Reading post: July

It's the last day of July, so time for a reading post. The books I drew from my "Briefly Noted" envelopes this month were Underground in Berlin, a "matter-of-fact" memoir by a Jewish woman who survived WWII in Berlin, and Butterflies in November, a novel about Iceland described as "picaresque."

• Underground in Berlin: A Young Woman's Extraordinary Tale of Survival in the Heart of Nazi Germany by Marie Jalowicz Simon, translated from the German by Anthea Bell (2014). This memoir is actually a transcription of tapes made by the author's son in the last year of his mother's life. Marie had always refused to tell her story, but finally agreed to do it. It's quite fascinating. Unlike Anne Frank, Marie Jalowicz hid in plain sight in Berlin, going from one apartment to another, since she could pass as Aryan (she stopped wearing a yellow star). She often has to have sex in order to survive, and I kept thinking, Anne Frank couldn't have done that, she was too young. Finally the war ends and Marie is able to resume her life, but she and her country will never be the same. Really an interesting book, very much worth reading (I convinced Rocket Boy to read it too). Also, it must have been one of the last books translated by the amazing Anthea Bell (who also translated W. G. Sebald).
  
  
• Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Olafsdottir, translated from the Icelandic by Brian FitzGibbon (2004/2013). I like books about Iceland, which seems like such an interesting country, but this wasn't the greatest example. The brief New Yorker review said the main character's "quirkiness is perhaps too self-consciously achieved." That's one way of putting it. The novel begins with the nameless main character being dumped by the husband she was cheating on, because the woman he was cheating on her with is about to have his baby. The narrator wins the lottery twice and goes off on a journey with her best friend's small son, because the friend, who seems to be an alcoholic, is in the hospital due to complications with her next pregnancy. The most interesting part of the story is the Icelandic recipes (collected in the back of the book). Sour whale, anyone?

Best books of the 21st century so far

In July I planned to read some more books off the New York Times list by authors with last names beginning with K and L. There were at least five books in that category that interested me, and I read three of them.

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, translated from the Spanish by Adrian Nathan West (2021). I really liked this book; it's one of my favorites so far from that NY Times list. It's beautifully written -- maybe beautifully translated? I googled the translator, because this has got to be partly his doing. Anyway, this is a "nonfiction novel" about the men responsible for quantum theory and other important scientific and mathematical discoveries of the 20th century: Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, and some I was less familiar with, like Schwarzschild, Grothendieck, and Mochizuki. Labatut is interested in how their discoveries drove them insane (in some cases) and also caused enormous damage to the world (the atomic bomb, poison gas). Probably real scientists and mathematicians wouldn't like it, because it romanticizes them. But I was mostly enthralled.

Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon (2018). I wanted to read this memoir because I thought it was about being fat. And it is, partly. Kiese Laymon weighed over 200 pounds at age 12 and over 300 in college. And then he lost over 150 pounds. And then he gained it all back while also succumbing to a gambling addiction. But really this is mostly about growing up Black and poor in Mississippi and how those experiences might lead one to overeat, if one were wired that way, or do other self-destructive things. It's a devastating book. Laymon is trying so hard to be honest, and he shows, over and over, how incredibly hard that is. He makes it pretty clear that he's writing to and for Black Americans, not white people, but obviously lots of white people will read the book, and it has something to say to us too. It's a very difficult book to read, but I think it will be hard to forget.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith (2007/2016). An article I read about this book said that Deborah Smith began translating it by looking every word up in a Korean-English dictionary. She had been studying Korean for only 3 years! So you really have to wonder... But other articles say she did well, and Han, the author, has voluntarily continued working with her. OK, so, fine. It's a strange book. I kind of liked it, kind of didn't. It's about a young woman who stops eating meat, or any animal products, because of a frightening dream she has. Gradually, over the course of the 3-part novel (I liked the 2nd part best), she wants to become a plant, or a tree, and stops eating altogether, trying to get sustenance only from water and sunlight. Childhood abuse is an issue, as is Korea's patriarchal culture. And... I don't know what to make of it. But Han won the Nobel Prize last year, so her work must be good, right? I might try to read more of it. Maybe.

So I've now read 47 of the books on the list of the top 100. Still aiming for at least 50 by the end of the year, and it looks like it will be more than that.

Other reading

Recently I ran across a list of someone's favorite books about witches. Lolly Willowes: or The Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Ashton Warner sounded interesting, so I requested it from Prospector and read it. A lot of fun! But I'm not sure it's really about being a witch. It's about how women in England at that time (1926) had very little freedom, and how selling your soul to the Devil might be a better option. Still a good read.

 

I also read a fictional version of the story of FDR and his true love, Lucy Mercer, the one who almost broke up his marriage. It was called simply Lucy: A Novel by Ellen Feldman (2004). I didn't like it much, although it provided more interesting information about FDR and his world. It's hard for me to see FDR as anything other than a womanizer who broke his wife's heart, and this book did not change my mind. 

 

Finally, at the end of the month I read two nonfiction books. First, I read a book my sister Barbara gave me for my birthday: The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham. The title made me think it was an older book, because how could a modern writer refer to himself as a "colored" man? But it was published in 2016. Lanham explains that he is mostly Black, somewhat multiracial, but also colored by the red clay soil, the white cotton, the "deepest blue of despair and darkness." The book is a memoir about growing up in South Carolina and somehow becoming an ornithologist; it's the story of his family and a bit of his genealogy. Very interesting and thought-provoking. He comes across as such a nice man. I'd like to meet him.

 

Then I read a book I found at the library called I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine by Daniel J. Levitin. It took me a while to get through this -- it was rather dense -- but so interesting, at least some of the time. I learned a lot about music and the brain, and something about how music is used to treat certain conditions. Most of it I'll probably immediately forget, but I'm basically glad I read it. 

 

The book group didn't meet in July -- we meet next week, finally -- and I read our next book -- Dungeon Crawler Carl -- at the very end of June, so nothing to worry about there. 

Next month

In August I will try to read two more books from my "Briefly Noted" envelopes and a few more from the NY Times list, focusing on books whose authors' last names begin with "M." There are three or four that interest me, so I'll see what I can find. This week I finally got off the hold list for Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again -- so I'm going to read that first thing. Then there will be the next book group book, and whatever else I find that strikes my interest.