bulosan.  Just looking at the publication date, it isn't hard to see why it had trouble garnering attention. America certainly wasn't looking to re-evaluate its (very) recent racist past the year after World War II ended.  

  It was republished in the 1970's by the University of Washington press- the library copy I checked out was from the sixth edition, published in 1984.  Amazon put out a Kindle classics edition in 2022 but it is way out of print in physical form, with used copies going for sixty bucks on Amazon.    America is in the Heart is part novel, part memoir and part history lesson, about the experience of Filipino immigrants in the period before the beginning of World War II.  Filipino's had an unusual legal status in the United States:  They were allowed to come but were not citizens. As depicted by Bulosan they were the frequent victim of racist violence, not only at the hands of whites but also via Japanese and Chinese Americans who often stood one level higher in the socio-economic pyramid of inter-war California. 

   Bulosan depicts a peripatetic life of farm labor and rootlessness, spurred by the frequent outbreaks of violence and job and housing discrimination.  Bulosan got heavily involved with the farm labor movement and much of the action of the book involves him going from part of the west coast to another, interacting with different activists and workers, and then getting chased out.   One aspect of Busolan's experience that may surprise modern residents of the US is the utter absence of Filipino women in this book.  Today, the concept of the Filipino nurse/medical worker is entrenched to the point of stereotype but before World War II it seems like the only Filipino's in the US were men.

   Unlike many other books of this type (Great American Novel/Immigration story), America in the Heart does start with Bulosan being brought to the US by his parents as a child.  Rather, he emigrates as an adult, and the entire first portion of the book recounts his life in the Philippines.   Even if the reader is familiar with the anti-farmworker violence that plagued California in the 20th century, the violence in America is in the Heart may seem shocking.  It shocked me, as did the open, virulent racism directed specifically to Filipinos. 

The Stories of John Cheever (1978)by John Cheever

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Stories of John Cheever (1978)

by John Cheever

Tarrytown, New York

New York: 42/105

Upstate New York: 23/23

  Finally, finally finished the last book from the Upstate New York subchapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.  Meanwhile I already polished off the Bronx (7 books) and I'm halfway through Harlem (14).  Why did it take so long?  The Stories of John Cheever is a mother- weighing in at 693 pages, with no single story going over 15 pages.  The first thing I tried was checking out the Ebook to read on my Kindle.  That was not happening.  Next I checked the paperback out of the library.  It was a shabby, shabby edition, which is fine- it being the library but kind of seems like a hardback version would be better.  It then took me a couple months to read it, first spending six weeks in my briefcase, then a final weekend where I sat on my couch while my partner was out of town and read the last half of the book over the course of an afternoon.  Meanwhile I finished 17 more books from New York in the interim.   I started reading this book last year.   Congratulations to me.

  Cheever is the quintessential New Yorker short story writer.  I want to say that every story in this collection was first published in the New Yorker.  The chronological organization and adherence to the "New Yorker short story" template is key- the reader watches Cheever go from writing about the inner lives of Elevator operators and pre and post War Lower East Side drunkards- his early period.    A stand out from this early period is Enormous Radio- which has a surreal element that I didn't associate with Cheever before reading it.  

    

    From there Cheever starts his series of stories in Shady Hill, New York.   He essentially became synonymous with his stories critiquing the conformity of the post-war New York commuter suburb.  The fact that Cheever was posthumously revealed as a closeted member of the queer community (famously the subject of a Seinfeld episode), seems more than a little ironic considering his characterization of unhappy hetero couples.  Yeah, no shit. 

   He never really left the suburbs, though his characters go back and forth to New York City and there is also a lengthy "Italian period" which are his least interesting material- mostly sad New Yorkers set adrift by various misfortunes who find themselves struggling in Italy.   Cheever does feature a number of women characters- though they are often unflattering portrayals of domestic harridans.  As for the diversity of New York City, I don't think there is a single non-white character in any of his stories. I don't believe there is a single Jewish character.  Despite a dozen stories set in Italy, I can't recall any of the stories grappling with the issues confronting Catholic Americans, or European Catholics. 

   Mostly what Cheever is about are white, Protestant characters who drink too much and complain about their circumstances.

Change (2024) by Édouard Louis

 Book Review

Change (2024)

by  Édouard Louis

   The Édouard Louis universe continues to grow apace with Change, his latest work of auto-fiction, this one focusing directly on his education and reinvention into a nascent litterateur.   Louis is, at this point, an international sensation, with his books getting a contemporaneous translation out of French and into a galaxy of languages- something that took French Nobel Prize winning author of auto-fiction Annie Ernaux years to accomplish.   Louis is known for this upbringing in small-town northern France, the French equivalent of growing up in a small town in the rural south, surrounded by racism, bigotry and poverty.  As he has written many times before, all he wanted to do was escape, if only to build an international literary career by going back again and again to the circumstances of his upbringing. 

  Louis chronicles said escape, with the familiar wreckage of lost friends and spoiled relationships, sacrificed in pursuit of a goal he at times seems to hardly understand.  It's called ambition, though Louis has that "only in France" type that is defined by academic success. 

  The New York Times kinda trashed it, but how can you blame an author for giving his audience what they want?  Like he's supposed to turn around and write a six hundred book of historical fiction?  Let the man live. 

Bodega Dreams (2000) by Ernesto Quinonez

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Bodega Dreams (2000)

by Ernesto Quinonez

Spanish Harlem, New York

New York: 41/105

Harlem: 8/14

Bodega Dreams was another Busman's Holiday:   A novel largely about organized crime in New York City in the early 1990's, with a Robin Hood/Spanish Harlem vibe.  The central figure, though not the protagonist or narrator, is the neighborhood kingpin, Bodega.  Bodega dreams of a larger New York empire and of reinvigorating Spanish Harlem. To that end he allies himself with crooked lawyer Nazario and together they buy and renovate decrepit Spanish Harlem apartment buildings while plying crack in the same neighborhood.  It's a common feature of narrative around the crack epidemic that local dealers destroyed their own neighborhood and that fights over territory to sell crack caused most of the violence in that period.

  It's a critical conflict that the author completely omits other than a few glancing questions asked by the protagonist/narrator, a local college student with a pregnant, evangelical wife at home.   That omission, combined with the Audiobook narration, in "tough guy" New York accent, made Bodega Dreams a chore.  It did make me want to visit Spanish Harlem- a place inside New York City I've never been.  I actually did stay in Harlem once on a visit over twenty years ago.

  Halfway done with Harlem, which is my favorite chapter/subchapter so far. Also, I'd already read a third of these titles before I started, which moves things along.  A stand out from this early period is Enormous Radio- which has a surreal element that I didn't associate with Cheever before reading it.   From there Cheever starts his series of stories in Shady Hill, New York

Martyr (2024)by Kaveh Akbar

Book Review

Martyr (2024)

by Kaveh Akbar

  The strength of the novel as an art form is that EVERYONE wants their own bildungsroman and their own inter generational family saga written from their own particular POV.  The market place agrees- both publishers and audiences are eager to embrace the "first" or a novel POV.  I'm not complaining about it- I'm in favor of it.  I love the flexibility of the novel, the bildungsroman and (to a lesser degree) the intergenerational family saga.  Please, let me read about people who aren't wealthy white urbanites.  Martyr is an Iranian-American, LGBTQ themed bildungsroman with a genuine plot twist- the kind of book that earns attention from both publishers and audiences.  It's one of those books that is diminished the more you try to explain it- an occasion of a book being more then the sum of its influences.   I was dubious almost halfway through the book, but third act really gave me an appreciation for the sophistication of the author.  You think it's one thing, and it is that thing, but it is also something else.   Better if you just read it, rather then spend time thinking about whether you want to read it.  Just do it.

  Also, I listened to the Audiobook, which was good- it works because the narrator is also the protagonist and the chapters that go back to Iran are themselves narrated by the particular family member who is the subject of the flashback.

The Rigor of Angels (2023)by William Egginton

 Book Review

The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2023)

by William Egginton

   I'm always surprised when a genuinely intellectually challenging book makes it to a major release level- something that gets a New York Times review even though the audience for a such a book must surely be limited.  Such is the case with The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality, which makes three different approaches to the idea that "reality" exists from some third-viewer perspective, a single, knowable thing.  Borges, Heisenberg and Kant all radically questioned this assumption at different times and places and through different disciplines- Borges, the 20th century author who labored in obscurity for decades before he became an international literary star,  Kant, the 18th century philosopher  and professor and Heisenberg, who really makes the whole book possible with his uncertainty principle, which crystalizes the idea that the observer impacts the event by their viewing of the event.

  Really, nothing in the book makes sense without Heisenberg, and what Egginton appears to be doing is linking the "discovery" of the uncertainty principle to prior philosophical and literary foreshadowing.   Like the New York Time reviewer, I was certainly put in mind Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World, which features Heisenberg as a central fictional/non-fictional character. 

  As to my choice of listening to the Audiobook instead of reading an E-version:  MISTAKE.  There were many times where I felt comprehension slipping, to the point where I found myself slowing down the pace, going back several minutes to re-listen to different passages and pausing the book when I just couldn't keep up- I would not recommend the Audiobook.

Smoke and Ashes by Amitav Ghosh

Book Review

Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories (2023)

by Amitav Ghosh

  Indian author Amitav Ghosh is best known for his Ibis Trilogy, three books of historical fiction set during the first Opium War.  In India and the UK he is a well known prize winner, in the US he's basically known for the Ibis Trilogy- the first book of which has over 4,000 Amazon reviews.  The only book by Ghosh I've read is The Shadow Line (1988), another work of (partition era) historical fiction that takes place in the UK and in modern day Bangladesh.  I checked Smoke and Ashes out from the library because I've often had the feeling during my visits to Boston that Boston must have been balls deep into the Opium trade back in the day, but you never read anything about it.  Compare the treatment of the opium trade to the treatment of the slave trade- those participants have long since been outed, their statues sometimes removed, etc.

  Certainly you can learn from this book among other that when perpetrating immoral activity for great profit it is best to handle the immoral activity far from home and then bring the riches back.   Ghosh is no historian, though as he points out repeatedly, his technique for writing historical fiction closely mirrors the method of the historian, minus having to learn other languages.   Thus, Smoke and Ashes is hugely entertaining, and largely focused on the task at hand but with some digressions, including several chapters on the current opiates crisis in the United States and its roots/historical ironies in the history contained in this book.  I found most of those observations obvious and the kind of thing that would only be interesting to a reader with no grasp of current events in the US.

  On the other hand, his material about the production and export of opium from Bengal to China is very interesting since, as Ghosh points out, the British took great pains to conceal their activity.  There are, for example, hardly any pictorial depictions of the giant opium factories that provided the lions share of British overseas revenue for generations.  You would think that an Empire so interested in promoting its empirical triumphs would be a model of an Opium Factory in Trafalgar square.  In the end, the thesis is depressing and familiar to anyone familiar with the past half millennium of global capitalism: From great crimes come great fortunes.