Nick O.

Difficult and Better in Print

Revisado: 07-18-23

This is a tricky little novel. The narrator is extremely passive -- "I had come to believe more and more in the virtues of passivity, and of living a life as unmarked by self-will as possible" -- listening while others relate their stories and observations, and so there's a languid, discursive quality to the book. I found my mind wandering while I listened, as you might when sitting on a ferry, overhearing other passengers, tuning in and out of conversations. Sometimes a beautiful phrase or fascinating insight would catch my attention, and I'd find myself turning back to the text so I could reflect on the passage: "It was impossible, I said in response to his question, to give the reasons why the marriage had ended: among other things a marriage is a system of belief, a story, and though it manifests in things that are real enough, the impulse that drives it is ultimately mysterious." That kind of language is harder to catch on audio, and so I'd stop for a while and pick it back up when I had time to devote great attention, and even then I rarely felt motivated to dive back in. I also didn't care much for the reader, Kate Lock, who tries too hard with Greek accents, or overdramatizes a woman talking while she eats honey from a jar: Lock makes a constant smacking sound with her lips, sounding like Winnie the Pooh.

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Dull, Overly Ambitious "Literary Suspense"

Revisado: 04-08-23

I had high hopes for this one, given that I enjoyed Rebecca Makkai's last novel, The Great Believers; adore both Julia Whelan and JD Jackson (who only appears for a few lines); love mysteries and thrillers, and am interested in novels that might elevate the genre just a bit, e.g. Tana French or Kate Atkinson. But this book was a chore: plodding and shambolic, packed with too many characters that never come to life and bereft of the twists one might expect. You get the feeling that Makkai has never read a thriller and has no passion for the genre, resulting in this muddled mess. It aims for a blend of Donna Tart's The Secret History + Serial Season 1 (the narrator seems very much modeled after Sarah Koenig, and Whelan is a great choice for the audiobook), and also tries to say something about true crime and toxic masculinity and the American Justice System and #MeToo but flails and ultimately whiffs.

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Insufferable

Revisado: 09-04-22

Holding this space for proper thoughts when I have time but suffice to say this book is whiny and obnoxiously self-important, oozing with disdain for working class people and people who stay at home to raise children. I hope that one day, assuming she matures past the age of 13, Zauner looks back and cringes at this whiny, narcissistic pomp.

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Dense & Difficult But Rewarding

Revisado: 02-28-22

The Books of Jacob is a historical novel based on a real-life figure, Jacob Frank, who, in 1750s Poland declared himself the Messiah. Specifically, he claimed to be a reincarnation of a previous self-proclaimed heretical messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, who developed groups of followers, known as Sabbateans, in the 1600s. Frank claimed he would unite the three major religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but was evidently a typical cult leader, charismatic and cruel and arrogant and abusive.

This novel tells the story of Frank through the people that knew him and lived alongside him. There many characters and so many names: Father Benedykt Chmielowski, Katarzyna Kossakowska (née Potocka), Elżbieta Drużbacka ... If that seems difficult to follow, IT IS. And to make things more complicated, many of the characters have multiple names, because they get baptized or married or just opt to take on a new name. Tokarczuk does what she can to help us keep track by repeating names ("Avacha, whom he sometimes calls Eva now") or having chapter titles like, "The story of His Lordship Moliwda, or Antoni Kossakowski, of the Ślepowron coat of arms ..." but I often got lost and had to rewind a bit. (If, like me, you got a bit lost trying to follow the characters in My Brilliant Friend, you might struggle to keep up here.) I also had a physical copy of the book, which helped greatly, and which also includes many beautiful illustrations.

The narrators, Gilli Messer and Allen Lewis Rickman (who only reads the sections narrated by Frank's disciple Nahman Samuel ben Levi, aka Piotr Jakubowski), are both excellent, and pronounce the Polish and Hebrew names and phrases beautifully.

The story is told through third-person omniscient narration as well as through letters, the journal entries of Nahman Samuel ben Levi, and the observations of an old woman, Yente, who is neither dead nor alive (don't worry, it's explained in the book). The work is dense and complex, but rewarding and worthwhile. Sometimes I just allowed myself to be confused for a while, and then I picked up the thread again and it worked out. I would encourage anyone who's interested to read an encyclopedia entry on Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank before diving in, because if you understand the overall story you can better appreciate Tokarczuk's thought-provoking observations and wry humor and lovely prose (translated wonderfully by Jennifer Croft).

Take, for instance, this excellent passage on why Jacob Frank "has begun to introduce himself not as before, not as Yankiele Leybowicz, but as Jacob Frank," which means "foreign":

To be foreign is to be free. To have a great expanse stretch out before you—the desert, the steppe. To have the shape of the moon behind you like a cradle, the deafening symphony of the cicadas, the air’s fragrance of melon peel, the rustle of the scarab beetle when, come evening, the sky turns red, and it ventures out onto the sand to hunt. To have your own history, not for everyone, just your own history written in the tracks you leave behind.

I'm grateful that I stayed with this one.

P.S. It would also help, I think, to read some of Tokarczuk's previous works, especially Flights, because the two share many common themes, a somewhat similar structure, and the same exceptional translator.

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Captivating and Poetic

Revisado: 09-15-21

I loved this novel about an extraordinary woman carving out a space for herself in the 12th Century.

Adjoa Andoh reads beautifully, giving unique voices and inflections to the characters, which helped me follow the action more easily than I would have just reading the text, which often transitions seamlessly from internal narration to dialogue without any indication, such as quotation marks. On the other hand, there are so many poetic and clever and thought-provoking passages that I liked having the text nearby so I could sit with some of the lines: "She feels as though she has stepped from a blazing day into a dark room. She sees nothing around her but ghost fragments of the brightness of what she has lost."

I will think about these characters, and especially protagonist Marie for a long time, and look forward to listening to this audiobook again and again.

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Perfect / Stay With It

Revisado: 08-09-21

I dove into this book not knowing anything about it -- nor, honestly, about Russian history -- and it took me a minute to get into the material and comprehend its rhythm. It opens with a brief chronology of Russia from 1953 - 2014, then presents an oral history, interviews with Russians, with little context or explanation. For instance: "Snatches of Street Noise and Kitchen Conversations, 1991 - 2001," in which various citizens muse and opine and tell stories, as if you're sitting in a smoky bar, just overhearing snatches of conversation. It's a bit dizzying. But if you bear with it, after a minute you'll get into the groove and hear unforgettable stories about life in Russia in the second half of the 20th Century. After finishing it I'm still quite confused about events and key players, but the book presents a fascinating emotional, personal history, and I will remember some of these stories for a long time.

The audiobook works exceptionally well thanks to expert direction and a brilliant cast of narrators, some of the best readers in the business. The way they embody the stories here is remarkable and haunting. Give it a shot. Just keep listening and don't worry too much if you get lost for a bit here and there, especially early on.

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Just Go With It

Revisado: 08-09-21

"It is widely known, after all, that real life takes place in movement."

A wild, whimsical, beguiling ride. It's a tricky book in any format, but especially as an audiobook and even more so with Julia Whelan's brisk, breathless narration that leaves you with little time to absorb the words. This is basically a collection of short pieces -- reflections, observations, narratives -- on flight, whether that means musings on airports or stories about travel and escape. Some pieces read like prose poems, others short stories. You sort of just need to listen and know that sometimes it'll make sense, and sometimes you'll be lost for a while, but then the winds will carry you to a place that makes sense again.

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Great But Missing Footnotes

Revisado: 08-09-21

Excellent overview of fungi as food, as medicine, as myth, as poison, as industry, as agents of connection and regeneration for the planet. The science is fascinating and easy to grasp, the characters fascinating, the stories engaging. I like that Bone alternates between the science and research and her own narrative of curiosity about -- and obsession with -- mushrooms. If you like Lulu Miller's Why Fish Don't Exist or Elizabeth Tova Bailey's The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, check this one out.

Aimee Jolson does a fine job narrating the book. She's light and approachable and fun, giving charm to playful lines like, "When you eat a candy cap, your skin smells like maple sugar. When you exercise after eating a candy cap, your sweat smells like maple sugar. When you make love after eating a candy cap ... well, I leave that to the imagination, but ... yes." Sometimes I wondered about her pronunciation, though, especially after she continually pronounces the s in Illinois.

Overall the book is excellent on audio: the few pictures and illustrations in the book don't add all that much. My one minor quibble is that there are plenty of fascinating footnotes that I would love to have seen added, as they are in other science books, so for that reason I'd recommend looking at a copy of the book if possible.

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Lovely, Compelling, Three Hours Too Long

Revisado: 11-17-20

I came to Heartland after reading Sarah Smarsh's compact and compelling sociological meditation on Dolly Parton, She Come By It Natural. Heartland covers much of the same territory, but in far, far greater detail than anyone outside the Smarsh family would ever need, and the result is engaging and insightful but drags and repeats, especially in the later chapters. It's worthwhile overall, and Smarsh reads her own work beautifully; I just wish it'd been pared down by about a third.

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Kind of a Drag

Revisado: 11-11-20

Interesting snapshot of a moment in time. The book was written just after her separation from partner and bandmate Thurston Moore, and that gives the book a tense, sometimes compelling energy, but also a disheartening sourness. For a band that was famous for championing lesser-known artists I was bummed out by all the judgment and acidity on display, the way she polices other women's feminism and trash-talks Lydia Lunch ("she was always trying to seduce Thurson"), Lana Del Rey ("who doesn't even know what feminism is"), Courtney Love, Danielle Dax, and more. She more or less blames Madonna for "a landscape where porn is everywhere, where women are openly using their sexuality to sell their art." (Who knew Kim Gordon had so much in common with Tipper Gore?) It all makes the short book drag after a while.

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