Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1959)

Colonialism arrives at a village in rural Nigeria, and things ... .

Book Review: Things Fall Apart surprised me. I thought it was a typical high school assigned read, medicinal, politically correct, somewhat bland, and intended to show just what an enlightened teacher you have. And it is, but ... it's probably good for high school kids to start learning about the destructive aspects of colonialism; it is educational, and I'd say three quarters story, one quarter message, but an important message; a little bland, and hence suitable for teen readers, but it is an adult novel; and a book to enlighten readers who need to (and can) be enlightened. Things Fall Apart has four strikes against it. First, it's routinely assigned in school, and it's difficult to appreciate books that one is forced to read if one is a rebel without a clue (hence, my preconceptions). Really, this is a book better read outside of school, without raising the rebellious resistance that has tainted so many great books (such as The Great Gatsby, which this does not resemble in the slightest). Next, it does seem like one of those medicinal books that liberal academics enjoy putting in the curriculum. But every once in awhile you need to eat some healthy food and read a book that's good for your soul, and this is one of them. Third, most readers will consider our protagonist unlikable ("misogynist" is the term that will pop up, I believe), and the traditional gender roles will blind many readers to the rest of the story. The traditional society was in some ways a flawed one to European eyes. But in other ways better. And finally, building from the last point, Things Fall Apart is about a traditional African society, with attitudes, customs, and religion, largely impenetrable to many Western readers. Many white readers will not understand, or even truly try to understand this book, it's too far from the norm. But, darn it! I liked it, I lived it, I learned from it, and I think it's a classic. Our protagonist is macho, feels he needs to be so, and like Hercules struggles to follow the rules of his village, not quite understanding how he sabotages himself. Then as times change he struggles against the new order, again, not fully understanding what he's up against. While many will not like Okonkwo, I found him sympathetic as a character who believes he's following the rules, is doing what's right, works hard all the time, but fails nonetheless. Yes he's a hard man, but not cruel or unfair, he adheres to what he sees as his duty. You may even know someone like him. The other half of the story shows the insidiousness of colonialism and evangelism, and Achebe shows step by step, person by person, hour by hour, how the imperialist British and the missionaries succeeded in establishing their rule, and destroying the traditional way of life that had kept things together. At the same time, it's a balanced story. As we've learned through the troubled history of Africa, the violence of colonialism is that it destroys the stability of the traditional culture, without successfully replacing the existing society. Things Fall Apart is deceptively simple, surprisingly complex, and the best analysis of colonialism I've read. [4½★]

FilmLit: Becoming Jane (2007)

Film Review: Becoming Jane is the perfect example of how too many people can form their unalterable view of history from the poetic license, exaggeration, and fiction of films. This is a fictionalized telling of a true romance in the life of Jane Austen. Viewed as a trifle, an average romcom, this is a fine film, with more than adequate acting, attractive players, sets, costumes, and the like, but the story itself, the content of the story, is lacking. The film does not have the witty and tongue-in-cheek allusions to the life of Austen as Shakespeare in Love did with the Bard. The more the viewer knew about Shakespeare, the more the viewer could enjoy that film. Nor is it an accurate and illuminating commentary on the life of this great writer; although not overdone, I'm unsure there's any evidence that Tom Lefroy guided or influenced Austen's writing. The film takes liberties and makes real distortions in the facts of Austen's life. Nor does Becoming Jane cleverly incorporate Austen's novels into this telling, either comedically making her life into an Austen novel, or, conversely and more seriously, finding the autobiographical in her novels and using them to illustrate this biopic. In fact, except for a few instances, this film needn't have been about Jane Austen, and could've been about any young woman who wanted to be a writer and had an episode of romantic entanglement; it could've been simply a Georgian romcom. Although enjoyable and worth watching, Becoming Jane doesn't add anything to the story of the beloved writer, and so is a huge missed opportunity to make a lasting work that would be treasured by generations of Austen fans. A lovely and amusing entertainment, but little more. 🐢

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (1977)

Book Review: Song of Solomon is what would've happened if Zora Neale Hurston and Gabriel Garcia Marquez made a baby. This novel combines insights into urban and rural black culture and community with bits of myth, ghosts, folklore, voodoo, or (if you want to go there) magical realism. There were moments I thought I was reading Marquez, other moments I was reading Hurston, and all the time I was reading our Nobel Laureate, Toni Morrison. While black and white relations are addressed, more of the book addresses black history (all the way back to Africa), black interactions (even as affected by white culture), and even more so internalized racism and feelings of racial identification. Our protagonist's father is a slumlord who preys on the black community (as whites do), and is largely rejected by black folk, but although wealthy he is too vulgar for the white folk. His son has been raised apart from the culture of the black community, and has to learn (and want) to be black. In a book where the act of naming is highlighted, his nickname is "Milkman," and although black he's a white man who undergoes a transformation. The book is literally his journey, his flight, into finding his culture. Song of Solomon has deeply affecting characters (if you don't love Pilate, you don't love nobody), examines many sharp aspects of American culture, heavily faceted storytelling, and Morrison does well at mostly bringing all these shards together in a comprehensive mosaic. This is an important book about being black in America.

Why the "mostly"? Genius as it is, there are a few false notes. The ending, as others have noted, could be stronger, it's anti-climactic (ah, if it had, with a little rearranging, ended about seven paragraphs earlier). More problematic for me is about 97% of the time Toni Morrison is writing about America and it is fall-on-your-knees brilliant. There are sections where I'm thinking, wow, she's the American Garcia Marquez, she's the American Murakami (or maybe they're the Colombian or Japanese Morrison?). But that other three percent of the time Morrison seems to decide: "Oh wait, I'm writing an important novel, let me throw in a significant statement, let me add a sweeping view of history, let me drop in a disjointed metaphor or have my characters talk like Cornel West." No! The story is profound, it is significant, it does create a view of history, the story itself is the metaphor. The story doesn't need these PBS moments, it's great already. Toni Morrison won the Nobel, she doesn't need to make sure the slower critics catch on that this is a significant novel. Fortunately, almost all these moments are in about the first third of the book, and don't weigh down the rest of it when she really gets going. Song of Solomon, amazing storytelling, one of the important American novels of our time, of any time. [4½★]

Good Writers / Bad Readers

Reader shaming! Oh no! Yes, it could be you: are you a Bad Reader of good writers? Now you may just not give a blip and that's fine too, we all read in our own way. And I'll leave bad writers and Good Readers for another day. But if you want to read better, read better books, become a Good Reader, this could be for you. Or maybe I'm the only Bad Reader around.  A Bad Reader has certain characteristics. First, he can't read a book and recognize its quality if he doesn't get on with it. That is, because a reader doesn't enjoy a book, that means it's a bad book. For a Bad Reader, personal taste is the only or most important criterion, and he makes no allowances for his personal preferences. A Bad Reader will happily read a book by Austen, Dostoyevsky, Fitzgerald, Dickens, Hemingway, or Tolstoy and pronounce it terrible and incompetently written, because he didn't like it. Sound like anyone you know?

Here are a few of the techniques good writers use that frustrate Bad Readers: (1) Changing the point of view, switching narrators, jumping from one head to another; (2) Bouncing around in time, we're in the past, the future, the present, no, the past again, flashback, is this the same book, flash forward, help me! (3) Creating unlikable characters: is our heroine a spoiled, snobby brat? Does a character make disgusting racist or sexist statements? Is our protagonist kind of too stupid to live? Is the bad guy a violent, sadistic troll? (4) Throwing in so many big and odd words that your phone is always on the dictionary app; (5) Long, slow stretches where nothing seems to happen. Any of these sound familiar? Bad writers could be guilty of all these infractions, absolving you as a Good Reader of all blame, but here I'm talking about good writers.

Let's look at those first two troubling techniques, changing narrators or writing without a linear chronology. Both of these require the reader to put a little work in, primarily to focus and pay attention. A good writer will put in enough little clues, signposts, to let the reader know who's talking or where we are in the story's overall timeline. Look for the clues, get to know the signposts, get deeper into the book. If you're a younger reader, you may want to come back to books like these in a few years. Unlikable characters? You're just not going to like everybody. Is Snape your buddy? Who likes Mr. Wickham? But, you say, what if there are no likable characters? At first no one likes coffee (more cream! more sugar!), but then it becomes an acquired taste. Same with unlikable characters. A good writer will make her characters interesting, even if unlikable, and draw the reader in that way. There should be tension, friction, anticipation. Will this unlikable character be punished (this is where the word "comeuppance" arrives)? A good writer can fill a book with unlikable characters, because life can be just like that. Not everything is unicorns, rainbows, and pixie dust. When you can read a book in which you don't fully identify with any of the characters, you'll know you're ready to drink coffee. Next, too many big words. Here I tend to agree with critics of writers who show off too much, and for me it's a thin line between education and pretension. You may have to make your own decision whether the writer is throwing out words that perfectly describe the situation, or are just throwing the reader out of the story for no good reason. But it's also good to learn, and good to increase your vocabulary. I just don't like books that are too much like medicine. Again, it can be a fine line. Finally, long, slow, and boring. If it is a good writer, the reader has to be alert for subtlety, and ask questions. Is the story going inside a character's mind, is the writer explaining a motivation, setting up a future scene? Perhaps the writer is sharing her philosophy, and especially in older books this was a widely accepted practice. Hint, try skimming. In Moby Dick, Melville included long non-fiction sections on the nuts and bolts of whaling. Some readers love those parts, for the rest, skimming. It won't affect the story. And you'll still be a Good Reader. 🐢

Reading Classics

Although there's plenty of time for reading the new novels of our day (what are Donna Tartt and Marlon James up to lately?), I'm always drawn back to classics. What is a classic? Other than a book that has "stood the test of time," no one knows. Some people use a hundred years as a guideline, but that's too strict for me and I've settled on something around 50 years or so, which feels just about right. That takes us back to the mid-sixties, and aren't the books of that time about due to be classics? Catch-22, Portnoy's Complaint, To Kill a Mockingbird, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Crying of Lot 49, The Fire Next Time, The Collector, Slaughterhouse Five, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, A Clockwork Orange, The Golden Notebook, all worthy company. Come on, you consider at least a couple of those classics already, yeah?

Of course not all classics are created equal. Some books have stayed in print simply because of other greater books by the same author. I'm not sure all of Thomas Hardy's books are equally good, but most can still be found pretty much. Write one great book, you'll have a better chance of keeping your other books in print. We tend to think of "classics" as profound, difficult, and sagacious, but some novels have lasted just because they're a good yarn. Dumas could rip out a darned good plot, but I'm not sure he reaches the same depths as Eliot, Tolstoy, or Kafka. Or is that just the snob in me sticking its snout out of the mud?

I like thinking of classics as wee time machines. As so many were contemporary novels, they take me back to the time they were written, to see how common people lived, what they did and thought, what their concerns were and how like us, or unlike us, they were. I can travel to many different times and many different countries. Historical novels (hello Phillipa Gregory!) are all well and good, but I can't trust them quite as much -- sometimes history has to give way to a good, juicy plot. I want the real thing, short of a well-written history, perhaps. But the wee time machine also takes us back to today. By reading classics I know the book has stood the test of time and millions of readers have loved it. When I read Ali Smith, Chabon, Morrison, Tartt, I wonder if they'll last, how many good books they'll write, was it really a good book or did I just have a good meal before reading. But with classics I have no such doubts. Not all will be for me, but they'll all have quality worth looking for. 🐢

Emma by Jane Austen (1815)

Emma is wealthy, clever, beautiful, and almost 21, what could she ever need?

Book Review: Emma is Jane Austen's longest book, and although not much happens, there's little friction, conflict, or plot, the book never seemed too long. Reading Emma just seemed like staying in the fantasy of Austenland a little longer than usual. In these times, the longer the escape into moral safety the better. Austen herself famously said that Emma Woodhouse was "a heroine whom nobody but myself will like much." I believe she was famously wrong, and Emma is adorable, and both Austen and the reader excessively enjoy Emma page after page. After the silent martyrdom of Fanny Price in Mansfield Park (who would better fit Austen's quote), the snobby, self absorbed, spoilt, and misguided Emma is a gem. I found her irresistible, fully alive, because at heart she is always generous, good-natured, and well-intentioned. Of course, my mother always said the road to Hell is paved with good intentions ... . We watch as Emma, a little young for her age, perhaps, learns and grows and joins the world. Along the way we meet some near-Dickensian characters: Emma's father, a tireless hypochondriac, an English fretter who is never happier than when he is miserable; Miss Bates who is incapable of limiting herself to five words when there is time for a hundred or more, never tiring, always happy; the tiresome Mrs. Elton who has the worst side of all of Emma's qualities and haunts every page on which she appears. Austen seems sweet, but sometimes there's arsenic hidden in the sugar. Per usual we see the English class system of the time, with the aristocracy happily oblivious of those toiling below. My only small complaint about Emma is the absence of plot and conflict, in which the most dire events are the accidental unkindness and the occasional snub, but this is amply compensated as we spend so much time inside Emma's and Austen's minds. If the reader has encountered Austen before, how the cast will play out their roles is fairly obvious from the start, but no less enjoyable for all of that. [4★]

Hate My Favorite Book? I Hate You!

Okay, okay, maybe that's overstating it a wee bit, but not by much. For many readers, someone who dislikes their favorite book is inherently suspect, certainly untrustworthy, guilty of poor judgment at best and more likely engaging in subversive activities. I, too, am guilty of this genetic prejudice. When I learn that someone dislikes The Great Gatsby, I figure there's not much point in talking to them any longer and quite naturally wonder what other unsavory vices they've performed in the past. Now, I know students are forced to read TGG when they're too young to appreciate it and no one likes to be manhandled into reading anything. But it's a great book! Rather than working myself into apoplexy, however, I'll simply refer you benighted souls to So We Read On (2014) by Maureen Corrigan, the NPR book critic, who has explained and enumerated the manifold virtues of TGG far better than I can. But why this visceral reaction to something that seems like a relatively tame difference of opinion? If someone doesn't like coconut, I feel sorry for them that they're missing out on this tropical culinary pleasure. The joy of a Mounds bar. But I don't dislike them. I'm baffled, confused, and pitying, but there's no animosity. We don't all like the same things (of course if you don't like chocolate you are a communist). Similar emotions exist when people don't enjoy the music I like. Too bad for you. And I don't expect others to appreciate the films or TV series I love. But books are different. Books touch a certain part of us, they're private and personal even as we know they're a public product. But our favorite books are a secret treasure, a special moment we want to return to again and again. And for someone else to have read the same book and not felt as we did? To have touched that gem and not appreciated it -- unforgivable. Such a lapse in taste, judgment, intelligence. How can we even coexist with them? They are far too different. The true difference between people is not race, religion, or choice in t-shirts: it's the books we love. 🐢

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970)

The first novel by American author and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, the story of a small girl, crushed by those damaged, powerless to stop the inevitable.

Book Review: The Bluest Eye at first struck me as a powerful book about the black experience, then I thought of it as a classic American story, and finally realized, as I should have, that it was all too human a narrative. The book is told from multiple perspectives and times, stitching together a quilt of views of the girl, a lost soul who becomes a troubled soul, and the various points of view make it all seem inevitable. Everyone is the way they are, and the way they are leads to one little girl, the least among us, never having anything and losing everything. For this girl there is no community, for the black community is complicit in the crimes against her. Blacks compete with blacks, judge each other, look down on each other; it seems there's more friction than comfort. But then Morrison looks at those complicit, looks at the societal pressures that shaped their lives, the humiliations, shame, anger. She looks at their perspectives, how they too were powerless when confronted with greater forces. Even the little girl's mother prefers the white family she works for, to her own family and children. Then outside that circle of guilt, there's yet another larger circle of hell, of failure. The Bluest Eye says at some point we all have responsibility for what happens in our society, and a responsibility to act. As this was Toni Morrison's first novel she had not acquired the skills that became obvious later, she wasn't quite yet Toni Morrison. Here she's a little clumsier, a little more obvious, maybe a little harsher than she needs to be. But while noticeable, none of that detracts from the powerful story, the important philosophy, and the strong emotions the reader feels. The Bluest Eye is a necessary book for anyone who wants to read great American authors. [4★]