Assymmetry, by Lisa Halliday

by | Mar 21, 2019 | Books

Happy Spring Solstice! The full moon was huge this morning.  Ozzie and I had a lovely walk. I’ve been reading (which is mainly listening to audio books as I walk Ozzie) but my “writing time” has largely been “work time” or “entertaining time” or “traveling time.”  As my goal for 2019 is to record all I read on this blog, I’m going to try to catch up in one post. 

Asymmetry, by Lisa Halliday. An amazing book In three distinct parts. The first part is a story of a relationship between a 20-something young woman and a 70-something old man at different points in their love lives and writing careers. What stands out is that there doesn’t seem to be a discomfiting power imbalance between the two of them.  Published in 2018 and not centered on me-too.  They joke, they eat, have sex, write, watch baseball, struggle with their various issues independently and together. Halliday is witty and sensitive to both of them. In section #2, an Iraqi-American man is held in limbo in Heathrow Airport while the British customs agents try to figure out if he might be a terrorist, or a terrorist-to-be. This character, too, is sensitive and reflects on politics, his life choices to date, and his family. Section 3 features the 70-something writer, this time being interviewed a British radio station. While some book reviewers found this coda the best part of the book, for me the best part of it was a compilation of musical pieces purportedly the character’s choices. Not so much deep or haunting, but engaging.  Halliday’s next will definitely be on my list. 

On Sunset

by | Feb 12, 2019 | Books

Kathryn Harrison has been on my “to read” list for years. Glad I picked up this slim volume (quick audiobook). Among her ancestors were Jewish merchants from Baghdad who became British citizens and then Americans.  Some of her relatives peddled opium in pre-Communist China; others wrote poetry; some were hardly noticed. Young Kathryn attended Christian Science Church and Catholic school and spent much more time with her grandparents than the mother she resented, a bisexual spendthrift/ shoe collector. Riches to rags in 1970s LA as Kathryn gains consciousness of the world.

A Tale of Love & Darkness

A Tale of Love & Darkness

by | Feb 12, 2019 | Books

Amos Oz’s memoir starts in pre-independence Jerusalem and ebbs and flows back to Oz’s parents birth countries in Eastern Europe and Russia.  Nu, what? Is is Oz’s grandfather’s standard greeting. He’s deeply skeptical of the socialist bent of Zionist, as he worries that they’ll bring Stalin to Israel. He is interested in traditional Judaism though hardly profoundly religious. He calls Menachem Begin’s argument style straight out of the Yeshiva – that he’ll just cast out his arguments and all will follow. (NOT!) Oz’s mother commits suicide when he’s still quite young and he and his father grow estranged.  He leaves Jerusalem for Kibbutz Hulda where he exchanges his last name, Klausner, for Oz.

Oz is an expert at bringing even less important characters to life though his father offers a critique of an early book that Oz’s characters are more like caricatures. Ah, families! 

N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy

by | Feb 4, 2019 | Books, Uncategorized

N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy

N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy

I probably read this trilogy over the course of six months as I waited for each (popular!) audiobook to become available from the library. I remember listening to some of it walking through the park; another section by the S.F. Bay, and yesterday lying in bed while the rain pounded down.

A three word, plot synopsis of the trilogy would be “ashes to ashes,” for a whole variety of human and non-human creatures living in on a dystopian planet earth.  The book starts with changes in a planet – to the atmosphere, to the climate, and to the actual substance of the earth. Although the time scale of the books is a bit confusing – weeks, decades, aeons shifting within 100 pages – the characters in the book are dealing with planetary changes as much as human-based dynamics.

This science fiction is really social critique, taking on class/caste issues, race issues, and gender issues. I’m not often drawn to SciFi because the make believe (hokey) names of people and things often put me off.  This series, however, borrows heavily from geologic terms. I found it fairly easy to follow. Further, the struggles between people/castes/societies rang true: people oppressed because of intrinsic differences; people’s abilities unseen, discounted, or feared; and people’s lives diminished due to societal dysfunction.

Tracy K Smith: Wade in the Water

by | Jan 28, 2019 | Books, Uncategorized

Tracy K Smith: Wade in the Water

The author, US Poet Laureate in 2017/2018, reads her poems: What a treat!  She speaks softly and precisely as if to one of her children.  About half the poems are about family and children. The other half are historical re-imaginings. 

One poem, Watershed, is about Dupont and its relationship to the people in a small Michigan town. One plant employee sold the company land and then the company proceeded to illegally dump per fluoro-octinoic acid (PFOA)waste to this land. “The white ash trees shedding their leaves.”  “Dead black calf in snow with blue chemical eye.” Children of plant workers had eye problems.  PFOA from Scotchguard was supposed to be incinerated, not discharged to fields or pits or the Ohio River.

And from God’s eye view: no signs of mankind but living things more alive than on earth. “Experiencing the luminuous warm water was a connection to the eternal….”

A PBS interview with Smith: Tracy Smith Interview