July report

There’s a surprising (to me?) pleasure in taking a whole month to read books by authors whose other books I’ve read and liked. It’s a little bit scary, too, like “what if I don’t like their earlier work as much as I like their more recent stuff?” or “what if their new stuff isn’t as appealing to me as their older books?” The only way to find out is to read! That being said, it’s also interesting when, while I’ve read one or two books by a particular author, I don’t necessarily feel compelled to read all of that author’s books. Some authors, I’d read anything they write and I imagine I’d give them many second chances whenever I don’t lOvE something they write. Other authors, I only want to read other books by them if the plot intrigues me!

Anyway, this month’s report contains a little from column A and a little from column B.

What I read in July:

Elif Batuman, The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (2010)—While I have read some Russian literature, I wouldn’t say I’ve read a lot, and my reading history in this area is maybe a little bit idiosyncratic.1 I mention this to assure you that you really don’t need to know anything about Russian literature in order to enjoy Batuman’s first published book, an essay collection based on writing Batuman did for the New Yorker, n+1, and other similar venues. Put another way, as the back cover says:

These essays cover a lot of ground! They never read like book reports (the normal kind, not this newsletter kind) though they contain summaries of books, woven into reflections on Batuman’s earlier life/experiences and accounts of the lives the authors in question lived. I imagine one more familiar with Russian lit than I am would have an even richer/different reading experience than I did. And my experience was plenty rich!

What I love most about reading The Possessed after having read The Idiot (2017) and Either/Or (2022) is that The Possessed at times feels like the MTV Unplugged—sorry, the more contemporary reference would be NPR Tiny Desk Concert—to The Idiot’s and Either/Or’s studio albums, in that Batuman offers up many of the same experiences from college that she fictionalized in her novels, but with more detail and different context. What I love even more than that is how Batuman’s wit and talent for writing meaningful/substantial/beautiful sentences are just as present in the essays as in the novels.

I’d literally read anything Elif Batuman writes.

Lydia Millet, Dinosaurs (October 11, 2022)—One of the many reasons I will never be an influencer is that I refer to the advance reader copies I get on NetGalley as “influencer specials.”2 And IDK what I’m going to read in October but that’s a problem for future me. I needed to read Dinosaurs now/this month.

Anyway, about this book—back in January I took The Guardian’s calling this “the follow-up to A Children’s Bible” to literally mean a sequel, which it is not, haha. That being said, it’s very much in harmony with A Children’s Bible, but where ACB is a speculative/borderline-allegorical flood narrative with a thrillingly dark sense of humor, Dinosaurs is less flashy, more a meditation on what individual engagement with this endlessly spiraling world can look like. It’s hopeful.

I love a quiet novel!! “Quiet,” meaning: no big/massive events, just small dramas that aren’t small to the people living through them (eg, a child being bullied, someone getting over a breakup) as well as larger, distressingly commonplace traumas (eg, life in a shelter for victims of domestic violence, someone hunting birds at night while the birds are sleeping). And, just like real life, all of this taking place while the biggest event of any of our lives—the climate emergency—unfolds!

It wasn’t until I reached the end that I realized what Millet is doing with this book. [Bracketing off all questions about Art, Purpose, Action, and what constitutes “Enough,” because I think it’s okay to just appreciate what Millet is doing]. She is giving a blueprint for what can be possible in everyday lives, especially for those who are “comfortable” enough to not have to worry about things like rent and food.

Gil, the protagonist, is a wealthy, unassuming man who knows that philanthropy is a capitalist tool for long-term maximization of exploitation and profit but who has been convinced to “keep” “his” money and distribute it on the local level, anonymously, alongside the actual 40 hours a week he puts in doing menial volunteer work at various shelters for women or for refugees. Gil doesn’t have to be wealthy to do the small yet meaningful kinds of things that, when added up, make for something like community, something like people caring about their environment and about people other than themselves. He struggles to reconcile the enormity of everything happening with the tiny interventions he makes but he doesn’t give up:

This book is not an argument for incrementalism (I’m afraid I’m making it sound like it is). It feels more like a sibling to How to Do Nothing (2019) and Braiding Sweetgrass (2015). And, as with one of my fave novels, What Are You Going Through (2020),3 I don’t care if Dinosaurs is more fuel for Lauren Oyler’s 100% correct thesis about contemporary fiction’s obsession with morality!! I really liked this book!

Cho Nam-Joo, Saha (November 1, 2022)—The influencing continued this month, when Norton, who is publishing Cho’s second novel translated into English, granted my NetGalley request for an advanced reader copy!! I wanted to read this book because I liked Cho’s first novel4 translated into English, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (2016/2020), so much and because the plot of this novel seemed right up my alley!

The Saha Estates are an apartment complex on the edge of Town, an “independent” “nation” that is/is “owned by” (?) a corporation. Not unlike in The Immortal King Rao (2022), where “social capital” literally determined quality of life, citizenship in Town is determined by ability, but only where it concerns what we call white-collar work. Caregivers, teachers, and people in other service-oriented professions must compete for 2-year contracts that permit them to live in Town. Those who cannot or will not participate in the scramble for contract work end up at Saha.

Cho’s narrative follows several Saha residents at various points in their lives, building an overall impression of the specific and numerous ways that “corporate governance”/a fully privatized public sphere dehumanizes everyone. There’s a plot—Saha resident Do-Kyung goes into hiding when his Citizen girlfriend, Su, dies in a car crash. Do-Kyung’s sister, Jin-Kyung, embarks on a quest to clear her brother’s name, which compels her to confront the structural forces that created and sustain life at Saha, and which leads and is connected to solving other “mysteries” related to Town.

I liked this book! It’s being marketed as a “chilling dystopian fable for fans of . . . Squid Game,” a show I haven’t seen and don’t plan to watch. Since there is not a ton of violence in Saha, I am guessing that the similarity between show and novel lies in their critiques of capitalism, something that’s having a bit of a moment in popular culture these days! And, while I am always here for a cultural production that critiques rather than celebrates capitalism, I start to wonder how productive these critiques are or can be when they are, in the case of Squid Game, produced and distributed by Netflix, or when, in the cases of Saha, The Immortal King Rao, and the many other generically and thematically similar novels, their profitability5 generates endless reproductions.

What I’m trying to say is: it’s starting to feel a little uncomfortable consuming culture-industry-sanctioned “critiques” of capitalism. Might be time for me to re-read some Adorno and Horkheimer.

What I’m looking forward to reading in August:

Natalia Ginzburg, All Our Yesterdays (1952)6

Morgan Jerkins, Caul Baby (2021)

Leigh N. Gallagher, Who You Might Be (2022)

Maud Newton, Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation (2022)7

Ling Ma, Bliss Montage (September 2022)8