nevertheless, a revisiting!!
29 books read.
9 (!) memoirs. i should expand beyond this category because my enjoyment hit-rate was one-third. they do make for easy travel reading. the best of the lot was Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts. i don't know that i can add to the effusive aura of praise it wears. poetic and philosophical in ways that i don't usually enjoy, but really did. it (and the eileen myles collection i'm just starting on) may be turning my head towards poetry and its efficiencies.
3 biographies, 2 of patricia highsmith (which is quite enough) and one of romaine brooks, who, although also complicated and bigoted in early 20th century ways, did not seem to be quite so terrible. the placing of famous artists on pedestals and then finding out they are real flawed people is a conundrum of having our tastes define our self-image i.e being a fan. ahem, wagner anyone? i wouldn't read ayn rand but maybe this is hypocritical? maybe i am just becoming an adult.
however, i will make a special sidenote and mention the objective undeniable quality of romaine brooks' paintings and drawings that i flew across the world to see. i don't know much but i don't know of any other queer female painters who had so much money they could just paint whatever they wanted rather than having to make art that would sell.
2 korean translated fiction, both great! The Vegetarian by Han Kang and Your Republic is Calling You by Kim Young-Ha
2 widely hyped but quite disappointing tomes. Fates and Furies almost excuses the patriarchal coddling of average men, without quite acknowledging it. faux-literary and unbelievable, and just plain repetitious. if i want to read about marriage i want realism and insight into the human condition; i know art uses augmentations to make a point but this didn't work and put me off reading about conventional (read: straight) marriage, like, i know enough about it from general life thank you very much.
A Little Life was not overly well written, very verbose, and i liked the buildup much more than the actual reveal; also, what is so bad about suicide as a form of euthanasia? maybe we ask too much of people. again, augmentations to make a point. one glaring omission: rounded female characters?!??
2 widely hyped historical fiction. the centering on lady scientist characters in The Signature of All Things and The Essex Serpent did not exempt them from melodramatic rendezvous with mysterious perfect men, telegraphed well in advance. boring.
clearly the lesson here is that i need to adjust my hype filter.
two promising authors: Ottessa Moshfegh demonstrating the value in realism as character insight (and then promptly reverting to cliche, sadly) in Eileen; Helen Oyeyemi a rollicking storyteller with fascinating ideas in What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, although the recurring themes were unnecessary and laboured.
my three books of the year:
The Mare by Mary Gaitskill
The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood
The Door by Magda Szabo
all transporting, with fascinating and flawed characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment