May report

You ever get so burned out that you go past the point of “no thoughts, head empty” to having thoughts that sound like they were written by the latest snake-oil technology? That’s me today/this month. “Apoploe vesrreaitais eating Contarra ccetnxniams luryca tanniounons.”

Anyway, at least I can still read (only works with books that are good) and get involved in doing something to get guns banned while I work on un-burning out.

What I read in May:

Ali Smith, Companion Piece (2022)—One weird thing about me is that whatever I’ve said about other fiction about the pandemic simply does not apply to anything Ali Smith writes about it. Even weirder is that I’ve tried reading her non-seasonal quartet books and not gotten very far in them, as though her experimental style is only digestible for me in the context of the seasonal quartet. So like, where is it coming from, my rigid and capricious open-mindedness only to Ali Smith’s pandemic thoughts and only to her seasonal quartet novels?

This is to say that while I loved Companion Piece, which is literally a companion piece to the seasonal quartet, and which, like Autumn (2016), Winter (2018), Spring (2019), and Summer (2020), is set as close to the present day as a production schedule could allow, I am not sure how many of you, my friends of the Report, would enjoy this novel. As with the other novels in the quartet, Companion Piece can be read on its own, without prior knowledge of the preceding books. Also like the others, it features an artist and at least one author’s works as structural elements supporting the loose plot of people muddling through everyday life, sprinkled with the smallest bits of magical realism.

I’m not trying to gatekeep Ali Smith, but when I think about how I can describe the way I’ll be reading, getting through the pages, and then I get to a couple paragraphs that suddenly distill all that preceded them into this like, plain and poetic prose that straight up moves me? The best way I can describe it is: “the girls who get it, get it.”

Elaine Shieh Chou, Disorientation (2022)1—This is a smart and funny campus novel that also contains chillingly accurate depictions of what it’s like to try to write a dissertation when you feel as though you “have no ideas.” At the risk of sounding like Stefon,2 this novel has everything—a little bit of an archival mystery, explorations of identity (specifically regarding gender, ethnicity, place, and class), institutional critique, millennial despair, many different kinds of betrayal, etc.

What I found most impressive about Chou’s debut novel was how quickly I was able to move through its roughly 400 pages (that’s a lot of pages!) and how Chou was able to cover so much ground while also maintaining structural coherence. That is, for all the different topics she addresses, each topic is mostly seamlessly integrated into the plot itself, so that the book itself doesn’t feel like a collection of ideas but rather a coherent narrative.

Naturally, I loved the institutional critique and found it particularly compelling that the critique is primarily delivered through the perspective of its protagonist, the initially sort-of apolitical Taiwanese American Ingrid Yang, whose discoveries in and out of the archive lead her on a “coming-to-consciousness” journey not just about higher education in the US, but also about herself and her relationships to friends, lovers, family, and colleagues.

Elif Batuman, Either/Or (2022)—One of my most anticipated books of the year and I’m thrilled to report that it did not disappoint. In fact, it inspired all the same thoughts and feelings as the novel to which this is a sequel (The Idiot [2017]) did. I’m afraid to look around and see if Batuman has said anything about whether there will be a third and a fourth novel, corresponding to the remaining years that Selin, the protagonist of both The Idiot and Either/Or, has left in college. I really want there to be a third and fourth novel and I don’t want to know if Batuman has said there won’t be.

You don’t have to have read The Idiot to follow the narrative of this novel, but I think if you want to read Either/Or, you should read The Idiot first, because if you do read Either/Or first, you will inevitably regret not having started with The Idiot.

Anyway, Either/Or begins at the start of Selin’s sophomore year at Harvard, where she is still trying to figure out how to be in this world, using books, experiences, and the advice of her friends and family as sources of inspiration. I feel like if I describe the “plot,” the novel will sound like something much different than it is. So I’ll just say that it feels spiritually connected to Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends (2017)3 and, in some ways, also to Elena Ferrante’s The Story of a New Name (2012/2013).

This novel is so thoughtful! And sweet! And funny! It makes me feel so gentle toward the younger version of myself, muddling through her undergrad philosophy and literature courses, trying to understand things in themselves and also as they related to her life, all the while walking around campus and listening to extremely—I mean extremely—moody music4 on her little ipod. Either/Or is such a lovely and loving exploration of a very specific stage of life!!

Just trying to break up the wall of text a little bit. Don’t forget you can share this report with anyone you think might like it :)

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (2015)—An essay collection/memoir/treatise/history, Braiding Sweetgrass is also a mesmerizing sort of ecological A People’s History of the United States (1980) that combines knowledge, reflection, and direction about ways people have related to their natural environments and how those of us not already doing so might re-frame our understandings of and relationships to the natural world in order to begin to undo the damage that the capitalist mode has incurred over the past several centuries.

Kimmerer is an amazing writer (and reader of the audiobook!), seamlessly blending history, science, and memoir. And one thing I particularly love about Braiding Sweetgrass is that it recognizes the enormous task ahead, acknowledges that the task may feel impossible to achieve, but! crucially! also offers real hope in the form of a range of meaningful actions that everyday people can take. I cannot stress enough how important that is to me, someone who struggles to not be a doomer!

I loved this book so much that I’m going to buy a physical copy of it in order to mark up and keep returning to my favorite passages.

Hernan Diaz, Trust (2022)—Can’t even begin to remember how this book popped up on my radar but I am so glad it did because this was exactly the book I wanted to read. Hilariously, the day after I’d scoffed at watching Chariots of Fire (1981), saying “I don’t like fan fiction about the 1920s, I only like fiction written in the 1920s,” I started reading/loving this novel about the 1920s and 1930s!!

A riveting, elegant “literary puzzle,” Trust explores “the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts” through 4 competing narratives of a fictional reclusive Wall Street tycoon. It’s like nothing I’ve ever read before and it’s so smart while also being so compelling. I will be thoroughly surprised if this book does not end up in my top 5 for the year!

What I’m looking forward to reading in June:

Yoon Choi, Skinship (2022)

Tamara Shopsin, Laserwriter II (2021)

Vauhini Vara, The Immortal King Rao (2022)

Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry (2022)5