Elena Knows (2021) by Claudia Pinero

Book Review

Elena Knows (2021)

by Claudia Pinero

   Argentinian author Claudia Pinero is best known in South America for her crime fiction- where she is a regular on the best-seller list for her genre work.  This non-genre book is on the Booker International Prize longlist this year.  Elena of the title is an elderly woman, suffering from the increasingly severe symptoms of Parkinsons disease, trying to unravel the circumstances of the alleged suicide of her spinsterish daughter, who has devoted her life to taking care of her Mother. 

  Elena Knows is an interesting variation on the unreliable narrator, Elena is obssessed with finding the "real" truth behind what appears to be a straight forward suicide by hanging. Gradually we learn the truth, perhaps, as always the reader is left guessing a little bit. 

Living in Data (2021) by Jer Thorp

Cover of Living in Data by Jer Thorp

Book Review

Living in Data (2021)

by Jer Thorp

    Jer Thorp is a guy who works with data- he gets hired by non profits, businesses and government institutions to look at the ways the do (or do not) manage data, and recommend improvements.  He has an interesting perspective on data and the many ways its management impacts us positively and negatively, and this book is an attempt to share that perspective with a general, creative non-fiction reading audience- it's published by FSG, not an academic press and the design of the cover looks smart and expensive.

   Like the last book I wrote about, Living in Data is an all or nothing proposition either you have to read it once you hear about it, or it's like, why would you ever.  So too with Thorp's individual chapters: Do you want to hear about how he helped to develop a tracking system for indigenous wild life in Africa that simultaneously empowered local communities to benefit from the collection of said data?  If so, I've got the book for you (this book.)  

   One of the thoughts that I had while reading about Thorp's attempt to make the world a better place through data, is just how empowering the opposite has become through the democratization of data access.  You still have the same major players: State actors, wealthy individuals and stake holding businesses, but you also have have hackers, trolls and memelords, three groups that wouldn't be possible without the distributed power of data (for example, think about the hackers of the pre internet era- stealing long distance phone calls.)

Index, a History of the (2022) by Dennis Duncan

Book Review

Index, a History of the (2022)

by Dennis Duncan

   Index, a History of the is one of those books that will be read by 100% of people who squeal with delight at the idea of a whole book dedicated to the history of...the index.  It makes a certain amount of sense that a book about the history of the index would follow the rise of the E reader and the broader phenomenon of being able to search text on a computer for any word or combination of words within a document or book.  The index, after all, is the analog precursor of this function.

  Our common definition of an index is an alphabetical list of subjects- ideas and people that is placed at the end of the book, so that a reader can search for a specific subject within a given text without having to guess or read the whole book.  What appears common-sense to us today was, as Duncan reveals, anything but, with a long winding road before the common index took shape.

    Much of this history took place well before the printing press made books every-day possessions.  Like many other developments in western literary culture, the development of the index was a function of Europe's obsession with the Bible, and the need for scholars to be able access specific passages.  The very first indexes tended to be what we would today call a concordance- an attempt to list every occurrence of every word in a specific text (the Bible) in alphabetical order.   The problem in the beginning is that they weren't indexing a book with standard pagination- in the era of hand written texts, every book had different pagination. 

   The extension of these techniques to secular concerns was slow in coming, and generally tied to increases in the knowledge production economy- closely tied to said printing press and the university system of scholarship.  As you get closer to the present, literary culture began to gain an appreciation for the possibilities of indexes as meta-texts- telling a short story by the creative use of an alphabetical index, for example.   Indexes can be used for inside jokes, or to settle literary scores. 

My Annihilation (2022) by Fuminori Nakamura

Book Review

My Annihilation (2022)

by Fuminori Nakamura

   There are really only a few questions a prospective reader needs to answer before deciding whether to read the new novel by Fuminori Nakamura, a prize-winning writer of crime fiction from Japan:

1.   Am I interested in reading one of the best writers of Japanese crime fiction?

2.  Do I mind if the book I read by one of those writers is a total mind fuck to the point where I will have trouble figuring out what is even happening in the book?

  If you give a hearty yes to both questions, then My Annihilation is likely to thrill you- a sui generis riff on a convoluted revenge plot that owes equal amounts to Samuel Beckett and David Lynch.  And although I was delighted to see an Audiobook version available to check out from the library, I would have preferred to read a hard copy so I could have kept track of what the fuck was actually going on.  

   

Moon Witch, Spider King (2022) by Marlon James

Book Review

Moon Witch, Spider King (2022)

by Marlon James

   I've been a big fan of Jamaican author Marlon James since his 2014 Booker win for A Brief History of Seven Killings, his kaleidoscopic banger of an epic about the life of Bob Marley.  Not only was Brief History a great book, it was cool as shit, like rock and roll, in a way that literary fiction very rarely is.  In 2019 he followed Brief History with the first book of a proposed three volume "African Game of Thrones" which would actually be three books about the same set of events, told from the perspective of the different actors.  The first book was  Black Leopard, Red Wolf, which got good but somewhat cautious reviews.  Many people commented about the gore and graphic sex and other bad behavior- which- again- is something that I love about James, he hates what you might call the "Iowa Writers Workshop" school of literary fiction, which descends directly from Virginia Woolf and her high modernist ilk and featured what can charitably be described as a troubled relationship with sexuality and all topics related to sexuality. 

 

   I've said it before on this blog, spare me the 300 page musings of writers from privileged  backgrounds who went to elite schools before compromising their ideals with marriage and children.   I'll read books featuring similar description if they sell enough, or get enough good press, but I don't want to read books like that.  I'd prefer more literary fiction which deals directly with the fact that humans are, after all, animals.   I'm also an avowed fan of the cross-over between science fiction, fantasy and literary fiction.  Those two genres, and excluding books who had those themes but classified as "general fiction," constitute close to 20% of the books I read in a year.  15% for all of last year, and close to 25% this year so far.  

   I really enjoyed the first book in this trilogy, and the arrival of the second book, Moon Witch, Spider King, written from the perspective of Sogolon the Moon Witch- who features in book one as a quasi-villainous figure.   It should come as no surprise to readers of the first book that volume two surpasses Volume 1.  Part of this has to do with the structure of the trilogy- James is telling the same story three times, from three different perspectives.  If you stop and consider, of course, the first book will be the least succesful, because the energy is going to be generated from the relationship of each book to the other. 

   At the same time, there is no need to start with Volume 1.  In fact, I would say Volume 2 is a better starting point, because Sogolon's life spans centuries, and the reader really gets a wide-angle perspective on the universe James has created- something that is entirely absent from the first book.  I think any James fan has to defend the graphic sex and violence of not just these last two books- but all of this books- John Crow's Devil (2004) and The Book of Night Woman (2009) both contain show stopping acts of both sex and violence.  But why should genre have all the fun? And more importantly, why can't prissy privileged intellectuals get over the now century old issues that the culture of literary fiction has with the forthright, graphic depiction of sex and violence.  I mean honestly,  the Anglo-American culture of literary fiction is as staid, if not more staid, than it's bourgeois and working-class counterparts.  So more power to Marlon James, and all hail Sogolon the Moon Witch- it is a tale worth telling, and I can't wait for the prestige television version which is sure to follow after the third volume comes out. 

The Books of Jacob (2014) by Olga Tokarczuk

Book Review

The Books of Jacob (2014) 

by Olga Tokarczuk

   The English language translation of The Books of Jacob, the 2014 magnum-opus by 2018 (awarded in 2019) Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk arrived earlier this year with full fan-fare befitting a recent Nobel Prize winner.  This 912 page work  of historical fiction set in almost entirely in mid 18th century Eastern Europe did not just get an all territories (US. UK, AUS, etc) wide release, it also got it's own 35  hour plus Audiobook edition- which I was able to snag immediately from the library- I also bought a hardback copy for my library.  

   Obtaining the Audiobook was one thing, listening to it was something else entirely.  Fortunately, I was already engaged with the plot- about the messianic Jews of mid 18th century Eastern Europe.  Tokarczuk isn't the first author to tackle the subject.  See, Satan in Goray by Nobel winner Issac Bashevis Singer, which more or less covers the exact same territory but focuses on the mid 17th century instead- messianic Judaism was a phenomenon for centuries in Eastern Europe and it has actually impacted the contemporary practice of Judaism by popularizing mysticism in the context of Judaism. 

   I haven't seen anyone comment on the fact that Tokarczuk is not Jewish, and how this might impact an understanding of the work. In fact, given the length of the book I've had trouble finding any reviewers who have addressed any aspect of this book beyond a basic description of the length, subject matter and biography of Tokarczuk, who is still basically an unknown quantity in the United States.  I am by no means a specialist in the subject area, but I have done the basic reading- enough to know that Tokarczuk is not taking any kind of liberties with her descriptions. 

  I've seen it written elsewhere, and I fairly agree, that "Pynchonian" is a good description, The Books of Jacob sprawl in such a fashion that at times I wanted a map- which is a feeling that I often have when reading or listening to one of Pynchon's books.  I'd have to imagine that this book is a lock for the Booker International prize- Tokarczuk already won for one of her lesser works, and it is difficult to imagine any of the other competitors overcoming the sheer prestige of the publication of a major magnum opus by a Nobel Prize winner.

  The Books of Jacob is certain to become a major literary flex in the coming decades, worth the effort, but maybe look into the Audiobook to spare your eyes.  Also worth mentioning is that there is nothing experimental in terms of the technique- i.e. it reads just like any other work of historical fiction, more or less- state of the art of course, but recognizable and not "difficult" in any way beyond the sheer heft of it.

The High House (2021) by Jessie Greengrass

Book Review

The High House (2021)

by Jessie Greengrass

   This Costa Novel Prize shortlister written by British author Jessie Greengrass ticked all my boxes for a spontaneous Audiobook listen:  Nominated for a major literary award, written by a woman who isn't from the United States and has a heavy apocalypse theme in a literary, not genre, way.  There you go, that's all I need to give a book a shot.

  Caro, the main protagonist and one of three narrators, is the daughter of a man who is married to Francesca, her step mother and world-famous climate scientist.   She has a younger half-brother, Pauly.  Francesca and her Dad buy a house in an isolated part of England and commence turning it into a home to survive the end of the world.   Caro's perspective is that of the spoiled young adult hating her evil stepmom and she turns into an excellent example of an unlikeable central protagonist, particularly when she is contrasted to Sally, the daughter of a local who Francesca recruits as a caretaker in the event of her eventual demise (and also a some-times narrator, along with younger half-brother Pauly.)

  It is a hard and fast rule of the apocalypse in literary fiction that the perspective is always limited- sky-level overviews are strictly for genre works, and The High House doesn't disappoint, the characters never leave the immediate environs of the house itself, and the landscape plays a near Sebaldian role in the story (see nomination for major literary award.)  Events are witnessed via the television, and after that, the characters are left in isolation.

   Gradually, Caro comes to realize what everyone else in the book figured out long ago, that The High House is a remarkable act of parental love.