SONS AND DAUGHTERS by Chaim Grade

Here is 700 pages on Jewish life in Poland. It’s considered the last great Yiddish novel, apparently. It has a plot, kind of, or more like multiple plots, not all of which overlap. It also has a truly vast array of characters. Particularly I noted how much he liked to describe people, even minor ones. It took me a while to figure out what era we were in, and eventually I figured out it was the 1930s. Ah. I get it, he’s trying to capture a whole world. The introduction tells me this is indeed the case; he grew up in Vilna, which has 70,000 Jewish people before the war, and only a few hundred afterwards. His mother and first wife were in the same mass grave. He described himself to a friend in a letter as a’gravestone carver of my vanished world’ and said:

“I’ve always found it strange that I have so little faith and yet believe, with complete faith, that Providence saved me and allowed me to live, in order to immortalize the great that generation that I knew”

It was an odd book. At first it was kind of boring, I kept thinking I was going to quit, but the more I got into it, the more I got into it. I felt kind of bereft once it was over, and really weirdly close to Polish Jews of the1930s. I guess that was his goal. For what it’s worth, they live for me.

DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather

This is Cather’s alleged masterpiece. I am a huge fan of the much less famous MY ANTONIA, so thought I would give it a try. I can’t decide how I feel about it. Despite it being only about 250 pages, I kept almost giving up. Weeks later though, I am finding it has strangely stuck with me.

It tells about the struggles of two French priests, sent to Mexico (or New Mexico? I am not sure) in the late 1800s to manage an immense Catholic diocese. After the Spanish left, Catholicism managed to survive there on its own for multiple generations, without any additional reinforcement, developing its own rituals and apocrypha. I find it fascinating to see how the basic ideas of a religion are powerful enough across continents and centuries to keep people engaged, even if they only have a very short introduction to it. The priests were tasked with bringing this wild growing version of Catholicism back in line.

The book is a series of very short but very beautiful vignettes, moving back and forth in time from when the priests are young men, and decide to leave France for Mexico, through long mule rides across mountains, to building cathedrals, to rescuing women from abusive relationships, and finally on to death. It’s packed with incident and yet really I can’t tell you what I think it is about. I didn’t enjoy it, but perhaps I agree it is her masterpiece.

A HYMN TO LIFE by Gisele Pelicot

You probably read about this woman in the news. In her late 60s she found out that her husband had been sedating her and then inviting strangers over to rape her. (WHAT FOLLOWS IS ROUGH SO SKIP IT IF YOU NEED TO) This would have been terrible if it happened once. It happened 200 times. Even more horrifying was how he dealt with her ensuing health problems. You don’t get sedated that often without impact, and she struggled with long memory black outs, hair loss, etc. She thought she was going to die of a brain tumour like her mother, who died when she was 9. She also had dental problems, because she was orally raped so violently. This husband came with her to the doctors and specialists, acting concerned, all the while knowing exactly why she was so unwell.

This book is her account of finding out about what was happening, and the trial that followed. As shocking as what happened was, I found it even more shocking to see how she responded. This lady is just incredibly brave. She really struggled to watch the videos he made of all the rapes, but once she did, she realized she needed to go public. She wanted it clear that she was not ashamed to be in these videos; the perpetrators ought to be. Sounds basic, but the courage to do it is just incredible. She is a pretty ordinary lady, not a big feminist, left school at 15 etc, and I did think how proud the feminist movement should be, that she felt ready to step up into that experience.

One other thing I admired was her courage in accepting that she never knew her husband of fifty years. Imagine how difficult it would be to feel a huge chunk of you life was a lie. I’m amazed she is still standing.

YESTERYEAR by Caro Claire Burke

I can’t believe this is this author’s debut! First off, she came up with an amazing concept, being basically: tradwife goes back in time.  Then, even more gallingly, she really hit the execution of the concept out of the ballpark.  I won’t give away too much, because it has a fun twist, so let me just quote extensively as I like to do with books I like:

On her brother-in-law: “A pimple-faced corn dog of a young man with a bad temper”

On her husband, a rather sad figure who she forces into what she thinks his gender role should be: “he still wore his masculinity so roughly and unnaturally, as if it were an ill-fitting sweater I’d forced over his head”

And then best of all:

“Natalie’s like a border collie,” my mother used to say to the other women at church.  “She needs a project, otherwise she starts chewing the cabinet corners.”

“Are you saying my son is a project?” I imagined (my father-in-law) saying.

“No,” I imagined my mother replying.  “I’m saying he’s the cabinet corner.”

COLD WATER by Gwendoline Riley

Honestly I wish they would just start a new category in bookselling next to THRILLERS and WOMENS FICTION and whatever which is called LISTLESS NARRATORS, because then I could know what to avoid.

Typically I love Gwendoline Riley. I was completely crazy about MY PHANTOMS. She had a new book come out, and as I am too cheap to buy it in hard cover, the algorithm suggested I try one of her others. COLD WATER is her first, and god, even though it is only 200 pages, I barely got through it.

It tells about some girl who works at a bar, and also mostly hangs out at bars in her free time. So it’s a lot of listlessly going from one bar to another. I couldn’t care less. I love Riley so much I can only assume I must be missing something.

THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS by Giorgio Bassani

Here is a story about a young man’s first crush.  It’s pretty brutal, because they spend an awful lot of time together as ‘friends,’ and then she tells him she’s not interested.  Ouch.  It’s very much a story of the lost days of our youth, made particularly sadder by the fact that it all takes place in a Jewish community in Italy in 1938.   I don’t know how autobiographical this particular story is, but as the author also lived in that community, I can only imagine what it must feel like for him, memorializing that lost group of people and way of life. 

I feel bad to say it, given the context, but I did not particularly like the book.  The introduction informs us that Bassani has a ‘visual imagination,’ which I guess means he likes to list things, because believe me there a lot of lists.  Don’t wonder what the crush’s bedroom looks like, because you are going to be informed in a LOT of detail.  The author and the editor also assume a lot of knowledge of Italian politics of the interwar years. I particularly enjoyed one foot note that said: “This was a term for fascists from before the March 22 declaration.”   So different from those other fascists!

THE STRANGER BESIDE ME by Ann Rule

Here is a story about a woman who is contracted to write a book about the police’s search for a serial killer, and ends up finding out that she is in fact friends with the serial killer. Astoundingly, this is non-fiction.

The serial killer starts off killing individual women, first by sneaking into their homes, and then by snatching them off the street. Then he starts to beserk, and in a single day abducts one woman and then a few hours later another one, from a busy park. He rapes and murders them both that day. This is a breakthrough, because he approaches many women that day so they get a name, and make of vehicle. That name is Ted and that car is a bronze VW bug.

Now this author, who is closely following the case, she volunteers at the Samaritans. There she has a friend, a caring young man named Ted, who owns a bronze VW. So confident is she that it cannot be him, that she does not even report him.

To cut a long story short indeed he is Ted Bundy, the famous serial killer. He was such a convincing sociopath that not only did he trick her, but also his jailers – he escaped TWICE. Most importantly though he tricked multiple women. His schtick was to pretend to have a broken arm, and need help putting something in the car, or to pretend to be the police, so LADIES let us be reminded: BE ON YOUR GUARD, EVEN FROM THE APPARENTLY SAFE ONES.

WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE by Harry Sidebottom

This seemed like such a good idea: a piece of non-fiction about gladiators. I was all ready to emerge bristling with gladiator-related facts to tell people at parties. Also, who could not love this surname!

It was kind of interesting, but also boring. This is partly because he spent a lot of time telling us about his sources, which is in itself kind of boring. But it was I guess educational, because one main fact I learnt is that we really know very little about gladiators and a lot of it is very much cobbled together from like 3 murals.

Also I have to object to the opening of each chapter, which included a small piece of ‘fiction’ about the gladiator experience. Also to an entire chapter on how to interpret gladiators in dreams. Here I learnt that ancient Romans be talking as much nonsense as anyone else.

I did get this interesting fact: “In AD27 an ex-slave called Atilius put on a gladitorial show for profit at Fidenae, not far from Rome. The wooden ampitheatre he constructed lacked solid foundations and adequate materials. During the show it collapsed, killing 50,000 people.”

This is so a movie waiting to be written. Maybe we pitch it for Gladiator 3.

HALF HIS AGE by Jeanette McCurdy

I loved McCurdy’s memoir I’M GLAD MY MOM’S DEAD, so I thought I would give her fiction a whirl.  It wasn’t for me as good as her memoir, but I still enjoyed it.  She’s a sharp writer of uncomfortable topics.

In this novel, a seventeen year old girl pursues her English teacher.  He does not put up much of a fight.  They have lots of very explicit sex.  You will not be amazed to learn she does not have a very stable home life.  She gets very fixated on him, and eventually demands he leaves his wife.  I was surprised to feel rather sorry for him.  Here he is on how teaching is not his dream:

I wanted to be a writer.  A novelist.  But I couldn’t handle the lack of security required to be one.  I couldn’t tolerate the fluctuating, inconsequential strings of income.  The consistent rejection.  The scrutiny of my parent’s friends . . The uncertainty.  I chose being able to afford take-out from the Thai place on the corner over roughing it, living off ramen noodles. I chose going to the game with the guys over submitting my short stories to publicatins.  I chose catching up on my favourite TV show over finishing a draft.  I chose comfort over betting on myself.’

He leaves his wife for her, and once she has him she does not want him any more.