George Floyd never signed up.
George didn’t want to serve
For county or college tuition
He wanted to live his life
Like those kids who lost their lives
Cut down in their prime
Like George Floyd
Maybe they cried for their mothers
Like George Floyd
But Big George didn’t sign on the dotted line
There were no benefits, no VA
George was born into a warzone
Born in America, covered in Black Skin
The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World
Benjamin Bratton
I really like the Verso Book Club, which is where I got this
from. They send out books every month and it forces me to read more than I
normally would and outside of my normal interests.
This book was an interesting short little thing, arguing in
my reading for a large conception of the social – against the atomized person
and thinking of us all as part of a system. I think it works but my main
critique is that it exits in a weird middle ground. Part of me wanted to see it
expanded. Then there’s another part that wanted it tightened up. For example,
there’s a whole chapter against Giorgio Agamben. When I was reading it, I was
like “Why is there a whole chapter about this guy I’ve never heard about?”. And
it seems like the whole issue was on me, since reading this book I have seen at
least a dozen references to Agamben. Again, thanks to the Verso Book club for
expanding my theoretical horizons.
East of Eden
John Steinbeck
I’ve been on a bit of a Steinbeck kick since the pandemic
started. I reread Grapes of Wrath at the beginning because I was worried about
the economy crashing. In that reading I found a much better book than what I remembered
from being forced to read it as a high school student.
Grapes of Wrath may be his most famous book, if because it
is the bigger book of his that gets pushed by those high school students. I
think that is an oversight, as East of Eden is the better book, I think. I
guess that it doesn’t get taught because a good part of it centers on a house of
ill repute.
But also – it does take a while to get going. Steinbeck here
is writing a broad and epic sweep and must build the setting and the characters
and then put them together. He does it so well though. There are places where he
creates a character with such depth and complexity, and he does it in just a
paragraph or two. It’s something that you can see and point out how well he
does it but impossible to really saw just why it works. It’s just genius at
work.
He also, in these pages, creates one of the most hate-able
female characters ever put to the page. He just captures this psychopathy so
well you must wonder who in Steinbeck’s biography he modeled from to create this
character. Who hurt you, John?
So, this book just builds, grows, and has an incredible
momentum right up until the end, an end that just gob smacks you. In my opinion
it is one of the top dozen or so novels I have read. It’s amazing and you
should read it.
Independence Day:
I say to myself periodically I should read more from the
past, to get a better sense of the literary world’s shifts and ebbs. Since I
went to school 20 years ago now the 90s were in the recent past. There wasn’t a
lot of classes that hit on anything really later than the 80s except for the
couple of classes I took that were deliberately focused on more contemporary
lit.
That is to say I didn’t read Richard Ford, ever. The cover I
have notes that this book won a Pulitzer. The blurb on the back calls the main
character “one of the most unforgettable characters in American fiction”.
The problem is that it is not a good book. I was reading
this, thinking of the parties that people had feting Ford and the people with
professional jealousies looking at him and thinking that their work was just as
good. Ford must have lapped up the praise!
Here’s my critique as an angry high school reader: Nothing
Happens.
I kept waiting for something to happen. And then a minor
thing does like on page 400 of a 450-page book. But its low stakes. I had to force
myself to read the last 30 pages just for my own mental checklists.
A book doesn’t have to have things happen to be interesting.
The other problem is that Frank Bascombe is boring. We spend the whole book in
his head, and I have no idea how there are three other books with this
character at the center. I’ll never read them to find out. And none of the other
characters are interesting either. He’s a real estate agent dealing with uninteresting
clients. The love interest is a cypher. The ex-wife maybe has some depth, but
we don’t see much of her. The only character with a real spark is his son,
Paul. Center the book around him and make it half the length and maybe it
works.
But as is, it doesn’t work.
However, here’s the paradoxical thing, the book feels
technically well written. It’s like a model for an MFA class for structure and sentence-level
elegance! Even with that, it’s not a good book. You don’t need to read this one.
Capote in Kansas:
When I pulled this off the shelf, I figured it was tied in
with one of the movies about Capote that came out a while back. But it’s not. It
is an independent graphic novel take on Truman Capote writing “In Cold Blood”.
What’s interesting is that the book has one of the victims of the crime as a
character who Capote talks to as he’s trying to figure out how to tell the story
of the Clutter family, who was killed. There’s also some speculation about
Capote and his feelings towards one of the killers that makes the book push the
edge of nonfiction.
Overall, it works even with the supernatural element (though
I must admit that I thought the character was alive for most of the time she was
in scenes and then once I realized what was going on I had to reevaluate
things). It does make me wonder in the bigger picture we are fascinated with
the story of Capote’s writing of the book. Is there any other text that gets similar
treatment in the culture? I can’t think of one offhand. I should also note that
I did like the art, a strong use of the black and white to aid in the storytelling.
The Grande Odalisque:
I liked this book. It was sexy and fun and read like the storyboard
for an action movie that I totally would watch if it was on Netflix or Amazon
Prime. Who doesn’t like female French art thieves?