When We Cease to Understand the World (2021) by Benjamin Labatut

Book Review

When We Cease to Understand the World (2021)

by Benjamin Labatut

   Chilean author Benjamin Labatut scored a rare triple for this blog.  His novel, When We Ceast to Understand the World was published by the New York Review of Books and nominated for the shortlist (and potentially the winner) of both the International Booker and the translated fiction National Book Award.  When We Cease to Understand the World is a novel about advanced physics and mathematics, and the quirky lives of those actual pioneers.  Personally I think there is a strong argument to be advanced that physics is *the* primary scientific metaphor of the 21st century, in the same way that biology/evolution dominated the 19th century and electricity dominated the 20th.   Unfortunately, unlike biology and electricity, advance physics makes, at a very basic, level, no fucking sense.

     It was a genie that Albert Einstein let out of the bottle and then spent the rest of his life trying to capture: The idea that there was no solid reality and that matter is just a collection of empty space and tiny, unpredictable particles forming waves of energy. What is so amazing about these pioneers of advanced physics is that they conjured this stuff up in their head- there are few if any actual experiments in the early history of advanced physics, and then decades later the entire world spent billions and billions of dollars to build enormous particle accelerators which then proved that these early pioneers were right on the money.

     Any work of fiction that seeks to tackle some of these ineffable mysteries is a worthy effort, and I think Labatut handles these subjects better than most- and in a spare 190 pages.  This is the kind of book that wins international literary awards. 

Palmares (2021) by Gayl Jones

Book Review

Palmares (2021)

by Gayl Jones

  Gayl Jones is a legit 20th/21st century literary enigma.  She burst onto the scene in the late 1970's after being sponsored by Toni Morrison.  She published two novels in the late 70's, one book of short stories in both the 1980's and the 1990's, and then two novels at the end of 1990's, and that was it until Palmares was published last month.  There is much to love in Palmares, a sprawling (500 page) picaresque about the adventures of Almeyda. Almeyda is born a slave on  a Brazilian plantation in the 1600's.   Slavery in 17th century Brazil was a different institution than the ante-bellum slavery of the American south in the 19th century.  The oppression Jones depicts is just as virulent, and in many ways more violently repressive, but less succesful at controlling resistance than the American institution that evolved centuries later.

   Thus, the title, Palmares, refers to a settlement of escaped African slaves and free blacks that really existed between 1604 and 1694.   Almeyda spends half the book trying to get there, gets there, survives an extinction level attack by the colonialists and spends the rest of the book looking for her lost husband, Martim Anninho, a free black Muslim who is equally interesting.  Much of the length of Palmares is due to so many characters having a chance to tell their story, often in subchapters titled "So and so tells their story,"  The plot, which is itself complicated, twists itself around the different monologues.   I loved listening to the Audiobook version- which is something like 25 hours long- but I also would have liked to read a physical copy to see all the names and places written down. 

   Anywho, big thumbs up for me, Palmares is just the kind of book I like to read.  Looking forward to more of her work being published, and going back and reading her prior books.  The fact that I hadn't already heard about her is borderline embarrassing, but her twenty years away from the game is a pretty good explanation.

Waiting for the Waters to Rise (2010) by Maryse Conde

Book Review

Waiting for the Waters to Rise (2010)

by Maryse Conde

   Maryse Conde is a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature (which is  being announced later this week).  Like many non-English language writers with top international profiles, her record of being translated into English is spotty.  Take Waiting for the Waters to Rise, originally published in French in 2010, the English translation came out last year and got nominated for the National Book Award for translated fiction longlist (it didn't make the shortlist, announced this week.)  I'm baffled by the shortlist omission- I thought Waiting for the Waters to Rise was a real banger.  Babakar, the protagonist, is an obstetrician living in the French overseas (Caribbean) territory of Guadelope,  As the book reveals, he has an interesting history, born in Mali to a mixed Malian/French couple, he moves to Mauritania to practice as a doctor, only to be sucked into a civil war.  He relocates to Guadelope, where the beginning of the book finds him spontaneously adopting the orphaned newborn of an illegal Haitian immigrant who dies in childbirth.

  Eventually he finds his way to Haiti, where Conde does an amazing job of portraying the day-to-day life in a place where day-to-day life seems quasi-unimaginable to the average English language reader.  It was hard not to read Waiting for the Water to Rise without thinking of V.S. Naipaul- and maybe the similarity is what kept Waiting off the National Book Award shortlist.   Fingers crossed for the Nobel announcement- I think she would be a great pick.