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What I have read

4089 what I have read : Nathan Hill

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photo : dreamy cormorant in Marahau (windy gardens), sand bar

Hill, Nathan, The Nix,  Knopf, 2016, 752p. Yes, you read correctly, 720 pages!

Nathan Hill is a  newcomer on the American literary scene (and worldwide, since the book has been translated into 30 languages) was  published in 2016.   Nix refers to a Norwegian legend which seems to be the key to the story but  delivered at the very end. It is impossible to summarize a 752 page book in a few lines, but one can try: a presidential candidate has been attacked in public by a woman in her sixties: Faye Andresen-Anderson. Samuel Anderson, English teacher and Shakespeare specialist, is not aware of this event spread across social medias because he is busy playing  The World of Elfscape online. The woman in question happens to be  his mother, who abandoned him when he was a child. Having nonetheless become a promising writer, after the publication of a short story, he got  a substantial advance for his next book, of which he still has not written a line, but he spent the advance  money.

This starting point is the pretext that Hill uses to talk about the difficulty of living and growing up in the United States especially, or elsewhere for that matter, through two generations, his own and that of his mother, and to a certain point, that of his grandfather too, although this angle was not developed to the same extent. I can understand he had to stop at some point, because it would probably have taken a hundred more pages to treat this subject with the detail that Hill showed elsewhere and then, really, but no, that would have been too much. This is nevertheless a little disappointing because the title makes us think that everything starts from Norway, when the grandfather left Norway to emigrate to the United States, when in fact, the novel really focuses on the following generations.

This book could easily have bored me to death. The first chapter takes us into the head of an online video game player and I was tempted to say no thanks, I don’t particularly want to know what’s going on in there. We then dive into the childhood and adolescence of Samuel Anderson and again, fortunately he changes the subject, just as I am about to give up. There’s a limit to my desire to know what’s going on in someone’s head, and having already recently delved into Jon Fosse’s book and Gerald Munrane’s book, I couldn’t cope with too much more of that. I still managed to get through these moments that were a little too detailed for my liking because he writes really very well and he has a sense of humour. What kept me going, however, was the chapter where Samuel Anderson calls a student into his office to tell her that she cheated and that her assignment will be a failure. The student doesn’t see it that way and she will end up winning her case, but the reader has the pleasure of seeing how  this result can be achieved  and get the teacher fired as a bonus. Obviously, this made me laugh because it reminded me of my academic  life, which I would not now want to return to under any circumstances. Otherwise, the book goes in all directions: political history, media influence, addiction, unhappy childhood, military life and so on. However, even if the book is very, very well written and often amusing, it seems to me once again (this is not the first time I have said it) that the book would have benefited from some cuts. Or, if I had been Hill’s editor, I would have suggested that he cut some unnecessarily detailed passages to better develop the grandfather’s story, which really left me wanting more.

But the book left me wanting to read more from him, when his next book (624  pages this time) arrives at the library (hopefully I am not too far on the waiting list).

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#4022What I have read : Deborah Levy

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But before I get to Levy, a few other books I have read in the last few months 

David Lodge: Paradise News (1991), bought at last year's Nelson second-hand book fair. The back cover presents the book to us with a reflection on the notion of paradise, a description that is quite accurate. I know the author for his books on academia and he always makes me laugh or smile. Even in this book, which takes place a long way from the academic world (Hawaii, in this case), he manages to infiltrate an academic who reflects on mass tourism and its evils. I liked the book even if the last part is a bit lost.

Isabelle Allende: Violeta (2022), offered by LG. A book that examines the life of a centenarian, Violeta Del Valle, born in 1920. It begins with the description of the Spanish flu and one really wonders if it is 1920 or 2020. It then guides the reader in the intricacies of the story of a woman, her emotions and her country, wealth, poverty, the loss of loved ones and love. I liked the book, but now I don't know if I want to read any more. Not for the moment. 
John Banville: The lock-up (2023), courtesy of LG. This book is part of the Detective Benjamin Black series, which Banville first wrote under a pen name, before reverting to his own. I had read April in Spain (the previous one, published in 2021), but his most recent one is more successful in my opinion. For lovers of detective stories seasoned with the best Banville has to offer. 

As for Deborah Levy's book, What I don't want to know 2018 (borrowed from Nelson's library, now 70% open!), it is the first volume of an autobiographical trilogy by the author from South Africa living in Britain since the age of nine. She wrote this book to answer the question about why she writes. It was during a trip to Mallorca that she seems to have found the answer to this question. As soon as she arrived, she started remembering her childhood in South Africa, her father imprisoned for three years because he supported the ANC, which forced the family to emigrate to Britain when he was released from prison, after he was no longer able work. I appreciated her beautiful writing more inspiring when she leaves the facts behind, and found the beginning and the end  particularly powerful. I still want to read the following two books of the trilogy and maybe some of her fiction as well. The following sentence touched me deeply: "The way we are wired to kill. Ourselves”.
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what I have read

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I  have  discovered this year ( totally banal)  is that the impression I get from reading a few paragraphs of a book varies greatly depending on my state of mind. Until  recently, I thought that the variation in my reactions (often initially negative, then positive) came from the evolution of my literary tastes (which became more refined over time, or at least that is what I thought), but I realized that it is simply the state of mind I am in when I read a few paragraphs from a book (usually from an author I know little or nothing about).

Toni Morrison. The bluest eyes. The story of a young black girl  dreaming  of having blue eyes, but also the history of an entire community. Published in 1970, Morrison’s first novel is a masterpiece, which has not aged a bit. The way in which she controls the narrative makes it  hard to believe it’s a first novel, . Of note is the documentary on Netflix, about Morrison, who was also the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Just loved it !

Anne Enright. The Actress. Published in 2020, the Irish author’s latest book didn’t bring me as much joy as The Gathering  and The Green Road (winner of the Man Booker). In her latest book, she tells the story from the point of view of  an actress’ daughter, who is looking back at her flawed mother and the influence it had on her life. It is very well written and there are some moments of joy,  but I had a harder time getting interested in it. I usually find the Irish cultural context very interesting and, like many Irish authors, Enright  knows how to tell a story, but I prefer when she delves into family stories, where she is unbeatable.

Hilary Mantel. The Mirror and the Light. It is the third  installment of the trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell, published in 2020.  I thought this book,  that impressed me even  more than the first two would not only be in the running for this year’s Booker, but would win for the third time (which would have been unprecedented), but it did not happen. I read her latest book after reading  Giving up the ghost (2003), Mantel’s memoir. Is it the reason I had  the impression I was reading about Cromwell through a medium ? Maybe, but  it really felt  like I was being taken inside Cromwell’s head, and that’s her greatest talent.  Anyway, a masterpiece  again. It was her writing that fascinated me this time, rather than the character. I must admit, however,  that there was a little too much torture towards the end, which nonetheless   did not spoil my pleasure.

Ian McEwan. Solar . This is McEwan’s second or third book that I read, the one I remember is  Atonement, which became a film starring Keira Knightley  and James  McAvoy  (not as good as the book, but my male friends tell me it doesn’t matter because Knightley is soooo beautiful {difficult to say otherwise}) and  Amsterdam  (which I vaguely remember). According to The Guardian, McEwan specializes in one-dimensional, often scientific, characters. In this book published in 2010, the British author puts himself in the shoes of a man who obtained a Nobel Prize in Physics at a young age, which serves as a pretext to do almost nothing for  the rest of his life, except womanising, drinking and eating at the expenses of others. McEwan seems to take pleasure in portraying an abject and grotesque personality, describing at length  his concerns about chips and alcohol, in short, this book did not particularly interest me, although McEwan convincingly demonstrates  his understanding of physics (not enough to grab my attention). Luckily I bought this book at the used book fair!

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libraries of the future (2)

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spring in Nelson, October 2020, Sylvie GE

By pure  chance, this morning, I came across an article in Newsroom (NZ) entitled: « Wanted: a politician withe the  guts to halt a cultural scandal ». In this article we are told that after got rid of 60,000 books already, they will be sending 70,000 more books  on October 12 to the Lions club (I would love to live in Wellington at the moment). We do something similar here at the Nelson library. Near the exit, there is always a bin containing old books that the library is  happy to get rid of. The catch with the National library’s decision is that the Lions Club bin contains books by Marx, Mao, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Primo Levi, Virginia Woolf, etc. In fact, the National library intends to get rid of 625,000 books. Oh no ! wait! they  are not going to get rid of the books, they are going to « rehome » them (silly me).