Just like that, it’s nearly November

29-10-2229-10-22 / Lisa Guidarini

When I last posted, I was in the midst of a selective Booker longlist read-a-thon of selected titles. When the shortlist came, I was disappointed my favorite – The Colony by Audrey Magee – was not on it. From there, I didn’t much care who won. I was soured on the whole thing and just hoped they didn’t choose one of the two novels I’d read and disliked – Oh! William by Elizabeth Strout or The Trees by Percival Everett. Ultimately, they didn’t, which pleased me.

Oh! William annoyed the living hell out of me. Though it was a short novel, it took strength getting through it. I’d read and loved Olive Kitteridge, so it follows I’d expected this book to be just as good. Oh! but it was so not. It started well enough but ended a kitschy mess.

The Trees was a better book but had it won it wouldn’t have been for its merit as a written work so much as its civil rights theme. While I support great writing about social issues, and the Emmet Till story deserves to be told over and over lest we forget, it’s not that good. I saw what he was trying to achieve – a lighter take on a dark subject – it just doesn’t work. It’s my first book by Percival Everett, so I don’t know how representative it is. I just don’t quite understand what possessed him. Because of the social justice atrocity at its center, no reviewer called him to task, which is the downside of criticism in 2022. I do not judge Percival Everett, I judge the work he puts out. Critics are muzzled now, afraid to tell the truth about sensitive subject matter. Utimately, if a writer doesn’t succeed, they should not be lauded. I don’t care what their reputation is or what they’re writing about.

The 2022 Booker winner, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Sheehan Karunatilaka, didn’t make it to my TBR but it sounds kind of wonderful. I pre-ordered it, since it hasn’t yet been published here in the States. As usual, I have loads of books on the go but I’m hoping to squeeze it in before the end of the year.

Haha, sure. If I don’t take time to sleep, maybe. But it’ll be here, and where there’s presence, there’s hope.

For those who don’t follow me on social media and weren’t inundated with pics, in mid-September I traveled to Ireland for a few days, visiting Kilkenny and Galway. I regret I didn’t have longer, and I regret I listened to those who encouraged me to avoid the dangers of Dublin – which I now believe were overblown. Originally intent on revisiting Scotland, the nightmarish stories of connecting through an overwhelmed Heathrow, coupled with a threatened UK rail strike, prompted my change of plans. I’m hoping for a 2023 return to Scotland in the off-season, when it’s more afforable.

I had a glorious time, regardless, and didn’t even contract Covid – despite all the coughing, hacking people I ran into. Before I left I got the Omicron booster and flu shot, which might have helped on that score. I visited museums, walked around a medieval city center, and found several bookshops. The food was magnificent, the people kind, and the weather shockingly perfect. I encountered no rain! Zero! In Ireland!

Last week the prints I ordered – of the hundreds I took – arrived and I’m getting those framed and on the wall. Ireland really is lovely.

I’ve read loads since my last update, most of which I’ve entered on Goodreads without commenting much. They were good to very good reads, no pun intended. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve finished:

The Colony by Audrey Magee (easy 5 stars)

Dangerous Ages by Rose Macaulay (4 stars)

The Past is Never by Tiffany Quay Tyson (ugh… my 3 star reads only mean it’s above mainstream fiction by a hair)

The Door by Magda Szabo (another easy 5 stars)

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (4 stars and a massive crush)

The Promise by Damon Galgut (5 stars and a vow to read much more by this stunning South African writer)

Currently I’m re-reading Bleak House (huge favorite), Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Ron Charles of The Washington Post says it may be the best book of the year – I’m wary of such sweeping statements, though it is quite good), and Philip Roth’s The Facts, an autobiographical work. A fair mix, I’d say.

Last week I went to my first author event in years. I saw Rebecca Makkai at Woodstock Opera House and she was brilliant. She spoke about the writing of her Pulitzer-nominated The Believers, which I still haven’t read – mea culpa. It’s largely about the AIDs crisis, as it was experienced in 1980’s Chicago. Of course it made me want to pull it off the shelf and start it immediately but I simply have too much on my plate already. I do, however, have the ARC of her upcoming February release beside my bed.

This coming week I’m attending a David Sedaris event in my very own hometown. I saw him at Roosevelt University in 2019 and he is screamingly funny. I highly recommend going to his readings if you aren’t easily offended. Even if you are, to thicken your skin. Can’t wait to see him again. He’s brilliant and inappropriately funny, the best possible combination.

On the homefront, I’m excited to report I had my new Ikea furniture assembled this week! Without context that sounds bland but if you knew how many times I’ve moved in the past several years, and how tough it’s been settling anywhere longer than a year, the significance is more apparent. I like this place. It’s large enough for me to have an office, and, now that I have a job that allows me the means to spread out, I can see myself staying a while. Wanderlust is all well and good, but not so much when you feel like a nomad. Nothing can match the splendor of Scotland, and even my prior apartment in Elgin, IL was more charming, but I’m trying to balance out the benefits of living in a major metro area with the lack of history and character. That’s what travel is for.

Am I caught up? Reasonably so. I’m not pleased I’ve crammed so much into such a small space, but glad I can pick up here with more substantial posts. If you blog and find coming back from pauses as stressful as I do, you’ll get it. And there’s no reason I can’t expand on any of this later – Ireland, for instance, there are loads of stories as you can imagine. As for the books, there’s no statute of limitations on that score. So I’m well-pleased with myself, as it should be.

Next up on the Bluestalking docket, November is National Novel Writers Month (NaNoWriMo). While I’m not planning to write a novel, I am looking forward to writing a short piece a day through next month. I’ve written up more than 30 writing prompts, stuck them in a jar, and I’ll pull one a day. To keep myself accountable, I’ve told people about it – including the writers group I founded ages ago at the library I used to work for – and promised to post the day’s prompt, in case they’re interested in giving it a go. At least one of them replied they’re excited and that’s enough inspiration for me.

Since I find myself doing little outside my apartment, I’m planning to attend a local reading group of ladies who meet at different local independent restaurants every month. The upside’s obvious: I get to discover local eateries while talking about books. The downside’s what has kept me from participating in any book group, that is, they tend to read the kind of books that get a million positive reviews on Amazon, popular books that blow up social media because they please everyone. Books that please everyone are seldom those I enjoy. Until and unless I form my own group, or find one suited to my tastes, this is it.

So much to do, so little time. So many distractions, so little discipline, more like.

Happy almost November.

Booker Longlist 2022: Percival Everett’s ‘The Trees’

09-08-2209-08-22 / Lisa Guidarini

You can be fully supportive of a book’s intent, empathetic to its theme, and just not resonate with it. This was my first read of Percival Everett’s work. I had no idea of his style or really any knowledge of his reputation. His name was familar, but had The Trees not been nominated for the Booker I’m not sure I’d ever have found The Trees.

The novel is about racism in the American South, in Money, Mississippi, focused on the lynching of Emmett Till. Acquitted following the trial, just one year later his murderers openly admitted to his brutal slaying. For better or worse, in the United States you can’t be tried twice for the same crime; double jeopardy protects you, no matter if you confess after the fact. After his wife Carolyn accused Till of either speaking salaciously to or touching her (the story was never clear), her husband Roy Bryant and his brother-in-law JW Millam hunted down Emmett Till – a 14-year old child – in Mississippi from Chicago visiting his family. They tortured him, mutilated his body, and shot him in the head, tossing his body into the Tallahatchie River.

Emmett Till’s body, bloated from time spent floating in the river, was brought back to Chicago for visitation and burial. His mother would not have a closed casket. She left it open for the world to see what these men had done to her child. Her baby. A hideous sight, it could not match the ugliness inside the real-life monsters carrying out heinous acts of hatred against Black people.

As a native of Mississippi, I know its egregious history of condoning racism and violence toward Black people. Raised in the North from the time I was a toddler, even as a young child I felt a jolt hearing relatives toss out “the n-word” in casual conversation. I can’t point to the moment I figured out it was a vile slur. I have no memory of not finding it shocking, which must mean no one in my immediate family – my parents and two brothers – used it. I most likely learned it on my own.

Casual racism behind closed doors is particularly insidious, perhaps equally as bad as vicious hate speech because it shows how engrained prejudice is within a culture. No one was trying to shock me. They jokingly called me a Yankee, in its way a mild form of exclusion, but they weren’t putting on a performance. Fed white exceptionalism from an age too young to differentiate right from wrong, it’s as normal to them as any other accepted behavior. How you fix something like this and move forward I do not know, which goes a long way toward explaining why lynching was not declared a hate crime in the United States until March of 2022.

In The Trees, Percival Everett writes a revenge novel. It starts with two White men brutally murdered in Money, Mississippi. Inexplicably, the same Black man is present at both scenes, brutally disfigured and shot in the head, holding the testicles of the men in his hands. Though the bodies are taken to the morgue, the Black man keeps disappearing, then reappearing at the scenes of other murders of the exact same description. Two Black detectives are called in from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation to help local law enforcement make sense of what’s happening. Meanwhile, the murders have gone national.

I don’t have to explain the symbolism, having told the basic story of Emmett Till. There’s more to the book, characters moving in and out, other strange happenings. But Percival Everett’s intent is clear.

As a southerner by birth, I feel a measure of discomfort saying I did not find the book completely effective. As a book reviewer with nearly two decades’ experience, I would be disingenous saying anything to the contrary, but this does not mean I find nothing to praise. Percival Everett found a way to tell a revenge story with flashes of humor that keep it from descending into despair. There’s an elegance to his writing, genuinely graceful passages of lyrical language.

“That don’t matter none,” she said. “The dead cain’t tell no time, cain’t read no calendars. They ain’t got no calendar watches, is what I’m sayin’. He who digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone, it will come back on him.”

I believe the book takes too long getting started, then, once started, keeps too much distance between the reader and the horrors of racism. I understand his intent was not to beat us over the head with a story that’s difficult to hear. This explains the sly humor and absolute ridiculousness of the story – as in impossibility, not dismissing his talent.

As with Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, the issues are urgent. They are grievous wrongs that show the absolute worst of humanity. But when you get to the level of the Booker Prize, every detail matters. I know literary taste is subjective, but I have a personal expectation of the winning book. It needs to have not just an important message but a compelling way of relating it that punches me in the chest.

It needs to have it all, then push it a bit further.

The Trees may make the shortlist, but I’m not convinced of it. It has qualities I’ve seen in other American Booker winners. I guess we’ll see.

Booker Longlist 2022: Claire Keegan’s ‘Small Things Like These’

05-08-2205-08-22 / Lisa Guidarini

Many of them were raped by family members. Impregnated, unwed women were locked away in institutions of slave labor by the Catholic Church and with the full knowledge of the Irish government, forced to work in hellishly hot virtual torture chambers behind bars, as if they were convicts. Nuns stood over these women and children morning and night to hit them and pull their hair if they didn’t fold the sheets right or dared speak to each other. Their birth names taken away, the women were given saints’ names and warned never to speak of their former lives.

To this day, traumatized survivors don’t know who they were imprisoned with because they never once heard their real names.

These institutions were called Magdalene Laundries, or Magdalene Asylums, and it’s estimated 30,000 women and children spent time in them from the 18th Century to the 20th. In 1993, unmarked mass graves of women and children were discovered, their bodies thrown in the ground unceremoniously, some in soil soaked in sewer water.

The Irish government admitted these atrocities in 2001, 236 years after the first Magdalene Asylum was opened.

Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These opens in October 1985, as the damp days of autumn are setting in. Bill Furlong is a coal and timber merchant, living with his raven-haired wife Eileen and their five lovely daughters. Furlong is a kind, hard-working man whose sole purpose is caring for his family. They are the lucky ones, not wealthy by any means but also not starving at a time when jobs were hard to find, many people forced to emigrate to the UK and America for the promise of a better life. Well-liked by the villagers, as long as he maintained his reputation as a fair and honest man, the Furlongs were as financially safe as it was possible to be.

Furlong never knew his mother. Raised by a kind woman named Mrs. Wilson, he wasn’t told who his father was, either. He didn’t dare ask. But he grew up happily enough with loving adults in his life, growing into a kind and compassionate man.

On Christmas Eve 1985, Bill Furlong rose extra early to deliver coal to the local convent, his last stop before attending Mass with his family. What happened that brutally cold morning would force him to choose between following either his head or his heart, knowing the path he took could place his family’s stability in peril. His decision would put his courage and strength of character to the ultimate test.

Small Things Like These is a short book, at 114 pages the shortest ever to be nominated for the Booker Prize. Because of its brevity, I hesitate to say too much about it to avoid spoilers. It’s a beautiful novel, written in celebrated Irish novelist Claire Keegan’s distinctive spare prose, interwoven with the kind of spirituality that doesn’t involve churches. It’s about kindness and goodness and empathy, told without a trace of sentimentality.

While this novel is a little gem, I don’t think it will win the Booker. The judges are giving Keegan a nod, acknowledging her quiet power. But ultimately, the prize will be given to a bigger novel with a story more suited to a sweeping canvas. But then, in 2011 I said the same thing and Julian Barnes waltzed out the door with his A Sense of An Ending, another shorter book. It’s fantastic and I love and admire it, but I loved Sebastian Barry’s On Canaan’s Side just a little bit better.

It occasionally happens that I’m wrong, but I don’t think so in this case. If I use A Sense of An Ending as a gauge, its focus was much wider, the story more satisfyingly dense. Small Things Like These touches on a very weighty subject that absolutely deserves more exposure, but ultimately I don’t think it will prevail against the competition. It will appeal strongly to readers who complain Booker winners are far too obscure and too highly literary; this is the quietest longlisted novel I’ve ever read and one of the most accessible.

One thing I do know is unequivocably true, I’d better move my arse if I’m going to get through the longlisted novels I mean to.

For more about the Magdalene Laundries:

https://www.theage.com.au/world/a-very-irish-sort-of-hell-20030405-gdvhr9.html

Ireland’s Magadalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment

Plus loads of YouTube videos – give it a Google

See Wikipedia for this excellent article

May all of them, living and dead, find their peace.

And may the guilty find Karma.

Booker Longlist 2022 – early thoughts

02-08-22 / Lisa Guidarini

The 13: Booker Longlist 2022

First it was the Booker Prize for Fiction, then the Man Booker, finally, the plain old Booker Prize. I found them in the early 2000s, followed them religiously, and joined the other zealots attempting to predict the winners. Either I was very good at it or very lucky, but I crushed it for a string of years – not to brag.

Well, kind of to brag.

Okay, completely to brag. Humility will get you nowhere, do not hide your light.

I had a system. First, I grouped them into categories. Before they became a political statement, the Bookers had a formula of sorts; it was possible to crack the code with a fair degree of accuracy simply by reading a few, then researching the hell out of the others. The judges chose a certain number of established writers, a handful of up and comers who’d garnered a bit of fame (some of whom had been previously nominated for this or other prizes), then one or two debut novelists.

For a debut novelist to sweep the field, they had to be phenomenal. These were somewhat of a wild card, though their traditional role was as virtual cannon fodder. For all intents and purposes, they were chosen to be weeded out when it came time for the shortlist, in exchange for raising their visibility. For an established writer, they needed to perform at the top of their game. While I don’t have the statistics, the winners tended to lie somewhere in between (not counting the two Hilary Mantel years, and what the hell was up with that).

The years politics prevailed were dark days for literature. I am all for writers who make strong statements, but when the point is how loudly they speak out against that year’s pet issue over the quality of writing, that’s a problem. If you want a book prize centered solely on political issues, all well and good – develop that prize. If the point is to honor the best writing, the filter of political correctness needs to be muted. Judging from the past couple of years, and the books that made it for 2022, I’m tentatively hopeful the political years may be over.

Cross fingers.

This year’s longlist is dominated by Americans, taking up six of the thirteen spots: Elizabeth Strout, Karen Joy Fowler, Leila Mottley, Hernan Diaz, Selby Wynn Schwartz, and Percival Everett. I have nothing against them, they just don’t belong here. The US has so many prizes the rest of the world is excluded from, and the UK and Commonwealth produce brilliant literature that ought to stand on its own. It makes no sense Americans are allowed to be nominated for the Booker Prize.

End rant.

I purchased four books from the list: Small Things Like These, The Trees, Case Study, and The Colony. Honestly, if money were no object, I’d have bought them all just to have thirteen books show up on my doorstep. They could keep company with the books I’ve bought and not read from longlists of the past. In the end I went with the titles I thought I’d enjoy most, weighing that with how many I could get from the library. Not all of them are worth buying.

From the library, I have Oh William! checked out and I’m on the waiting list for Booth. I’m planning to request Glory next, since NoViolet Bulawayo has a very good reputation in the middle-of-the-road category. Actually, all these writers are middle of the road, aren’t they. There’s no huge, iconic writer overshadowing the rest. Oh, damn. That makes my prediction a million times harder.

I haven’t fully researched the others, as much for lack of time as the fact some just don’t appeal to me at all. I watched a few YouTube videos made by booktubers and I may have taken on some of their negative prejudices, but that’s the price I had to pay for my crash course. Shrug. I’m in a lot more of a rush these days.

As of the publication of this post, I’ve finished one of the longlisted titles and I’m almost halfway through another. I’ll talk about that next time.

Spoiler: the book I finished was lovely, but it’s not the winner. I’ll tell you why, never fear.

The shortlist will be announced on September 6. The winner of the Booker Prize 2022 will announced the 17th of October.

Merry Booksmas! Books I’m gifting to me this year.

22-12-1721-01-18 / Lisa Guidarini / 2 Comments

Nice stack.

Let’s face it: no one knows which books I want at the holidays. Used to be I owned thousands and no one could tell what I didn’t already have. Now that my library’s so small, it’s what haven’t you already read...

Plus, I only exchange gifts with my kids, so there’s that. They figure I pick up anything I really want, anyway. Mostly, they’re right.

There were so, so many books I wanted to buy, but unfortunately there are annoying bills like rent and food to be paid. 2017 was not cheap, not that I’m saying I regret a penny. I just don’t have an awful lot of disposable income right now to feel comfortable splashing out.

But it’s Christmas, right?

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Are there no new books to crack open and smell?

Oh, there are:

Elmet by Fiona Mozley

I didn’t pay much attention to this year’s Man Bookers. Usually I’m all over it like orange on Trump, but this year I was pre-occupied and hardly noticed the long or short lists. I’ll admit I was a bit surprised when I heard an American had won it for the second year in a row. But I won’t go into the politics of that and how irksome I find it. I’ve had enough politics this year to last me the rest of my life, thanks very much.

Elmet sounds delicious:

The family thought the little house they had made themselves in Elmet, a corner of Yorkshire, was theirs, that their peaceful, self-sufficient life was safe. Cathy and Daniel roamed the woods freely, occasionally visiting a local woman for some schooling, living outside all conventions. Their father built things and hunted, working with his hands; sometimes he would disappear, forced to do secret, brutal work for money, but to them he was a gentle protector.

The Power by Naomi Alderman

You have been taught that you are unclean, that you are not holy, that your body is impure and could never harbour the divine. You have been taught to despise everything you are and to long only to be a man. But you have been taught lies. ‘

– The Power

This year’s Baileys Women’s Prize winner has huge praise from Margaret Atwood emblazoned on the cover. Margaret. Atwood.

Oh please, like I wasn’t buying this one.

Incidentally, did you catch The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu? I watched all but the last episode in Scotland; I’m pissed as hell I had to leave and missed the ending. I may have to subscribe for the free trial just to see that.

Mrs Osmond by John Banville

John Banville writes like an angel, and this book extends the story of Isabel Archer from Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. I may need to re-read Portrait, as well. Do I re-read it before, or after?

A quandary.

Read before, I may be too critical of Banville. After. Definitely after.

I don’t always get along with sequels and prequels and riffs on classic literature. But John Banville. Exceptions are made to all my rules.

Miss Jane by Brad Watson

The potency and implacable cruelty of nature, as well as its beauty, is a trademark of Watson’s fiction. In Miss Jane, the author brings to life a hard, unromantic past that is tinged with the sadness of unattainable loves, yet shot through with a transcendent beauty.

Yep.

Huuuuge buzz surrounded this novel, which doesn’t always mean much, but when it’s a proven writer like Brad Watson, it kinda does.

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

Several people said this novel should have taken the Booker Prize this year. Yeah, even when I’m not paying attention, I’m paying attention.

When it comes to books.

Midwinter in an English village. A teenage girl has gone missing. Everyone is called upon to join the search. The villagers fan out across the moors as the police set up roadblocks and a crowd of news reporters descends on what is usually a place of peace. Meanwhile, there is work that must still be done: cows milked, fences repaired, stone cut, pints poured, beds made, sermons written, a pantomime rehearsed.

As the seasons unfold and the search for the missing girl goes on, there are those who leave the village and those who are pulled back; those who come together and those who break apart. There are births and deaths; secrets kept and exposed; livelihoods made and lost; small kindnesses and unanticipated betrayals. An extraordinary novel of cumulative power and grace, Reservoir 13 explores the rhythms of the natural world and the repeated human gift for violence, unfolding over thirteen years as the aftershocks of a tragedy refuse to subside.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Never read any Ng, but I follow her on Twitter and she’s very likable. She tweeted a lot as she was writing this book, enough that I started wondering why I’m following her if I haven’t read her books.

Let’s remedy that.

Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta

I had this book in my hand so many times at Barnes & Noble. I didn’t buy it previously for no other reason than I’m not buying a lot of books this year, especially expensive new ones. And especially not when I can go a-begging and get them for free.

I was in an indie bookshop, saw it sitting there, and thought oh, okay, what the hell. It’ll be a fast and probably fairly forgettable book, but entertaining nonetheless. Plus, I was helping out a local indie.

Win/win.

As I was posting this, I remembered one work of NF I’d wanted very badly and hadn’t managed to snag from the publisher. If Amazon’s still promising pre-Christmas delivery…

Well.

We’ll see.

I’m being very good to myself this year. I think I deserve it. But then, I think I do every year. Never let it be said I’ve hidden my preference for myself under a bushel. After all, if you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will.

True words.

I’m hoping to get off (be good) at least one more post before year’s end, on the topic of my 2018 plans. Mostly reading, but if I’m in the right mood I’ll talk about other stuff, too. Safest to stay with reading, but when am I ever safe.

Anyway. Get out there and buy yourselves some books! Chop, chop. Time’s a-wasting.

why i’ve made a podcast i won’t post: an anne tyler man booker screed

01-10-1501-10-15 / Lisa Guidarini / 5 Comments

Anne Tyler fan? You may want to look away.

Moriarty!

Just as an FYI, my beef is as much with the Man Booker judges as with Anne Tyler the writer. Sure, I dislike her books. Quiet tales about domestic American life have been done far, far better than in her own novels. And sure, she’s a sweet lady who’s managed to make a crap ton of money while thumbing her nose at the “authors must promote themselves” modern truth. She barely missed that train. By the time publishing companies began their slide into despair, she was already a Very Big Name in women’s fiction. She had no need for exhausting signings, granting interviews and answering the same questions over and over. She was grandfathered in, so to speak.

And I say women’s fiction because I cannot imagine many men would find her books of interest. There are no murders, no car chases, no sports (that I know of) and nothing which would require full-frontal nudity in a film adaptation. No testosterone, basically.

There’s a difference between these mid-range books written for a female audience and those written for males. No cries of sexism! It’s considered sexist to speak what’s obvious truth, a ridiculously politically correct notion. Is there some cross-over? Sure! Is it the norm? No! There is male writing and female writing, neither is better or worse than the other but the differences are mostly clear. But that’s a topic for another day; I can’t argue that now.

My podcast about Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread was ad hoc, unrehearsed and frankly made me come off like a crazy cat lady cornered in an alley. To Anne Tyler, it was unfair. I dismissed her with one brushing motion, letting my anger over the unfairness she made the Man Booker shortlist while Marilynne Robinson did not (though she’s a far, far superior artist, have I mentioned that?) get the better of my judgment. It’s not on her that she was chosen, not her decision to bump Robinson from the Shortlist.

@$*%&Q$*%

I self-censored myself, for better or worse. Perhaps I’ll come at it again, with a cooler head. Or maybe this post is enough. But I refuse to go back on my assertion Tyler’s works are not prize-quality writing. They are geared toward an audience eager to read fuzzy, warm and reassuring stories about generations of families, all their ups and downs and dramas. While it’s true every life tells a remarkable story, not every story is worthy of turning into a novel.

I find Anne Tyler mind-numbingly dull. She’s the sort of writer who tells every single action her characters make, whether it advances the plot or not – usually not. Here’s an example of my life, written by Anne Tyler:

She woke at 8:30 in the morning, sunlight streaming through her cheap, brown Walmart curtains bought because their color was neutral and, besides, she was getting divorced after 25 years and had no energy to think much beyond the fact she needed to find her own place to live. The curtains were those ring-top ones, or whatever you call them. The texture was nubby. Overall, the effect was somewhat masculine but dreadfully dull. However, the curtains were room-darkening, allowing her to sleep almost endlessly, should she so desire. Though, sleeping almost endlessly is not good for those with depressive personalities, which she had.

Reaching for her phone, a Samsung Galaxy 6 – way too expensive and not worth the money, leading her to question why on earth she did such a stupid thing – her arm brushed the white, Egyptian-cotton sheets she’d purchased from Amazon, back when she realized she would need them, along with the cheap, brown curtains previously mentioned. Kicking aside the down comforter from Ikea, covered with a miniature rose print by a duvet cover, also from Ikea, she turned on her phone, saw what time it was, rolled back over the white sheets and went back to sleep..

pseudo-Anne Tyler

FASCINATING ISN’T IT.

Sadly, I included nowhere near the detail Anne Tyler would have. I neglected to mention how my hair looked, what I was wearing, the fact I sleep with roughly three books, a notebook and two pens every night so I can reach for them directly every morning – or at night, if I’m fighting insomnia. I could have included so much more, as she would have.

I am angry, impotently angry, not a damn thing I can do about it but rant and rave. Makes no difference as far as the Man Bookers but it does help me feel better, by a small measure. Life isn’t fair and literary prizes are political. Shock horror. But then, if no one points a finger it all slides without notice, a much worse eventuality. Anyone who cares about literary fiction should fight for what’s right, not ignore injustices such as these. When it is so blatant, so brazen how could a serious reader not notice?

At this point, I need to do one of two, things: 1). Forget Anne Tyler, ignore her completely, swallow my indignation and move on, or 2). Read more of her work, in a vain attempt to ascertain what about her is so noteworthy.

She’s driving me mad. When a thing drives you mad it means you care enough to allow it to bother you. It has power, growing into a towering force that pokes you in the night, annoys and irritates. I can’t let the topic of Anne Tyler and the inordinate amount of praise she receives bother me anymore. It’s unhealthy, not to mention a waste of time.

To read or completely obliterate from notice. That is the question. I’ll sleep on it, along with my three books, notebook and pens. On my Egyptian cotton sheets.

man booker 2015: what a difference a few hours make

15-09-15 / Lisa Guidarini / Leave a comment

Unbelievable. While I slept, from behind my back emerged this wee bitch of a Shortlist:

Man Booker Shortlist 2015

Hello, political component to the Man Bookers. Ha, what am I saying. Welcome back. We hardly missed ye; never had the chance. You can’t miss what hasn’t had the courtesy to leave.

Analysis of the analysts:

Judges 2015

Ellah Wakatama Allfrey (48)

Granta, Jonathan Cape, Random House, Telegraph, Guardian

Guardian Books podcast: Political fiction

Verdict: Holy fuck, with political bent, though probably least prejudicial on list.

John Burnside (60)

Scottish poet, T.S. Eliot Prize, latecomer to the literary game, hell of a learning curve but he smashed this one.

Prof, St. Andrew’s University, novelist, list long as my arm.

From his university page:

“John’s main interests are in American literature, poetry, ecocriticism and the language of environmental activism.”

Verdict: Respect, with an American bent.

This is your Anne Tyler.

Michael Wood (67)

Historian/broadcaster

Born Manchester, working man’s town.

Verdict: Respect.

Marley?

Frances Osborne (46)

One novel, two biographies. A Sackville by birth. Silver spoon. Lives next to freaking P.M.

Verdict: No respect.

Fuck all.

Sam Leith (41)

Journalist, author of several works of nonfiction.

Young; resume growing nicely. Not there there.

Verdict: Judge in training.

Wild card man.

Two women, three judges under 50, two extreme heavy-hitters, a broadcaster, a political toss-in for my personal irritation and an in-training youngling. Typical cast of characters, though generally there’s a John Sutherland who really really pisses me off, ivory tower up the arse, anti-public opinion blow-hard.

Fuck everyone but me

Had a run-in with him once. Doesn’t show. Maintain neutrality.

Eliminations:

No Marilynne Robinson, no Anne Enright, who’s won already so there’s that; never expected her to repeat. She’s obviously no Hilary Mantel, right? No repeat offender?

Sitting on the survivor’s list is Anne Tyler, audible gritting teeth. Quit making me say this: not a terrible author, no talentless hack but no Man Booker caliber writer either. Adding injury to Obamacare, bumping two far superior female writers, so far superior should be ubiquitous. Words almost fail but not quite. Once I stop talking the idiots win.

Nice person

And no I’m not. Angry, yes. Out to piss off, yes.

Robinson and Enright bumped for Tyler. Many times as I say it sounds no less farcical.

If she walks off with the prize with that goes the last shred of relevancy for the Man Bookers. And I do mean s-h-r-e-d, gossamer thin, not fine. The award’s gone so far Left it’s rendered itself almost moot. SEE: Nobel Prize, category of any. Stick a fork in it and twist. HARD.

Aha! Wait! She’s one of the two Americans. Tyler and Yanigahara. Phew! I thought they were serious!

Nice person

Ignoring that wee epiphany, A Little Life is there, the fuck me this is fine A Little Life. A Brief History of Seven Killings, called it. The rest don’t even speak to me: bad year, bad read on the judges.

Top of this heap: A Little Life, A Brief History of Seven Killings. The former, because I’m reading it now and it’s slapping me upside the head, the latter for its subject matter and how nearly universally praised it’s been, normally not a great thing but this time there’s the clever plot, hipster Bob Marley thrown in for good measure.

Marley & Me

No: Satin Island and sure as hell better be A Spool of Blue Thread.

Wild cards: The Fishermen, The Year of the Runaways.

At this point I would rule out a damn thing. This is a jury of rogues out to make a statement. But which statement. A Little Life is probably too mainstream well-written, left standing because something needs to hold that spot. Satin Island gives me a bad vibe – prize-wise only.

Narrow again: A Brief History of Seven Killings, The Fishermen and The Year of the Runaways. If I’m really lucky, A Little Life. If there’s a swing vote.

A Little Hope, diminishing

Which political statement are they looking to make?

Nice person

Find it and there’s your winner.

man booker 2015: i’m fucked

14-09-1514-09-15 / Lisa Guidarini / Leave a comment

Things were going along well, so tidy, so well-kempt, all picket fences and Sunday afternoon lawnmowers pushed by men in white shirts with cut-off jeans, baseball caps protecting dear, shiny heads. All signs pointed to Marilynne Robinson for the Man Booker 2015 win. God was in his heaven. I sat on the front porch sipping lemonade and waiting for autumn to bring the Shortlist so I could laugh my knowing laugh, toss my head back and sneer at the world with my smug I may be a bitch but I’m a correct bitch face.

Bitch face. Suits me.

Assuming the judges weren’t planning to go to the dark side and be all let’s not give the prize to the writer who deserves it but, rather, to some unknown writer who’s produced a book whose politics are timely, themes ripped from the liberal headlines of the moment, it was a shoo-in. I could get away with skimming the other books, reading reviews and crunching the numbers with my patented prize winner crunch-u-lator. Because come on. Marilynne Robinson, writer of prose the angels sing while lounging languidly on fluffy while clouds. And pitted against what that could even come close?

Well, fuck and blast. Pitted against this:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Jesus Holy Granola Christ on Greek yogurt.

Encamped at Barnes & Noble for the duration, computer open, headphone and charger wires sticking out like nasty, nasty spider legs in all directions and hogging all available outlets I wasn’t going anywhere, Jack. Armloads of books plopped on chairs I’d screeched across the floor to my cave like a magpie gathers shiny things to her nest, a token coffee purchased to justify my whole-hoggishness, I read the first few pages of what I presumed would be an oh so lovely book.

It would be a good read. I knew that. People liked it, Amazon reviews were effusive, critics waved their arms above their heads, spittle flying in their hurry to get out pretty words about a pretty book before their peers could get anything in edgewise. I’d read a few chapters, smiling smugly as I put it back on the shelf for the next person to buy, a perfectly enlightened person who’d read a good thing or two on Goodreads, no idea it had nearly swiped the Booker.

Propped on the table in front of me, it hit like a typhoon bitch-slapping me with a palm leaf, causing me to laugh and feel all sadly desolate and empty and what’s the point of life within the space of half an hour’s read. My hands started to itch. Then my face. I scratched where imaginary feathers tickled me, like I was allergic to incredible prose. I was there in Barnes & Noble without adult supervision and I had my debit card. Like a sex addict stuck in a hotel room with a ready whore, pockets bulging with money and happy-to-see-you, I was sunk.

I bought it – along with a few others but that’s not important right now. I bought it.

I took it home, resumed reading it in bed, sinking feeling triggering the realization this isn’t going to be a book I can merrily skip through, finish and pronounce upon with my usual speed and cocky know-it-all manner. (My once upon a time speed, I mean, since I haven’t done anything quickly in months but that’s not quite the point.)

Like Marilynne Robinson’s novels, the book’s packed with prose you can’t rush. It’s beautiful, at times reaches poetic but with a cast of characters bigger than Lila, another thing slowing me down. I need to catch the nuances of each, dig into his or her motivations, separate one from the other despite their fierce desire to cling together.

This is a very long novel, 736 pages densely packed with small print and those slick, thinner pages I can’t turn very quickly without having to lick my finger, and I hate when people lick their fingers. Thick, textured paper tends to have a larger font, is quickly read, turning pages eased by deckle edges giving something to grasp. The reader feels accomplishment much more quickly, these thick pages forcing the left hand to secure more and more strongly as the balance tips from pages to read to have read, left to right left to right in rapid succession.

A Little Life was designed differently, to keep it from weighing 20 lbs. and saving the wrists of its readers. Because did you read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Morrell? The wrist snapper? Who didn’t learn a lesson from that? Yanagihara’s novel is heavy but looks so innocent, what with its thin, slick pages. It’s frustrating, the left hand sitting there all hurry up stupid while the right hand flips and flips, getting nowhere fast.

All this to say holy god, this book has a shot. IT HAS A SHOT! It doesn’t espouse an irritatingly liberal agenda that’s all politics, no substance. It shows how one life is important, how all the little life things add up to one Very Big Thing, indeed. Seven hundred thirty-six very big things. Lila‘s no slouch but

A Little Life

has…

a…

shot…

Right now, I could use a shot.

Unravel all I said about how easy this was, how eye-rollingly stupid, guttural expression of disgust stupid, the idea of putting anyone above or on par with Marilynne Robinson. Because

A Little Life

has…

a…

shot…

Fuck me, it does.

man booker 2015: one expert’s flawed opinions

22-08-1522-08-15 / Lisa Guidarini / 4 Comments

Lo, these many years I have participated in the largely futile game of guessing the Man Booker winner. I’ve had successes and failures but mostly it’s a maddening exercise in literary addiction, tinged with galloping insanity. Nevertheless, I am always happy to offer an opinion totally devoid of actual research or, really, much effort at all.

I’m always happy to do the least I can do. ™

This year’s crop of Long-Longlisters is particularly compelling. From reading the synopses, there’s only one book I would not willingly pick up and read. That book is A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James, reason being I have no interest in Bob Marley or Jamaica. Rave reviews aside, it simply doesn’t appeal.

As for the others, if you know me at all you’ll expect my ejecting Anne Tyler straightaway, sending her spinning into the atmosphere. Don’t care for Anne Tyler. Don’t feel she deserves a Booker. How did she make the list? Not for her Serious Literary Qualities. Rather, because she announced she’s hanging up her pen after this last novel. And she’s beloved, for some reason or other I haven’t been able to grasp. Nothing against her personally, mind. I’m charmed by the idea of the Reclusive Writer. Unfortunately, to me her books have always been soporific, their droning sameness lulling me into a near-coma. Her quality maintains a steady pace, churning out novel after novel featuring characters whose quirks I’m supposed to find endearing. Supposed to. Plots are fine, nothing too upsetting or too simplistic. Very mid-line. But prize-worthy? Dear God no. Compare her with, say, Margaret Atwood and it will give you screaming fits.

Marilynne Robinson, however? Yes. Yes.

Laila Lalami: know of, haven’t read. Arundhati Roy, Tom McCarthy, Andrew O’Hagan: ditto ditto and ditto. Roy, McCarthy, O’Hagan: reputations quite high. Lalami, lesser but not to be discounted; up and coming. Her growing stature edges her up a notch or two.

Anna Smaill, Sunjeev Sahota, Chigozie Obioma: totally new to me. Can’t yet opine.

The Short List will consist of equal parts famous, peripheral and unknown. I expect Robinson, Lalami and James will be shoo-ins. From there, it’s anyone’s guess. Really, there’s no logic here, just personal tastes of the judges. I’ve learned it’s impossible to gauge the wildcard spots, save by blind luck.

Once things have been narrowed down, pay attention to the press. Read the book reviews, the jacket blurbs. Try and put your finger on what about each book stands out, how timely it is and how well-received the author has been. Add unicorns and pixie dust, sacrifice a virgin, poke a voodoo doll with pins and spit over your left shoulder: the answer will soon become muddled but you’ll have something for Instagram, so there’s that.

I’ve no doubt it will come down to Marilynne Robinson v. currently unknown contender. Why Marilynne Robinson? Well, have you read her work? Her prose is mesmerizing, her plots languid, her characters deep and dark and complex. Just stunning. The buzz about her is correct; she is a genius. She deserves the award based on her collected body of work, plus Lila hit it out of the park. She’s a sure bet.

BUT… And it’s a big but, the judges become irritated when onlookers shout at them for being too predictable. That is the rub. Will the judges rule according to merit or will a wildcard overtake Robinson, just at the finish? Depends on the image they’d like to project of themselves, “they” being the judges.

That’s another thing, who are the judges? Very Seriously Literary Judges will be more apt to choose by merit alone, regardless of convention. Young and Less Stolid Judges will veer toward the wildcard, the up and comer; they long to defy the literary canon. And I haven’t looked them up, for no other reason than I’m just plain lazy. Toddle off and form your own opinions. What am I, a machine?!

If Robinson is upset, justice will be served only if the winner is a writer whose innovation adds measurable depth and breadth to literature with a capital L. In this case, we’re to consider Robinson so much a given as to have already honored her with the virtual award, handing the actual title to THE OTHER. Translation: she gets screwed and not in a fun way.

This, loves, is how the Man Booker Prize works: when it doesn’t go madly off the rails, careening to and fro like a ping pong ball smashed by a body builder, that is. All my years of following its progress, added to experience having judged other literary awards, have taught me This Big Lesson. I am now imparting it to you, anointing the Next Great Generation of Man Booker Supposers.

When the Short List’s out we’ll see how the chips fall.

Then there will be two.

Marilynne Robinson and fill in the blank…

[curtain falls] [exeunt]

Book Links from 2011: A brief retrospective

21-12-11 / Lisa Guidarini / 2 Comments

I don't keep very good track of all the book and literary-related articles I read through the year, nor the videos I watch, either. Maybe that would be a good 2012 resolution, since by the end of the year I've ingested so much great stuff I wish I could share the best of the best of it with you all. It's a busy, hectic, over-informed world out there; we're all bound to have missed some outrageously good stuff when we're off doing other things.

What I've collected here is no reflection on my 2011 book-related reading. I'm at a loss as to how to go about finding it all again. I suppose I can't, though, without trolling through my "history" on all the computers I've used.

Quick answer: That isn't going to happen.

So, alas and alack, a mere shadow of highlights from the literary world in 2011 is the best I can do. Hope you enjoy these bits.

One of my fave YouTube videos of 2011, from World Book Day: