In about one week, I should be done with (regular) session! And it will be thrilling. Even if there’s a special, getting through the 120 days of session is a victory in and of itself.
In Books…
- Stolen: I did love the Millennium Trilogy when it was big, but haven’t generally found myself otherwise drawn to Scandinavian literature. This book is in some ways representative of why that is: prose that feels flat, characters with limited emotional range, a certain kind of bleakness. I never know where to assess “blame” when I don’t care for the writing style of a translated work, but I didn’t find it compelling at all. The story itself also never really came together for me. A little girl, Elsa, who is Sàmi, witnesses a neighbor killing one of the family’s reindeer one night, and the man threatens Elsa to remain silent. The family is part of a reindeer herding collective in their village in the traditional Sàpmi homeland of their people, and this killing is part of the overall hostility of their Swedish neighbors to the Sàmi and their way of life. The book follows the immediate aftermath of the reindeer poaching, and then switches perspective to ten years later, when Elsa is an adult who has returned to the village because she wants to continue her family’s tradition as her life’s work. The neighbor is still around, still threatening, still a problem. The story itself feels like it’s checking off a list of issues the Sàmi face: despair/mental health challenges (particularly for the young men), police refusing to treat crimes against them with any real seriousness, tension from Swedes who believe that they receive undeserved benefits, climate change, the history of “nomad” schools which sought to forcibly integrate the indigenous population by cutting them off from their own families, languages, and traditions, tourists who treat them as living museum exhibits, as well as xenophobia and sexism within the Sàmi community itself. But that’s what it feels like: box-checking. Elsa herself was also difficult character for me as a narrative center: as an adult, particularly, she’s rigid and often self-righteous in a way that makes it hard to really connect with her. A nonfiction essay collection might have been the better route to take here.
- The Brothers Karamazov: Do you spend a lot of time thinking about God, morality, and the right way to live? If so, this is a book for you. I am not one of those people, but I do like to check the classics off my list, so here I am. The book tells the story of the titular siblings and their father, using them to examine various approaches to existence. The father, Fyodor, is a grotesque old man who badly mistreated both of his wives and completely neglected his children. He’s spent his life amassing money, chasing women, and drinking. His latest obsession is a young woman called Grushenka, who he knows doesn’t love him but hopes to entice into marriage with his money. His rival for her affections is his oldest son, Dmitri (also called Mitya). Dmitri is in some ways a chip off the old block in that he is a hardcore party boy, but he has zero money management skills and also is not complete trash as a human. He’s desperate to get money to make a play for Grushenka before she takes up with his father but is already 3,000 rubles in the hole because he stole that amount from his fiancee, Katerina. Katerina loves Dmitri no more than he loves her. Rather, she loves the middle brother, Ivan. Ivan is highly intelligent and rational, rejecting the religious faith that drives the youngest brother, Alexei (almost always referred to as Alyosha). Alyosha is, when the story begins, a novice at a monastery and devoted to an Elder in the Orthodox church. The characters are richly drawn, with Alyosha the obvious hero but all three of them are interesting in their own ways. The plot is both sprawling and simple: tension builds, followed by a murder about halfway through, and then a trial. It’s unwieldy and constantly wanders off down little theosophical side paths. I liked it much better than the first Dostoyevsky novel I tried (Crime & Punishment), but I don’t know that I’d say that means I liked it in a global sense. There were things that I found compelling, primarily in terms of character development. The trial at the end is propulsive and very engaging. But ultimately there was just way more religion than I’m looking for in the sorts of stories I enjoy.
- When She Woke: I was expecting a dark YA classic lit adaptation as a bit of a brain break after a heavy read, but this was not really a young adult book, and unexpectedly shared some themes around religion and morality with my previous book. Hillary Jordan riffs on The Scarlet Letter, bringing it forward in time and evoking Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale for good measure. Hannah Payne lives in a near-future United States, in a world that has been changed profoundly by a mutated STD that caused a fertility crisis, a nuclear attack on Los Angeles, and a new way to deal with crime: an injection that literally changes a person’s skin color for the duration of their sentence, with different shades correlating to different crimes. Hannah, born and raised in a conservative evangelical household in Texas, is a Red, reserved for crimes of violence. She’s had an abortion, and refused to name both her doctor and the man who would have been the father of her child…who just so happens to be a mega-church preacher and newly appointed federal official, the pastor Aiden Dale. Once she’s released from her brief prison sentence (in which she, like her fellow prisoners, is broadcast live to reality TV), she finds herself facing choices she never could have imagined before her ill-fated love affair. I’ve always had a soft spot for The Scarlet Letter, and I enjoyed the little callbacks to it, like Hannah’s skill as a seamstress and a nod to Hester Prynne’s daughter Pearl. There’s a development near the end that felt a little forced, and an ending that lacked the satisfaction of the one that Nathaniel Hawthorne devised. There’s also a lot of Hannah reckoning with her faith particularly and belief generally, contemplating the existence of a higher power in a world of profound injustice. It was more philosophically inclined than I’d expected but felt shallow after the intensity and richness of The Brothers Karamazov. It was perfectly okay and I suspect I will hardly remember it six months from now.
- You Look Like That Girl: As an adolescent, Lisa Jakub starred in huge Hollywood movies like Mrs. Doubtfire and Independence Day. And then in her early 20s, she gave it up and moved to Virginia with her now-husband. Her memoir traces her path through show business, beginning with her parents being approached at a farmer’s market in Canada by a talent scout when she was just four years old, through auditions and being kicked out of high school due to her long absences to make movies, and her gradual realization that while she loved being on set and bonding with her coworkers, she didn’t actually love acting or want to do it anymore. I’d read a blog Jakub maintained quite some time ago and was pleasantly surprised to find that she was a talented writer, and that impression held true for this book as well. Her words are humorous, honest, and compelling, and her retirement at 22 makes a lot of sense after the way she recounts her experiences in her career. But if you’re looking for something dishy, this might not be for you. She barely touches on the filming of her most prominent movies, recounting little about Robin Williams and nothing at all about Will Smith. It’s not super substantial, but I found it a quick and enjoyable read.
In Life…
- Session ends in less than a week: The last month and change is when session really takes off, so it has been excruciatingly busy. I miss sleeping and relaxing and seeing my husband and child. I even miss routine home maintenance. I just want to have the time to clean the bathroom on a regular basis again!