Book Review | Goliath
Content warning: violence
My fifth book in the 2022 challenge is Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi. The book satisfies Category 1 of the challenge, a book published in 2022. This also means we're already one-fifth of the way through the challenge! Can you believe it?
The book
The main story takes place in the 2050s, where our planet is an irradiated and otherwise polluted shell of its former self. The wealthy and privileged have left to live in space colonies, while everyone left behind is trying to eke out an existence however they can.
Wrecking crews demolish abandoned houses and salvage as much of the materials as they can for homes in the space colonies. Some people from the colonies choose to return to Earth, but their experiences aren't the same as those of people who've been there the whole time, i.e., gentrification.
The timelines jump back and forth, as do the locations. The book makes the curious choice not to reveal the main incident that led to a lot of the disasters underpinning the story until about three-quarters of the way in.
What I liked
The premise of the story is fascinating, and Onyebuchi does a great job of worldbuilding. The things happening in this future world are plausible, in large part because similar things have already happened in this world, minus the space travel element. Since time immemorial, the haves have found ways to separate themselves from the have-nots, and there's no reason to suspect that will change in the future.
Also, the book deals with a lot of extremely relevant issues, including racism, classism, gentrification, and climate change. In some instances these issues are dealt with in ways that stick with the reader.
What I didn't like
Wow, is there a lot going on in this book. With all the different characters, plotlines, and timelines, it’s hard to keep track of everything.
A side effect of this is that we don't really get to know any of the characters in any meaningful depth. You might remember in my discussion of Beloved that I praised Morrison for creating fleshed-out characters that enhanced the book as a story. This was significantly less true of Goliath, where several characters felt more like stand-ins for principles that the author wanted to portray than actual people.
Overall verdict
I wanted so badly to like this book more than I do. Perhaps even more importantly, I don't want to be the person who doesn't like a current book from a respected author who writes about issues that are critical in our time. But for me, the book is less than the sum of its parts. There's so much jumping around and so many things to jump between that I never felt like I got to know any of the characters in any depth.
Also throughout much of the first half, I didn't understand the author's choices for who to follow and to what extent. The reader gets a lot of backstory for some characters who just kind of end up as footnotes by the end. The book might have been stronger if it had centered more on the demolition crew and less on other characters.
What's next?
I'm dipping into something more commercial with the next book, which is My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. This satisfies Category 16, a popular novel published after 2010.
Have you ever found a book simultaneously brilliant and frustrating? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
Interlude - 5 alternative challenge books
Goliath is taking longer than planned. So to give you something, I thought I'd talk about a few books that would be great for this challenge except that I've already read them. Maybe you'll find something for your TBR (to be read) list! I've included them here in reverse chronological order of publication.
#FashionVictim
#FashionVictim by Amina Akhtar (2018) is simultaneously the most commercial and probably the most polarizing book mentioned in this post. Many reviewers have described this book as The Devil Wears Prada meets American Psycho. I'd throw in bits of The Talented Mr. Ripley while we're at it. The protagonist, Anya, is a disrespected fashion industry writer who decides to take out her frustrations with her coworkers through homicide. She also happens to be really funny, and the book skewers a lot of fashion industry tropes along the way. If you enjoy some dark humor in situations like I've described, check this out.
Logicomix
This 2009 graphic novel by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou is inspired by the life and work of logician Bertrand Russell, which might not sound like your idea of a good time. And it might not be. But I'd argue that the book is really more about how we know what we know, and how things often tend to be more based on assumptions than we realize (hence the subtitle "An Epic Search for Truth"). If you're interested in exploring those ideas, Logicomix is a fun way to do so. Set theory never looked so entertaining.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
This 2007 novel by Mohsin Hamid made the short list for that year’s Booker Prize. The book is told in a single monologue by Changez, a Pakistani man who comes to the US to study finance at Princeton. After graduation, he is hired by a consultancy firm for lots of money but feels like he isn't truly accepted by American society. These feelings are only exacerbated when the 9/11 attacks happen and some people conflate him with the people who perpetrated the attacks, even though those people weren't Pakistani. This causes Changez to reassess his desire for success in America, among other things. It's an interesting examination of what I'd call the flip side of the American dream.
Black No More
The full title of this novel by George S. Schulyer is Black No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, A.D. 1933-1940. So you might be wondering, is it science fiction or satire? And the answer is, yes. The premise of the story is that a scientist comes up with an easy way to turn black people white. But when that happens, who can racists target? Spoiler alert: they find equally ignorant things to fixate on. Also hilarity ensues. Nobody is safe from parody, including luminaries like W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, whose thinly-veiled caricatures appear in the story.
Skylark
Skylark is a 1924 novel by Dezső Kosztolányi that takes place around the turn of the twentieth century in what turns out to be the latter days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Skylark is the pet name that a couple has for their daughter. But Skylark is considered unattractive and is past the age when most women get married when the story starts. This has not stopped her parents from centering their lives around her; indeed, it might make them even more motivated to do so. However, when Skylark is invited to spend a week with other family members, her parents start to dip back into things they enjoyed in the past. Skylark is short on plot but long on characterization and beautiful writing.
Conclusion
While it's impossible to cover everything in five books, this post offers some diverse books to consider for future reading. And going forward, I plan to be more conscious of switching things up in my book selection for the challenge. These first five books have skewed heavily toward important literary fiction, and that can turn into a slog, which is why I've already set up some lighter fare once I finish Goliath. See you next week!
Book Review | Beloved
Content warning: violence, death, homicide, slavery, racism, bestiality, sexual assault/abuse
My fourth book in the 2022 challenge is Beloved by Toni Morrison. The book satisfies Category 10 of the challenge, a book that received a national literary award; namely, the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
The book
I could have easily chosen this book for the controversial novel category, as it definitely provokes strong feelings in its readers. I didn't want to talk about this aspect of the book, but I feel like I have to, especially with all the laws and potential laws attempting to govern what we can and can't say about history and race.
The discourse
In the negative Goodreads reviews for Beloved, one common complaint is that the reader felt Morrison wrote the book to make white people feel guilty. Let's examine this claim.
As you might expect from a book primarily told from the perspectives of former slaves, the portrayal of most of the white people in it is less than flattering. And why would it be otherwise? Slavery is a disgusting chapter in our country's history. I'd even say sugarcoating it does a disservice to the horrors that people experienced under slavery.
That said, I don't think making white people feel guilty was among Morrison's intentions for the book. For one thing, she talked about how difficult the book was for her to write. Oh, reading about slavery's atrocities makes you uncomfortable? Imagine that the victims in these stories are your ancestors. Not only that, but to ensure that the story felt authentic, Morrison imagined herself in her characters' shoes in various situations, including the parts where they make some gruesome choices.
It's true that Morrison didn't prioritize the comfort of white readers in Beloved, or probably in any of her books. That's not the same thing as intentionally trying to make white people feel guilty, though. As white people, so much is centered around our preferences that if we don't seek out other perspectives, anything that isn't made for us can feel like an attack. But it isn't. We're not always the good guys, and telling those stories is totally fair game.
As of this writing, there is a bill working its way through the state legislature in Florida that would prohibit teachers from teaching anything that would make any individual feel guilt or discomfort. Now even if it's signed into law, I think even the current Supreme Court will strike it down as unconstitutional. But the fact that it's even gotten this far in the process should concern people. Education that never challenges you and only tells one side of the story isn't education; it's propaganda. There isn't a country in the world that doesn't have shameful events in its history, and we should be able to discuss those events honestly.
OK, with all that out of the way, let's discuss Beloved as a work of art.
Summary
The book's protagonist, Sethe, is a woman who attempts to escape slavery with her children. At one point Sethe is close to being captured and kills one of her daughters, Beloved, to prevent her from being captured into slavery. Although Sethe and her other children ultimately don't have to return to slavery, the trauma of their experiences haunts them in different ways, and Beloved's spirit haunts the house where Sethe lives in isolation with Denver, her youngest daughter and the only surviving child of Sethe's who hasn't run away.
The story begins 18 years after Beloved's death. Because of Sethe's actions, she's an outcast and basically only leaves the house to go to her job as a restaurant cook, which is where she also gets her food. By this point Denver has not left the house in years. But Sethe and Denver seem more or less at peace with Beloved's spirit haunting the house, accepting it like another member of the family.
Everything changes when Sethe receives a visit from Paul D, one of her fellow former slaves from a Kentucky plantation called Sweet Home (clearly Morrison's sense of irony was fully functional). Paul D has been harboring a crush on Sethe since they were at Sweet Home, and since Sethe's husband is almost certainly dead, she's available for a relationship, at least in theory.
In practice, Sethe is not accustomed to letting people in physically or emotionally, but against the odds, she invites Paul D to stay. Paul D, however, isn't so comfortable with Beloved's spirit hanging around, so he drives the spirit from the house. After that, Paul D, Sethe, and Denver start to build a life together.
One day Paul D takes Sethe and Denver to a local carnival, and when they return home, a young woman is sitting in front of the house. When they ask her who she is, she says her name is Beloved. Since she appears to be the same age that Sethe's daughter would have been had she lived, Sethe and Denver immediately assume the young woman is some sort of manifestation of the Beloved who died 18 years prior. However, Beloved's presence stresses Sethe's relationship with Paul D, ultimately prompting him to leave. Over time Sethe behaves more erratically as Beloved's behavior turns parasitic.
What I liked
It's not necessary to be a master of the language to be an effective writer, but it's so nice when you encounter one, which Morrison is. For example:
Listening to the doves in Alfred, Georgia, and having neither the right nor the permission to enjoy it because in that place mist, doves, sunlight, copper dirt, moon—everything belonged to the men who had the guns.
Beloved, Part One
I love the way that Morrison combines the beautiful imagery from nature with the brutality of, in this instance, a prison chain gang.
Another thing I liked about this book was that it wasn't preachy. I felt like the characters were fully realized and not just stand-ins for principles that Morrison wanted to illustrate. It's all too common in books that try to make political points that the characters are one-dimensional straw men. But with Beloved, even when I didn't like a choice that a character made, at least I believed it. No character is completely good or beyond redemption. That's a testament to the book as a work of art, which sometimes gets buried in all the discourse about the book's themes.
What I didn't like
About two-thirds of the way through the book, there are these stream-of-consciousness monologues from Sethe, Denver, and Beloved that eventually merge into some kind of counterpoint. While they're some of the most beautifully written passages in the book, I didn't feel they advanced the story. They just put extra emphasis on something I already thought was pretty clear by that point.
Overall verdict
If it isn't obvious by now, I highly recommend this book. Especially if you're white and had to read Gone With the Wind in high school, as I did. Yes, there is a lot of disturbing material in there. But we owe it to ourselves to know the truth about what slavery was like.
Incidentally, although the book mostly concerns former slaves' experiences and how degrading and even dehumanizing those experiences were, Morrison points out that the perpetrators of slavery also damaged their own humanity in the process. She expressed a similar view years later in an interview with Charlie Rose. If you're the kind of person who has to treat other people as less than human to feel good about yourself, what does that say about you?
Tl;dr - you shouldn't read Beloved because it's good for you. You should read it because it's good.
What's next?
My next book will be Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi. It satisfies Category 1 of the challenge, a novel published in 2022. This appears to be another one that makes some readers uncomfortable, so I'm curious to see how it plays out.
Have you read Beloved? What's your favorite book that made you uncomfortable? Drop your thoughts in the comments!
Book Review | Zen Beyond Mindfulness
My third book in the 2022 challenge is Zen Beyond Mindfulness: Using Buddhist and Modern Psychology for Transformational Practice by Jules Shuzen Harris. The book satisfies Category 4 of the challenge, a book on psychology or personal development. Harris is both a practicing psychotherapist and a Buddhist teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. Full disclosure: I am also a Zen practitioner, albeit in a different tradition.
The book
This is not the first book I have encountered combining ideas from Zen and psychology. However, it might be one of the first I've encountered that doesn't equate the two. I've seen a lot of books and articles that suggest modern psychology can replace Zen practice, or vice versa. Harris, by contrast, takes concepts from both areas and shows how they can complement each other.
The main psychological framework that Harris uses is called the Identity System, or I-System, from a larger model by Stanley Block. There are parallels between the I-System and what Buddhists call the skandhas, or aggregates of tendencies and experiences. Both models argue that these collections of tendencies and experiences are what each person perceives to be the self. Both models also argue that these collections have no permanent reality.
Harris recommends combining regular Zen meditation practice with a technique used within the I-System that is a version of mind mapping. In case you're unfamiliar with mind mapping, the idea is to put a key word or phrase in the center of a page and then just write down whatever comes up for you in association with that. This blog post from MindMeister offers a more in-depth explanation of mind maps, along with some examples.
Harris recommends creating mind maps around questions surrounding your identity, such as, "What am I attached to?", "How do I defend my happiness?", etc. But it's not just a one-and-done affair. After you create your map, you do a relaxation exercise and then recreate the map, but instead of focusing on your feelings about the content, you focus on the sound of your pen on the paper and any sensations you might feel in your body. Your answers might be the same as before, but approaching the issue from a different angle might change your perspective on it in some way.
What I liked
I liked that Harris took the time to dispel a lot of misconceptions that people outside the Zen community have about the practice. For example, a lot of people use "Zen" interchangeably with words like "calm" or "content." This is a complete misunderstanding of what Zen practice is. As Harris points out:
I cannot stress enough that we do not practice Zen in order to be happier more often. If that is your goal, I suggest exercise or getting a pet.
Zen Beyond Mindfulness, page 67
What is the goal, then? I'm so glad you asked:
The goal of Zen is nothing less than completely dismantling the delusions the self creates to feel unique, special, and separate from the rest of the world.
Zen Beyond Mindfulness, page 152
When you put it that way, Zen practice seems a lot scarier, which explains why people tend to be more familiar with some diluted marketing perception of it than the real thing. I like that Harris didn't try to sugarcoat things. I'm also glad to say that I've had similar experiences in the Zen tradition where I practice.
While I'll confess I didn't have time to do the exercises shown in the book, I'm intrigued enough to make a note to incorporate them into my practice. Self-inquiry is hard, which is why a lot of people don't do it. It's nice to have a systematic way of doing it that aligns with Zen ideas of being present with whatever you're experiencing.
Another thing I really liked about this book is that Harris is very scrupulous about citing his sources, both ancient and modern. All too often in books about spirituality or self-help, authors act like they've invented everything they're describing, when most times they're repackaging things Buddhists and Hindus have known for millennia.
What I didn't like
I didn't love the structure of the book. There's a lot of introductory material in the opening chapters, which means it takes a while to get to the meat of the book. I feel like Harris could have woven the introductory material into the more practice-heavy chapters.
Overall verdict
I almost feel like the way Harris addresses misconceptions about Zen is worth the price of admission by itself, but of course, that's not the point. This book is great for its intended audience, but that audience might be quite small.
However, the book might be part of a trend in Buddhist circles. When Buddhism first took hold in the West in the 20th century, many Western practitioners wanted to strip away the more ritualistic and devotional elements of Buddhism, branding them as superstition. The idea was to get to the core of what was helpful about Buddhism, but now we've seen that such an approach can lead to a practice stripped of its ethical context and only useful to the extent it makes practitioners feel better about themselves. If that's what you want to practice, go ahead, but it's not Buddhism, and I fear that's all too often the perception people have of Buddhism.
That said, I don't want to make it sound like I'm the expert on Buddhist practice, as I'm definitely not. But Western society seems to be coming back to an understanding of the value of ritual, which is a step in the right direction for me.
What's next?
I mentioned last week that I'd be adding a twist to the challenge for the month of February. Since I've started the month with a Black author, and it's Black History Month, all the books I read for the challenge this month will be by Black authors.
This was also inspired by an Instagram challenge, so maybe I'm just really susceptible to Bookstagram suggestions at this point. But seriously, it seems like a fun way to encourage people to read more books by Black authors.
To that end, my next book will be Beloved by Toni Morrison. Yes, I'm a little embarrassed that I've gotten this far in life without reading it already. This book satisfies Category 10 of the challenge, a book that received a national literary award; namely, the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
Interlude - what makes an author Romanian?
I'm taking a little extra time to finish my current book, but since I've promised something every Wednesday, I thought I'd talk about how I'm defining a Romanian author for this challenge.
The two authors I've read so far, Liviu Rebreanu and Matei Călinescu, are unquestionably Romanian. They spoke and wrote in Romanian and identified as culturally Romanian. At this point you might think, well, duh, that's what being Romanian is. But it's not always that simple.
On Transylvania
In my write-up of Forest of the Hanged, I mentioned that Transylvania was part of Austria-Hungary at the start of World War I and only became Romanian territory after the war. But both before and after the war, both Romanians and Hungarians have been there. That's still true today.
The reverse is also true: in Hungarian towns close to the Romanian border, there are large numbers of Romanian speakers. We can find similar stories in many towns near national borders around the world, especially when those borders have changed somewhat recently.
Transylvania particularly interests me because it's where my wife was born and raised. In fact, when people ask her where she's from, she answers with Transylvania, not Romania. I've mentioned before that she's a native Romanian speaker, but she's also a native Hungarian speaker. She has both Romanian and Hungarian ancestry, among other things. Her whole life, people have asked her if she feels more Romanian or Hungarian. And her whole life, she's refused to take sides, so to speak (she's also a Gemini, so that could be a factor).
I say all that to illustrate that there are people in Romania who share that cultural identity with other identities. And while my wife identifies right down the middle, that's not true for everybody in that situation.
Some of my wife's friends from her hometown identify more strongly with their Hungarian heritage and consider Romanian a second language. So are they just Hungarians who happen to live in Romania? Not exactly. Even if they primarily feel Hungarian, they don't have the same experience of Hungarian-ness as someone who grew up in Hungary. They're still existing in Romanian culture to some extent.
Let's take one of my wife's favorite contemporary authors, György Dragomán, as an example. That's clearly a Hungarian name, and he writes in the Hungarian language, but he was born in Transylvania and lived there until he was a teenager. And although he now lives in Budapest and has done so for decades, a lot of his work takes place in Transylvania. He probably identifies as culturally Hungarian, but it's not like he can erase his lived experience of Romania. So for this challenge, I think it's fair to consider him a Romanian author. Is this foreshadowing for a future book for the challenge? Maybe.
On Moldova
To be clear, I'm referring to the Republic of Moldova, which was formerly part of the Soviet Union (Doesn't ring a bell? Ask your parents). But before World War II, most of that land was—wait for it—Romanian territory. Not to mention there's a region in present-day Romania known as Moldavia in English, but as Moldova in Romanian. Hence, the need to clarify the place I'm referencing.
Excluding the disputed Transnistria region, most Moldovans speak Romanian. Or at least something very close to it. Close enough that I've seen the same English translator's name on books both by Romanian and Moldovan authors, anyway. But there is an ongoing debate whether there's an independent language called Moldovan or it's just Romanian in a different hat.
The same debate happens regarding cultural identity. The consensus among Romanian speakers seems to be that they aren't culturally identical with their Romanian neighbors, but neither are they entirely separate. I don't have the personal angle on this that I do with Hungarian speakers in Transylvania, but my conclusion is similar: if they're writing in Romanian, that's enough for me to consider them Romanian authors.
Summary
Basically, an author needs to have one foot in Romanian-ness to be considered a Romanian author for this challenge. For most authors, that will either come from speaking the language or from spending time in Romania.
Of course, there are those who disagree with my criteria. This book review offers a thoughtful counterpoint where the reviewer takes issue with the inclusion of an author who left Romania and wrote in English in a scholarly discussion of Romanian literature. And in that context, I can see where the reviewer is coming from. For scholarly work it makes sense to be more precise. But since an important part of my book challenge is to expose myself to different perspectives, I'm keeping my more expansive criteria in place.
What's next?
My write-up of Zen Beyond Mindfulness will be up next week. I'll also announce the next book in the challenge, plus a twist I'm adding for this month. Stay tuned!
Do you identify with more than one culture or know someone who does? How does that affect your experiences of those cultures? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Book Review | The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter
For the second book in my 2022 book challenge, I chose The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter by Matei Călinescu, originally published in 1969. This was right in the middle of Romania's Communist government, and since Călinescu left Romania a few years later, this novel has gained a cult following. Another distinguishing factor is that it's Călinescu's only novel, as he worked mostly as a literary critic and occasionally as a poet, both in Romania and later at Indiana University in the US.
The book
As the title implies, the book recounts the life and opinions, mostly the latter, of a man named Zacharias Lichter. The title is a nod to the classic novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne. A quick Amazon search reveals that many authors have paid similar homages in their titles, including The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe. I'm kind of intrigued by that one, actually.
Lichter is apparently a grotesque-looking man who spends most of his time alternately begging and pontificating in Bucharest's public parks. The novel is written from the point of view of a self-appointed biographer of Lichter's, but this person is never named, nor do they share any particular opinions of their own. We also occasionally see Lichter interact with a few friends, a few interested passers-by, and a doctor that he tries to avoid at all costs.
What I liked
Lichter has a lot of interesting things to say. I made heavy use of the highlight feature in this book, possibly more so than in any other book I've read. For example, he sums up the dilemma of living authentically:
For is there anything more pathetic than to live in a world of truth and have an alienated world reject you as alien; to live in the sphere of the serious and have a ludicrous world laugh at you because it finds you ludicrous?
The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter, page 10
Also, you could argue that he predicted the modern wellness industry:
Thousands and tens of thousands of illnesses, one more complicated than the other, have been invented and along with them, equally complicated means of combatting them.
The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter, page 114
Lichter talks a lot about living honestly and mindfully. I can see why the introduction, by his compatriot Norman Manea, put a lot of attention on the quotes. This book is eminently quotable. By the way, if you read in the Kindle app on iPad and highlight a section, it will even make an Instagram-ready quote image for you. No doubt that Zacharias Lichter would disapprove.
What I didn't like
Calling this book a novel is a stretch. It's really more of a collection of anecdotes interspersed with the occasional poem, and as such, doesn't go anywhere. Characters dip in and out for no particular reason, and the anecdotes don't build on each other. I don't need Dan Brown levels of plot intrigue, but I need more than what I got here.
Also, nobody likes being talked at all the time, not even by an alleged genius. And some of his rants didn't make any sense, like when he spends a whole chapter talking about how terrible writing is. Reading this "novel" is basically committing to being talked at for 150 pages. It was more tiring than Forest of the Hanged, despite the latter being more than twice as long.
Overall verdict
You've probably guessed by now that this book wasn't my cup of tea. I'm willing to concede that the fault may be on my end. Again, referring to Manea's introduction, he talks about how the book perfectly captures the political environment of Romania in the late 1960s. And since Manea was there, he knows what he's talking about. But I fear that much of the novel might be lost on anyone who wasn't there, myself included.
Manea and others have also called this a subversive novel, and I have to admit that I don't see what Călinescu is trying to subvert. I've also read reports that Călinescu wrote this book as a joke, thinking nobody would actually publish it. That explanation makes the most sense to me. Two stars on Goodreads.
What's next?
My next book will be the first in the challenge by a non-Romanian author, Zen Beyond Mindfulness by Jules Shuzen Harris. Harris is Black, so he meets my criteria for non-Romanian authors in this challenge. This book satisfies Category 4, a book on psychology or personal development.
How do you feel about novels with no plot? Can you shed light on the political situation in Romania in the late 1960s? Leave your thoughts in the comments!