Category Archives: nihlism

All Fours by Miranda July

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I’m not sure there’s anything left for me to say that hasn’t already been said about Miranda July’s new book, All Fours, but I read it and so I’ll try to say something here. First, I always really appreciate July’s work and read it when I get the chance. She offers some great insights on the human condition and pairs it with lots of absurd, disgusting, and confusing action. Furthermore, for a bestseller, I can guarantee the writing will not be bad, and that’s more than I can say for a lot of bestsellers.

What I think it so important about the book, and what has given it all of this #allfoursgroupchat energy is that the the book tackles aging; emotional labor, especially in heterosexual relationships; and some of the physical changes and hormonal shifts women experience in their 40s and 50s. There are so many unique and terrible aspects of this reality that July captured accurately for me. I really appreciated that she gave it voice.

There are also many details seemingly based on some real events from her own life. This makes the book all the more engaging and compelling. The conclusion of the book does even more to mirror real life as the main character goes on book tour, except you know July hasn’t gone on tour yet before she’s done writing. It’s just a very unique way to end a book.

Overall, I know some readers won’t be able to handle this book because it is a lot. July’s work usually is. But, some of us will, and I hope that those of us who do like this book will be able to find that group chat.

The Seas by Samantha Hunt

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I just finished the beautiful, haunting, absurd, and magitragic novel, The Seas, by Samantha Hunt. This is a book with a rich sense of place, compelling characters, and layers upon layers of themes and possible meanings, which shoot out in every direction.

At times, while reading, I had some judgement about the contemporary’s literary community’s dealings of mental illness. So often, it seems, authors borrow symptoms in ways that do not always feel ethical to me, but instead are used to shock and awe. However, by the end of this novel, Hunt had really earned it, in my opinion, and was able to demonstrate a deeper meaning and a broader purpose in her depiction of this strange and mesmerizing mermaid main character.

We’re nearing the end of the reading year now, and I’ll count this one among my favorites.

Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns

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I’m grateful for Dorothy, A Publishing Project for breathing life back into this 1954 gem by Barbara Comyns, entitled Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead. The title alone got my attention, and the rest of the book did not disappoint either. It is a great narrative, that paints a bizarre, almost mystical crisis within a small town. Comyns portrays all of human ugliness with great humor and insight. The imagery is also beautifully done.

Interestingly, I started the year with an Agatha Christie murder mystery, and there is something I really appreciate about this era of writing. It is very straightforward, but that close and careful approach also highlights the intentional writing and brings the descriptions into greater focus.

The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded by Molly McCully Brown

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I don’t read a lot of poetry, but recently picked up The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded by Molly McCully Brown, and I’m so glad I did. I first read Molly McCully Brown when someone shared a link to an article she had written. I was blown away by the quality of the writing then. I follow her socials, and see that we know some people in common. So, I follow her work. In fact, I thought for sure that I had already read The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, but once I picked it up, I realized I had not. I would have remembered!

This is an excellent book of poetry. The whole project really needs to be poetry, and I like that about it, and I think nonpoetry readers (beyond popular poetry, anyway) will find this book to be a bit more accessible, and still completely artful. It reads up quickly. It does not need to be belabored. It just exists, and it is good. Go read it.

Molly McCully Brown won the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded

The Uptown Local by Cory Leadbeater

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After reading Joan Didion’s Blue Nights, I picked up Cory Leadbeater’s The Uptown Local at the library because it is about his life working as Didion’s assistant, and my interest in Didion had been renewed. This is a memoir, and Leadbeater has quite a lot to share about his own life and creative process, as well as what it meant to him to work so closely with Didion.

This book is honest and insightful, and very self aware. Readers will get some Didion fixes, but more than that, it offers insight into what it might’ve been like to be her assistant in her final years. And, I’m sure many readers and writers probably have fantasized about just such a job. I have.

Leadbeater portrays their dynamic as a kind of mother son relationship. In fact, Didion refers to herself a “mommy” in her book inscription to him. Leadbeater seems to wear his troubles on his sleeve, and Didion seems to not shy away from them. She seems to fully embrace and welcome him, even despite (or because?) of his challenges. Even when her more aristocratic friends disregard him, Didion is stalwart. I wonder if she saw her own daughter in Leadbeater. Some of their troubles seemed the same, from what I can gather, which is very little.

In the end, both Didion and Leadbeater both offer insights on relationships, art appreciation, poetry, and how to live a meaningful life–something we could all probably use.

Fleishman is in Trouble (miniseries)

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Each year I budget time for about one show, and this year that show was the tv miniseries Fleishman is in Trouble. After reading the book, and hearing all the hype about the show, I wanted to see what it was all about. And, let me tell you, the show was what they said it would be. I think the show is better than the book, and I don’t need to feel bad about saying that since the author, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, also wrote the tv adaption.

[Continue reading only after you’ve seen the show.]

Basically, I just want to write out some of the things that I thought were really interesting about this piece. I thought the role reversal of the Toby character was interesting. I appreciated how he was in the traditional “woman’s” role in the show as emotional laborer and primary caretaker of the children in the family. His work is meaningful, but it (and he) is chronically undervalued.

I also appreciated how complicated Rachel’s role was. Like all of the characters in the book (really), she behaves terribly, and is good, but her backstory and raison d’être is fully and humanely formed. As a career-driven woman, she cannot win with her husband, and yet she is sexualized by a friend’s husband exactly because she is career driven, opposed to his own stay-at-home wife.

Lastly, and I think this is where the tv series really shines in the last few episodes, I really appreciated Libby’s complexity too. As the narrator, I wanted to trust her to make sense of these people, but it becomes clear that she is also emotionally stuck and is actually behaving in really sexist ways, even though she identifies and pontificates as an outspoken feminist. Her husband also takes on a typically female role in the relationship, managing the family and holding it all together as Libby gallivants around.

A take away for me lately is that relationships are hard and divorce is hard. We are too caught up in our own stories to see anything clearly. And yet, there is hope. And also cynicism. Everything. The entire show just pulls it together beautifully.

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck

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The reviews and the title made me read Jenny Erpenbeck’s book, Kairos. Indeed, this is a complicated and well-written book. It is about a relationship between a very young woman and a much older man. The romance between the two is intense and heady. Most people with a beating heart in their chest will recognize these feelings, and both of these main characters are able to fully express the intensity of their love. The book is also set against the backdrop of Germany in the 1980s.

Slowly, over the course of the book, the relationship ages and the characters’ feelings change in their complexity, and that is, I think, meant to parallel the political changes occurring in Germany as well.

The book also has deep political, cultural, and artistic references throughout. Unfortunately, I read the book at a time when I could not give it my full attention, and this is definitely a book that requires a close read in order to pick up what felt to me like dense literary references and subtle commentary. Honestly, I also had a hard time with the heavy themes. I think in another era, I might not be so fazed by them because it is all very well-done.

The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck

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The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck was another “Oprah pick” that I listened to via audiobook. In it, Beck uses the framework of Dante’s Inferno to organize her own self help book. I have noticed this method with the other self help books, and, as a framework, my critique is…okay, fine, why not?

The book is full of examples from life coach clients and Inferno, but the strongest moments are when she writes about her own life and her own experiences. I have not read her other works, but it sounds like she’s written extensively about her personal life, so maybe that’s why it does not figure more prominently in this book. Even still, I would have loved to learn more about her own experiences, and how she continues to wrestle with, or overcome her own problems.

Interestingly, she writes about important issues in her own life, issues that sound incredibly difficult to navigate, but she writes about these issues with a calm, removed, even cool, understanding. Calmness is important and helpful and helps convey that she has resolved these difficult issues–she has processed them and moved on. However, sometimes her tone is even sort of droll and eye-rolly about her own painful experiences. I do not blame her for not writing about the stuff that is not entirely healed and processed. Not at all. Don’t do it. However, I would like to hear a bit more of navigating challenges during the process, while the thing is still “in process.” Just a thought. Maybe she’ll do that. Maybe someone else will.

Overall, Beck seems skills at quickly assessing and distilling people’s issues into manageable work that can be healed and overcome. That’s nice. That’s hopeful.

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink

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(Yes, audiobooks have entered the chat.) I recently finished When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink. This was an interesting book that was full of tidbits all loosely connected to the idea of timing. Pink pulls from every imaginable study on timing and presents them in the book, adding lots of his own examples and anecdotes.

While some will call this a kind of pseudoscience and others may find the content to be too broad or too common, I think Pink balances enough really interesting information on timing throughout to engage readers. I have already found myself sharing anecdotes from the book in the days since I finished it.

I think I might also be feeling some “life-hacking” or “bio-hacking” fatigue lately and sometimes just want to “let the soft animal of my body love what it loves.” However, I have to admit that in the past, I’ve known and used some of the tactics he mentions in the book, and there has definitely been a benefit. I think it’s worth the read, especially if you’re on an uptick in life and feeling motivated to improve.

Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss

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Next up in my series in the self-help genre was Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss. I have read, or skimmed (or was supposed to read?) Myss in the past–I can’t quite remember–but either way, this book was familiar. In it, Myss compares the Eastern concept of the seven chakras to the Catholic concept of the seven sacraments.

Peronally, I am much more familiar with the chakras than I am with the seven sacratments. But, based on my limited understanding, I thought the comparison was often clunky, especially in regards to the first three chakras and first of the seven sacraments. Sure, both are seven, and sure, seven is considered a sacred number across many traditions, but beyond that, the comparisons often felt like a stretch.

Myss, like many of the gurus in The Wisdom of Sundays, has to hedged her integration of an Eastern tradition into her practice or theory. I find this kind of hedging to be kind of sad and frustrating. On one hand, it can dumb down the content, and on the other hand, I am just baffled and disappointed about what this says about society’s ability to hold on to complex and/or competing ideas. Still, I suppose these baby steps are necessary. Either way, while I was sometimes weary of Myss’s use of Christianity as a foundation for the philosophies in ways that did not feel productive, I still found a lot of wisdom in her words. There are many nuggets of truth to be had here.