July 2017 Reads Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

Big Little Man: In Search of my Asian Self - Alex Tizon (2014)
"Our early years in America were marked by relentless self-annihilation, though of course we did not see it that way at the time."

Even though I'm not at all the author's main target audience (Asian-American men), I found this exploration of self and culture enlightening. There are a lot of things to unpack here, including how Asian men are portrayed in modern media and in American culture in general. And though a number of points weren't new to me and I didn't really mesh with or relate deeply to Tizon's overall writing style and experiences, it's hard to be unaffected by things like the author's methods of self-harm as a young man as he attempted to make his features more "Western" - an ideal pushed not only by his surrounding culture, but by his immigrant father.

That said, I admit to struggling with my reaction to this book because I read Tizon's posthumously published piece "My Family's Slave" first. In Big Little Man, Tizon barely gives a passing mention to his "Aunt Lola", which feels like a huge erasure despite his later attempt to give her a voice. Thus, to me his book was overshadowed by the unspoken issue of Lola's story and his family's treatment of her, and I finished it feeling conflicted.

Related Reads:
Fresh Off the Boat (Huang)

Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013)
"Afterwards they would return to America to fight on the Internet over their mythologies of home, because home was now a blurred place between here and there, and at least online they could ignore the awareness of how inconsequential they had become."

This was something of an eye-opening read about modern-day immigrants from African countries, Nigeria specifically; I can't recall that I've read anything in this specific genre before. The characters felt real to me, and I enjoyed the story layout and the switching between points of view (not something I'm always a fan of) as well as the descriptions of the actions and reactions of the characters. The format of including blog posts (written by the main character) at the end of certain chapters threw me off a little, and I wondered if this added to the slight feeling I had that the book was already tending towards being dated.

Related Reads:
Between the World and Me (Coates)
The Nanny Diaries (McLaughlin & Kraus)

The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden (2017)
"The forest of Lesnaya Zemlya was not like the forest around Moscow. It was wild and crueler and fairer. The vast trees whispered together overhead, and all around, Konstantin seemed to feel eyes."

This is a magical and dark Russian fairy tale; it deals with the struggle of the balance between religion and old stories and tradition. The book winds through historical references and contains some unsettling dark fantasy-violence. I wish it had been a little more developed in some areas and perhaps a little less by-the-book in others. That said, I'm a lover of both Russian novels and fairy tales, so this novel (the first by its author), though not perfect, hit a sweet spot for me.

Related Reads:
The Moorchild (McGraw)
American Gods (Gaiman)

Papa Married a Mormon - John D. Fitzgerald (1955)
(my version: First Printing, copyright 1976)
"He believed... that some day all men would realize they were God's children and when they hurt by word or deed another man, they were hurting God."

This semi-autobiographical family history is set in the Utah Territory days. It's less factual than I first thought; with a bit of internet research I found that quite a number of details were changed in this telling (Fitzgerald admits that his book is about "the people who made Utah history and not history per se."). I wondered why the author didn't stick closer to the actual facts of his family history, which seemed like it would be interesting enough. As it is, Fitzgerald portrays what seems to be a generally accurate picture of Utah frontier life, which is fascinating for anyone at all interested in American Frontier history and/or Mormon history. I especially appreciated reading about the surprisingly tolerant views that Fitzgerald's family held on religion.

With that background, I feel like I also have to include a few content notes: there's some casual racism towards Native Americans in general as well as Mexican and Chinese immigrants (at least in part due to the recorded viewpoints of contemporary figures in the book), and Fitzgerald quotes instances of, but seems to breeze by or even excuse, early Mormon pioneer practices such as taking Paiute children away from their parents to "civilize" them in white schools.

Related Reads:
The Great Brain series (Fitzgerald)
The Blue Tattoo (Mifflin)

Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett (1991)
"Mirrors give plenty, but they take away lots."

This is another fun Discworld read that pulls from various fairytales for (sometimes darkly) humorous inspiration. Something I haven't mentioned before in my other Pratchett reviews is that I've appreciated how female-heavy the main character cast is - and that I find the characters (Granny Weatherwax in particular) really well done. It's also a note on how far I've come from my Christian Fundamentalist, Harry-Potter-banned childhood to even feel okay with reading a book with the word "Witches" in the title.

Related Reads:
Ella Enchanted (Levine)

July 2017 Reads Part 1

One word to describe July's mix of books? Multicultural (I decided the word encompasses Discworld, as well).

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End  - Atul Gawande (2014)
"We've created a multitrillion-dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lottery tickets - and have only the rudiments of a system to prepare patients for the near certainty that those tickets will not win."

Written by a surgeon, Being Mortal deals directly with death, fatal illnesses, and end-of-life care, making it a somewhat depressing and sometimes uncomfortable read. However, it's also a helpful and necessary read, especially for anyone in the medical field or those who have elderly relatives. Gawande draws from various studies, his personal experiences - both as an observer and as a surgeon - and his family background (his parents were from India) to discuss the issues surrounding mortality and aging, including the balance between individual independence and assisted care.

Related Reads:
Musicophilia (Sacks)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Tolstoy)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz (2007)
"She was my Old World Dominican mother and I was her only daughter, the one she had raised up herself with the help of nobody, which meant it was her duty to keep me crushed under her heel."

It's hard to accurately describe this book's style - it's off-beat and rapid-fire, punctuated with smatterings of strong language and violence, code-switching, and nerd-culture references. The focus is on members of a Dominican Republic immigrant family, with footnotes relating to Dominican culture and history interspersed. Layers of understanding are added as the book cycles through the stories of different family members, and it manages to be striking, evocative, sad, funny, and sage all at once. I related deeply to certain parts and facets of the book and not at all to others; I think most readers will find this to be true in different ways. All in all, Diaz' book is breathtaking in the whiplash-from-a-roller coaster kind of way.

Related Reads:
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez)

The Little Friend - Donna Tartt (2002)

"But most eloquent of all were the stories passed down to her - highly decorated items which Harriet embellished even further in her resolute myth of the enchanted alcazar, the fairy chateau that never was."

Donna Tartt's second novel The Little Friend is also the most polarizing of her three books. I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible, so all I'll note plotwise is that the book leaves the reader with a lot of open ends, which surprised and temporarily frustrated me. But exploration and description rather than pat endings are a hallmark of Tartt's writing style; for me, it's a satisfactory trade-off. Her uncanny ability to write through a child's eyes and the way she lovingly depicts the setting (semi-rural 1970's Mississippi) results in a tantalizing read. Despite - or perhaps because of - its imperfections, this is a novel that will grab you and compel you to pour over it multiple times to revel in certain passages and to try to work out what you might've missed.

Related Reads:
The Secret History (Tartt)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Jackson)
Harriet the Spy (Fitzhugh)

The Help (Stockett)

Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett (1988)
"Because the past is what people remember, and memories are words. Who knows how a king behaved a thousand years ago? There is only recollection, and stories. And plays, of course."

I enjoyed this book perhaps just a bit less than Equal Rites (its chronological predecessor), but Pratchett's humor interspersed in this wry sort-of re-telling of Macbeth, chock full of witches and ghosts and plots and schemes, made for a surprisingly satisfying light-fantasy read and left me eager for more Pratchett/Discworld novels.

Related Reads:
The Once and Future King (White)
The 13 Clocks (Thurber)

(to be continued in Part 2)