TBR: Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings

It’s been a rough weekend for me and I haven’t been able to get as much reading or writing done as I would have liked. Nothing serious, just a bit thrown off my schedule coupled with some poor choices that made me feel a bit under the weather. I finished reading two books recently that I am not really interested in reviewing, so I thought I would share a book that has been on our TBR bookshelf for… at LEAST three years. I’m embarrassed. In fact, we are so behind the times that Marlon James’s latest book (BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF) is the talk of the town instead. 

 

Have you read A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS? What did you think? 

 

Anyone else with TBRs that are so backdated, it’s ridiculous? 

 

Piano Lesson by August Wilson (review)

August Wilson’s THE PIANO LESSON speaks to the most important lesson that America needs, but as of now, has yet to learn: how to exorcise the ghost of slavery.

At the center of this play is the ornately carved piano that Berniece and Boy Willie have inherited from their parents. It is an instrument with a gory history, laden with symbolic, but fluctuating, meanings. Is it generational wealth? Humiliation? Symbol of bondage? Or symbol of liberation? Is it culture or enslavement? The question of what to do with this protean object becomes the focus of the drama. Sell it? Hoard it? Cut it in half? Neither Berniece’s desire to treat it like a museum piece nor Boy Willie’s pragmatic mercenary approach seems fully acceptable. In this family drama, American history is re-enacted as the question of what to do with the inheritances (or burdens, depending on perspective) that have been bequeathed to black Americans threaten to tear a family apart.

I won’t give the ending away, but I think the curtain falls on Wilson’s final suggestion about how to stop the haunting of Black history. A powerful, uplifting finish, I wonder how many Americans can recognize the lesson that is being taught.

On a side note, as a high school teacher, I try to teach diverse classics, and have managed to do a decent job with novels and poetry. But I have found it challenging to incorporate Black playwrights into my IB curriculum. I wonder if drama has been a genre that has been historically slower to become accessible to black playwrights? I also find myself having a hard time finding plays written by women that I think would be successful in a high school classroom. Anyone looking at my unit on drama (four plays taught in 3 months!) would think I was committed to canon as defined by old, white, American men. If anyone has any suggestions for plays, please let me know!

 

Books that I MUST read in 2020

In light of the recent publishing debacle with that book that shall not be named (you know the one), I want to turn our attention to books that deserve more traffic, more conversation, more love. Here is a list of books that I MUST read this year:

Chanel Miller’s Know My Name

The tragedy of Miller’s sexual assault and the tragic way in which her attacker got away scot-free was shocking. I remember my burning outrage when I followed the news reports. I am so impressed that Chanel Miller wrote this book and took control of her narrative. Also, her instagram page is one of the most positive, uplifting, and adorable pages you can follow.

Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s She Said

Time to let our light shine on those who broke the story and investigated Harvey Weinstein’s reprehensible treatment of women. I’ve heard amazing reviews of this book, and I cannot wait to support women journalists and their search for truth.

Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive 

I loved Luiselli’s short essay/memoir Tell Me How it Ends about the refugee crisis on the US’s southern border. This time around, she has chosen to tell the story of the refugee crisis using fiction; from all accounts, the novel is tremendously well-written.

Carmen Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties

I love short stories. I love fabulism. I love women. Just reading the introductory blurb about it makes all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up in anticipation. Can’t wait to discover a new voice and add another beloved collection of short-stories to my shelves (or rather, e-shelves).

Marcelo Hernandez Castillo’s Children of the Land

Definitely one for #ownvoices. I love memoirs. Castillo’s journey as an undocumented person in America, his life hiding in plain sight, an invisible man, is a narrative I want to amplify and make space for.

James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time

And finally, a classic that I cannot forgive myself for not reading. Too iconic, too smart, too important for me to have left unread for so long. I can only beg Baldwin for forgiveness and promise to get around to it this Black History Month.

Kokoro by Natsume Soseki (review)

Kokoro is my first Soseki work and I have to say, it is a stunner. Soseki’s expert use of the first person narrative allows for an intimate study of the human psyche, the nature of love, friendship, and betrayal. Published in 1914, Kokoro is a rare novel that feels thoroughly modern while also entirely of its time, clearly concerned with the drawing close of epochs and cultural ages (in this case, the Meiji era).

Soseki’s time in London, which he described as utterly miserable and where he almost lost his mind, seems to have served as inspiration for the novel. Threaded throughout is a deep sense of despair, paranoia, and above all, isolation. The mystery of Sensei’s past haunts the narrative from its opening. In stark contrast is the youthful naivete of our first narrator, through whose eyes we are first acquainted with Sensei.

Kokoro, translated to “the heart of things”, is a title that exemplifies the novel’s existential churn. As we embark on this psychological mystery to understand the heart of the novel, Soseki’s characters are forced to confront the essential questions of humanity: How does a human life take shape? What forces act upon it, lay hold of it, indelibly shaping its path? What do we owe one another? What are our responsibilities for the decisions and fates of others?

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Kokoro is a piercing psychological and philosophical exploration. Highly recommended.

Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami (review)

DANCE DANCE DANCE by Haruki Murakami is the sequel to his madcap noir parody A WILD SHEEP CHASE. Four years after the events in SHEEP CHASE, our unnamed protagonist embarks on a new adventure: unraveling a metaphysical mystery that lies at the heart of his identity. 

I’ve read recent critiques about the overwhelming “maleness” of Murakami’s novels but hadn’t fully noticed how problematic Murakami’s Male Gaze was until DANCE DANCE DANCE. The blatant objectification as well the callous depictions of violence against women were difficult to swallow. In particular, the way that this violence against women was used as a turning point for the narrator’s character development suggested that the horrific treatment of the women was secondary to other more “crucial concerns”, namely the male protagonist’s friendship with his male middle-school friend. 

It reminded me of the Roxane Gay’s essay “The Careless Language of Sexual Violence” in which she incisively critiques how portrayals of sexual violence against women in the media have long been used to titillate viewers and act as a catalyst for sagging plots, both of which erases the real trauma of such violence. That DANCE DANCE DANCE never considers the interiority of these female victims of sexual violence is infuriating and the fact that this novel is a favorite amongst lovers of Murakami clearly point to the pervasive and global nature of rape culture. 

Add to the mix the figure of a 13 year old girl to whom the narrator at times seems dangerously attracted and you’ve got a protagonist that strikes unflattering similarities with LOLITA’S Humbert Humbert. 

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Overall, I can’t say that I recommend this novel. Though it is, as many of Murakami’s novels are, fascinating, it is quite sexist and I could have done without reading it. Instead, head on over to Gay’s great essay “The Careless Language of Sexual Violence” and be inspired to be a more thoughtful consumer of media. 

 

Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou (review)

Not going to lie, when I started reading this collection of essays by Dr. Angelou, I wondered if she was riding on the coattails of her past successes. The essays seemed simplistic. The prose homespun. But then, the magic of Dr. Angelou’s words started to work on me, and I’ve been thinking of the various lessons in this slim work ever since I finished reading it.

In her introduction, Dr. Angelou tells us that she chose these specific stories so that we may find what lessons we can for ourselves. Indeed, she has left gems of her wisdom in her vulnerable and honest accounts of her life. Each chapter or essay is short, the mere work of a moment, but they contain timeless lessons in humility, love, loss, passion, self-defense, resilience, and so much more. I am completely humbled by Dr. Angelou and recommend this collection for all. If you haven’t read I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, start there, and then be amazed by this boundless woman.

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What a wonderful way to begin celebrating African American History month. Let’s continue to shine our light as Dr. Angelou urges us to. 

 

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (review)

Winner of the Booker Prize, Bernadine Evaristo’s GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER is a complex and beautiful tapestry that celebrates all the diverse forms of being black and being a woman (or other). 

In her twelve narratives, Evaristo allows each voice to tell their own story, and in doing so makes room for a panoply of experiences, lives, struggles, and triumphs to simply BE. When I finished reading the novel, I felt that I had read 12 novels and swallowed infinite universes. This kaleidoscopic approach is perhaps Evaristo’s most important point about representing black and (mostly female) experience: the only way we can truly represent and empower marginalized voices is by giving each one their full and undivided time in the spotlight.*

The Male Gaze, the White Gaze… Evaristo resists catering to such institutions by redefining what a novel is. The plot device that brings each narrative together (the opening of the first play written and directed by a black woman in the National Theatre in London) is mostly peripheral. Additionally, Evaristo challenges our conception of prose. Instead of using the sentence as a unit of meaning-making, she uses the line, the unit of poetry, to transform this work of prose into something that resists binary thinking. It is not poetry, though it looks like it, nor is it fully prose, though it is a novel. In its use of narrative perspective, too, it challenges absolute categories. Though technically written using 3rd person, each narrative is so internal, so personal, they come across as soliloquies, private monologues… yet, they are clearly 3rd person!  

This is a masterful, innovative, and moving novel that will gain depth and richness with each re-reading, a testament to Evaristo’s amazing writing ability. 

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*Re: Undivided spotlight: (This is another reason why the decision to split the Booker prize in 2019 was a moment of burning irony–did the judges miss the point of Evaristo’s novel? It’s like they thought: oh yeah, we are going to celebrate these marginalized voices by making them share this rare moment of institutional recognition with an author who has already won the Booker Prize and has the weight of cultural establishment behind her and thus will steal all their thunder and rob them of the spotlight.)

Dominicana by Angie Cruz (review)

Fans of Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street will find much to enjoy in Angie Cruz’s DOMINICANA; 15 year old Ana Cancion’s first person narrative has a similar musicality and cadence that evokes the innocent beauty of youth. When 15 year old Ana Cancion chooses familial duty over love, she is uprooted from her home and family in the Dominican Republic to begin married life in New York, with her husband Juan Ruiz, twice her age. 

Ana’s voice is convincing as a new adult; curious and scared in an alien environment, without English skills and social networks, isolated and bored, yet brimming with untapped passion for life, Ana’s voice is heartbreaking and authentic. We can’t help but root for our young Ana who has been thrust into a much more brutal situation than any she has known before. Though her voice is innocent, there is nothing innocent about Ana’s new experiences. She is not afforded the luxuries of an extended childhood. Instead, at 15 she is forced into the role of a grown woman: fulfilling all the duties of a wife and mother, whether she is ready or not. 

The figure of Ana’s husband Juan Ruiz occupies an interesting role in the novel. At the same time that he is clearly abusive and reprehensible, Cruz also incites our sympathy for him. His immigrant experience characterized by humiliation, deprivation, struggle, and alienation, forces us to see him as not wholly monstrous; his loyalty to the duties and responsibilities to his new wife and her family add a layer of complexity to this character. Yet his treatment of Ana is utterly repulsive and terrible. Cruz deftly forces us into Ana’s emotional dilemma: how to feel about this man who protects her yet hurts her? Who has so much power over her while being simultaneously so powerless in a world not built for him? Should she leave him? Stay with him? The answers are not so clear cut, but what is clear is that Cruz has given shape to a story that needs to be told. 

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(in other words, Dominicana is a brutal tale of immigration and survival from the perspective of a woman trapped in a new land, looking out of her window)

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (review)

The Testaments, the much-anticipated sequel to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, is compelling and highly readable. Set 15 years after the events of the original, it follows three female narrators from different social stations: the fearsome Aunt Lydia, agent of the oppressive Gilead; Agnes Jemima, a privileged daughter of Gilead, and finally, an outsider, Daisy, a teenage girl raised outside Gilead. With three different female narrators in The Testaments, we are provided a much wider perspective on Gilead than Offred’s original claustrophobic and paranoiac account in The Handmaid’s Tale. 

For those who found the dystopian world of Gilead intriguing and wanted more insight into its history and its everyday functioning, The Testaments will be a fascinating read. 

However, I found myself questioning whether The Testaments was actually necessary. Certainly, the novel is a gripping page turner; but at the same time, it seems to undermine the power of the original novel. In ending without a satisfying resolution, The Handmaid’s Tale refused to provide the readers, who are placed in position of voyeurs, any way to close the chapter on Offred’s story. That we end without answers, full of burning, but ultimately impotent, curiosity is part of the point of the novel: we are not allowed resolution because Gilead is not a world with clean or satisfying endings. The Testaments seems double back on this artistic choice in its very existence; by providing more clarity on the world of Gilead as well as the fates of the characters we are invested in, the novel seems much more cinematic and aware of the TV-series potential that it contains. 

Though I was frustrated by how the book seems eager to give us what we want, I still found much to admire in the novel. Atwood uses two major motifs (borderlands and doubling/mirroring) to question the notion of the “other.” Characters from across national and cultural borders often say almost the exact same things, suggesting that these seemingly impermeable borders are porous. The most exciting thing about the novel is how it also includes the borders of identity and self in this question.

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(in other words, The Testaments is a plot-driven novel that expands the history of Gilead for curious fans)

 

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (review)

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I love a good whodunnit and no one does it quite like the queen of mystery herself, Agatha Christie. When she’s at her best, her storytelling, plotting, red herrings and twists are so good, I have to force myself to slow down so that I can savor her writing. After I’m done with a Christie novel, I always have to go back to see how she’s done it. What clues did I overlook? Where did she place that subtle hint? What did I misinterpret? I love how a good Agatha Christie mystery contains multiple reading experiences: the first as a naive reader and then the second (or third!) as a knowing reader trying to catch all her clues and marvel at her sleight of hand. 

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is not the first Agatha Christie novel I’ve read, but itis notable because it is her first published book and marks the first appearance of the beloved and idiosyncratic Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. It was one of the first 10 novels published by Penguin books when it first began in 1935! This is a book full of historical significance, y’all.

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Set during World War I in the English countryside, it has all the classic elements of the Golden Age of Detective fiction: a large manor / estate in the rural English countryside, a large cast of characters all connected to the household and with secrets of their own, and an inexplicable death. The first person narrator who functions as a foil to the unpredictable genius detective is perfect for us armchair detectives. The readers believe that we are smarter than the narrator, but at no point do we actually reach Poirot’s stunning insights! 

As a debut work, it is really excellent. The piece of literary trivia about it that I find most interesting is that according to literary legend, Christie wrote the novel as a result of a bet. Apparently, someone bet that she would not be able to write a detective novel that could conceal the identity of the culprit while giving the reader access to the same clues as the detective. Well, I don’t know about the original bettors, but I definitely was taken in and was surprised by the reveal at the end. 

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(in other words, a clever and cunning detective novel perfect for armchair detectives and fans of the game Clue).