Bel Canto

Bel Canto by Anne Patchett

Picked this one up in March, and writing about it in July...

I'd heard Maureen Corrigan review an Anne Patchett book by beginning,"I'm always excited when a new Anne Patchett book comes out" -- or some such thing -- and since I love Maureen Corrigan and had never read any Anne Patchett, I thought I would check her out. The library didn't have the latest that Corrigan was reviewing, but Bel Canto turned out to be a great intro to the quarantine.

The book tells the story of an executive of a Japanese-based technology company, which in my mind was something like Sony. He happens to be a lover of opera, and, in the hopes of convincing his company to open a plant in their nation, the government of an unnamed South American company  lures him to their capital city for a birthday party featuring his favorite singer. Not long into her performance, though, the venue is overtaken by guerrillas hoping to take the president, who is not actually present, hostage and gain the release of their compatriots. And for the next several months, the entire party, made up of figures from around the world and of all stations of life, are bound together.

In the end, this troupe, including the hostage takers, become a community, bound together by what becomes a shared appreciation for opera. The message seems to be that art can bring us together -- if only we had the time to truly listen/watch/take it in.

The book certainly sent me into the quarantine with high hopes and lofty goals. Not sure I've met them -- yet. Perhaps I need a few more months?

Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me 

By Ta-Nahesi Coates

Why I just picked this book up, some five years after it was first published, is something of a mystery to me. I can recall holding a copy back then, but somehow not finishing it. Perhaps police brutality of that moment didn't strike me as unjust enough? I'd like to think not, but I find it a bit shameful now. This book is nothing if not eminently readable. You could miss the message entirely and still be enthralled by the sentence construction and turns of phrase. 

About that message...that, too, remains a bit of a mystery. It actually had me looking up reviews of the book. This is not the five paragraph essay with a clear claim, evidence, and reasoning that I teach my students. It is far more meandering, weaving in and out of outrage, reflection, advice, anecdote, and hope. A little less than 12 hours after finishing the book, what my mind keeps coming back to is the way Coates continually tries to puncture our nation's fundamental myth: The American Dream.

It is true that all nation-states are founded on myth. This method of political organization is relatively new to humankind, whose traditional bonds were based on shared language, customs, religion, and, perhaps most importantly, kinship. The nation-state seeks to rise above these commonalities, to convince people to see others' whose tongue, traditions, and family tree are different than their own as countrymen. We often think of this as a uniquely American problem -- exceptionalism is a cornerstone of our myth -- but it is not. One need look no further than Ireland, where culture and religion keep an island divided -- to see that this challenge is both universal and modern. How to overcome it? Laws? Democracy? Representation? Stories.

Though the story we Americans tell ourselves is multi-faceted, at its heart is the idea that our nation, our land, is one of opportunity, that with enough effort you, too, can own a beautiful, safe suburban home surrounded by manicured lawns and protected by a just-menacing-enough white picket fence. This story glosses over a lot -- particularly the fact that not only is this "opportunity" has not, and largely is not, open to those whose skin happens to be dark but that it was, and continues to be, built on the violent exploitation of those same people. Girding this myth is another: That people with different colored skin belong to different "races".

I think it is fairly easy for people to recognize and criticize the version of the American Dream I describe above. But the second myth, which is part and parcel of the first, is much harder to wrap one's head around. Race is ingrained in our national consciousness. But it is a work of fiction. It is a story we tell ourselves -- and believe. It is not simply a matter of labeling others. It is also a matter of how we see ourselves. Coates continually refers to "those who think they are white." In defining ourselves this way, we perpetuate the myth and the exploitative system it supports.

Another point of the book, I think, is to show what it looks like to go through this system as a member of this exploited group. Coates talks about the need to understand slavery not as a "mass of flesh" but as a single person as intelligent and feeling and curious as we are. By sharing his story, he helps do the same for contemporary America. He speaks of an incident in New York City in which a white woman pushed his son out of the way in a crowd; when confronted, several white onlookers come to her aid and remind Coates that they could have him arrested. It is a tiny moment, but one that underscores for Coates and for the reader the way in which our society robs people of color of their bodies.

So what to do? Clearly, Coates' book, written in the form of a letter to his 15-year-old son, is not directed at a white audience. Nor should it be. His advice to his son is to continue the struggle, to question the world around him and the myths that pervade it. But he is quick to point out that while one person can make a difference of some sort, the idea that a single human can change a society is itself a myth. Coates points out that the moments of progress in the past have coincided with other major upheavals: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, etc. And now we face another upheaval in the form of a pandemic. Could this be another moment of real progress? 

And what might my role be in this? I feel like I understand the big idea here. I know, intellectually, that race is a myth created to allow people whose skin looks like mine to exploit people whose skin is darker than mine. And that this is continuing to happen. And that I have benefited, and continue to benefit, from this system. But now what? March? Teach? Speak? Think? Read? Question? I don't know.

Into Thin Air

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

I came into this book a little prejudiced. The only other Krakauer book I'd read was Into the Wild, and it didn't leave me with a very favorable impression of the author. Though the story he told was told well, I was put off by how self-referential the book seemed; it was almost as if Krakauer was using Chris McCandless' story as a vehicle to talk about himself. 

This was a different book entirely. It was focused almost solely on Krakauer -- but for good reason. It was an account of his trip to Mt. Everest in the '90s on an expedition that claimed the lives of many climbers, both expert and novice. The author's voice here verges on humble. He enumerates his shortcomings and doesn't shy away from his mistakes. For example, for months after the accidents on the mountain, he had asserted that he'd seen one missing climber very near base camp. However, he realized later that he had been mistaken, that his memories of the day were clouded by exhaustion and altitude sickness. The error gave one family false hope and another unnecessary grief, and both reacted with anger. Krakauer includes their criticisms and owns up to his mistake. He even acknowledges the problematic nature of writing about and making money on the stories of others' deaths. In my mind, he comes off as balanced and fair in taking on these issues.

I was inspired to read the book after offering it as a book group option in a Wilderness Studies class I taught last year. The overarching question was, How does this book help us better understand the concept of wilderness. There is a lot in here that gets at that question. On the one hand, Everest is highly commercialized. Teams of guides chart tens of thousands of dollars to take climbers up the mountain, where their nearly every need is taken care of. All most climbers have to do is step where their guide tells them to step. They aren't making decisions or even carrying their own gear. At the same time, the storm described in the book demonstrated that nature remains firmly in charge on the mountain. Man is clearly a visitor here -- even if we forget it sometimes. No amount of training or preparation can eliminate the risks associated with climbing Everest. In that sense, I think it remains a wilderness, albeit one diminished by man's presence. 

The Night Watchman

 

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

This books takes as its backdrop a movement in the 1950s to "emancipate" Native Americans by terminating tribes' recognition as such by the federal government. The idea, according to its proponents was that this status had made indigenous peoples dependent upon the federal government and therefore held them back from their full economic potential. Of course, behind the scenes was a more dubious intent -- it was an opportunity, if successful, to wrest valuable lands away from Native Americans and put them in the hands of whites. It strikes me that this is another example of economic profiteers beginning with greed and then working backwards to come up with a justification; recently, many have pointed out that the same thing happened with racism. It's not that whites enslaved black Africans because they were racist, at least not at first. Rather, they enslaved black Africans because they wanted freed labor. Then, understanding, it seems, that enslaving another human being for personal gain is a bit...unrefined(?), they went through a lot of trouble mining the Bible, Greek philosophy, and pseudo-science to develop and spread the idea that people of African descent were inferior to whites. Racism. Basically, the white establishment has been terribly effective at enriching themselves economically, socially, and politically at the expense of the "other."

As Erdrich tells it, Mormon views on Native Americans evolved in the same way. Mormons apparently believe that Native Americans were one of four ancient groups who settled in the Americas; they are called the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon. The Lamanites were not a good people, and it was the job of the so-called Latter-Day Saints to bring them back to the Lord. I might be getting that wrong, but Erdrich through her characters seems to be indicating that this belief system ingrained the idea of Native American inferiority in the Mormon church, which encouraged its congregations to take land from indigenous peoples. It just so happens that the architect of tribal termination was a Mormon whose family's wealth came from their accrual of formerly Native lands. 

I will say that this part of history is a rather small part of the book. It is always in the background, but that is where it mainly stays. That disappointed me. I had heard Erdrich speak about termination on Fresh Air, and was fascinated by this here-to-fore unknown part of our past. I thought it would play a more prominent role. What Erdrich does really well, though, is bring the Turtle Mountain Tribe reservation of the 1950s to life. She makes you feel with the characters in a way that draws you into the story -- even if the plot is rather thin.

The Girl with the Louding Voice

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare

I wanted to like this book. It tells the story of a young woman named Adunni, whose story begins in a small village in Nigeria. Though her plight begins before the narrative begins with the death of her mother, it worsens at the beginning of the novel when she is married, against her will, to a local man who has promised to pay her fathers' rent in exchange for Adunni. It is the first of Adunni's captivities, for no sooner does she escape the home of her new husband than she finds herself the maid of a tyrannical woman in the city of Lagos. She receives no pay for her work beyond the daily beatings she receives on behalf of her new employer. Nevertheless, through it all, Adunni remains hopeful and, in the end, is rewarded with a new life.

Obviously, the subject matter is important. It is a story of neo-slavery that hasn't been told much in the west. But the ending was evident from the beginning. From the moment Adunni learns of a possible scholarship for domestic servants, it is obvious that she will get it. But it takes the author more than a hundred pages for that inevitability to become a reality. In the meantime, the other events of the story don't offer much insight into the character or much in the way of suspense. For me, that left it a slog that I was happy to finish.

Kingdom of the Blind

Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny

I find myself these days looking for a book to get lost in. So I went looking for a mystery/detective stories. I haven't had great luck with these in the past, so was pleasantly surprised when I had trouble putting this one down. I basically read it cover-to-cover over the long MLK-day weekend.

This book is one of a series about Armand Gamache, a detective with something called the Surete du Quebec -- which has several accent marks I've left out -- that I assume is what they call the police force in our French-speaking neighbor to the north. In this one, there are three plot lines to follow. The first is a will for which Gamache, a neighbor friend, and an unknown third party are inexplicably named liquidators responsible for carrying out the deceased's wishes. Who was this person? Why did they put strangers in charge of the will? And why did it lead to a murder? Second is an investigation into Gamache himself that stems from actions he must have taken in a previous book. He is on suspension from his job as head of the Surete. Gamache seems fine with this, but his son-in-law, who also happens to work for him, is less comfortable with the situation. Higher-ups want him to sign some paperwork indicating that Gamache acted alone. Will he sign? How might this impact Gamache's future? Finally, the action for which Gamache is under investigation allowed a new powerful, and deadly, opioid into Quebec, and could hit the streets any day. Will Gamache stop it?

I appreciated how the author wove these narrative lines together so that they all stayed in the forefront of the reader's mind. I also was taken with the way she brought the characters to life. It is no mystery why she would serialize Gamache. It was also fun to be tricked a bit in the end. Throughout the book, you think you know what the characters know, even though the author tries to make it clear that you don't. Still, it is surprising to find out that Gamache was hiding something from the reader as well as his fellow characters. What might have really drawn me in, though, was the descriptions of rural Quebec in winter time. It seems like an idyllic place, albeit a cold one. I'll have to return to Gamache soon!

The Lightning Thief

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

I took up this book as an investigation into a possible unit I'd like to do with my students on heroes based on an inquiry I found from EL Education. The book imagines a world in which the Greek Gods are still around -- just not in Greece. Riordan explains that they live where the heart of "Western" civilization lives, which, at this moment in time, is, in his mind, in the United States. As they always have, the Gods continue to cavort with humans, creating demigods, some of whom are destined to become heroes in the vein of Hercules. One of these is Percy Jackson, who, spoiler alert, is the son of Poseidon, the god of the sea. His heritage, however, is unknown to Percy until he begins to be attacked by monsters ostensibly sent by the god of the underworld, Hades. No sooner does he find refuge in a summer camp for similar demigods than Percy is sent on a quest to resolve a spat between Poseidon and his brothers, Zeus and Hades.

I will say that this book lived up to its reputation as a page turner. It was pretty impossible to put it down. Though it can some times be a bit heavy handed, I also enjoyed for the most part the way Riordan wove Greek myths into a modern-day adventure. I'm not yet sure about its use in the classroom, though. The book is pretty much all plot -- I'm not sure there is much underlying the storyline that is ripe for discussion. But a good start to reading in 2020!