My reading pace in the third quarter of the year was the same as the previous three months with 7 books completed, adding up to a total of 27 books so far this year, which I’ve covered off in my Q1 update part 1 and part 2 published in April and Q2 update published in July. This time around, the books were predominantly fiction, and perhaps for the first time ever in a three-month block, every author was a first-time read for me.
Persephone Station by Stine Leicht (2021): This scifi adventure has elements of a Western, with a plot that borrows from Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and Frank Herbert’s Dune. On an outback planet named Persephone Station, a stereotypical evil corporation has been attempting to discover the native population’s secret of extended life into hiding. The corporation representative Vissia eventually discovers where the natives have been hiding out and hires mercenaries to wipe them out. The natives turn to a local crime boss Rosie (with a proverbial heart of gold) and request them for help, so Rosie puts together a team to do so. This rag-tag group of social outcasts come together aided by plenty of heavy weaponry and travel to the natives’ hidden enclave in the desert in a dropship named Kurosawa (wink! wink!) to await the mercenaries sent by the Serrao-Orlov corporation. The first half of the book focuses on the coming together of the team, while the second half features the battle in the desert. Author Stine Leicht has filled the novel with an ensemble of interesting characters, receiving kudos for inclusivity, given the number of prominent roles played by LGBTQ and BIPOC individuals. I found it difficult to keep track of all the different characters, but overall, this was a fast-paced read.
People Like Them by Samira Sedira/translated by Lara Vergnaud (2021): This short (just 192 pages) but hard-hitting novel is simultaneously a crime thriller and an exploration of unconscious bias in modern society. Ms. Sedira creates an a couple of interesting variations to the standard narrative. First, she places the action in the countryside, far from the relatively enlightened cosmopolitan centres. Secondly, she creates a situation involving racial bias from one end and class bias from another side, then ponders the question of which one is the more powerful negative force. A wealthy mixed-race couple with 3 kids buys a property in a remote mountain village in France, and soon start mixing socially with the locals, inadvertently creating all sorts of cultural and societal upheavals. One thing leads to another, ending with a horrific crime committed by one of the residents, Constant Guillot. The novel is told in the first person by Constant’s wife Anna, starting off with Constant’s court trial, then flashing back to the events that led to this tragic conclusion. It’s a gripping read and sets up all sorts of questions about the definition of equality and ethics, reminding us that bad behaviour can also come from people of colour.
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (2020): Louise Erdrich is a winner of the 2012 National Book Award for Fiction. She is a part-descendant of Native Americans, a registered member of a Chippewa tribe in North Dakota and pretty much all her prolific works of fiction, poetry and children’s literature are set within Native America communities. The Night Watchman is inspired by events involving Ms. Erdrich’s grandfather in the 50’s and features the character of Thomas Wazhashk as the fictional version of her grandfather. Wazhashk is a night watchman at a local manufacturing plant and also a Chippewa council member, to fight an emancipation bill that is part of the larger Indian termination policy pursued by the US government during the 50’s and 60’s to “assimilate” Native Americans into modern white society. Against this backdrop, Ms. Erdrich weaves in other sub-plots involving various members of Thomas’ tribe, each quirky, colorful and relatable in their own way, and driven by their hopes, desires, fears and frailties.
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015): I was reminded of this Pulitzer prize winning novel when positive reviews for its follow-up The Committed started appearing in March this year, just as its celebrated author turned 50. And so, I decided to read the first novel, a first-person account of a South Vietnamese refugee/exile in the US who is actually a communist mole. The story takes us through many phases of the unnamed protagonist’s life, starting from his escape prior to the fall of South Vietnam, to his life in the US (which includes a stint as a consultant for a film on the Vietnam war), to his participation in a failed mission by an army of rebels to re-enter Vietnam. Although a communist mole, he is captured and tortured by the Vietnamese to ascertain whether his ideology has withstood the corrupting influence of life in America. In fact, the entire narrative of the novel is framed as his written confession. Viet Thanh Nguyen is perhaps the most accomplished wordsmith I have ever come across in popular literature. Every few pages, I came across a sentence or a passage that was a masterwork of metaphor, wry humour, self-deprecation and cynicism.
The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris (2021): One of the most powerful stories I have read in recent years, this debut novel heralds the arrival of 29-year-old Nathan Harris as a major new voice in contemporary literature. Set in the fictional town of Old Oak in Georgia state in the aftermath of the American Civil War, the novel tells the story of the landowner George Walker, who pits himself against local sentiment when he provides employment and shelter to two brothers, former slaves who have been freed through the Emancipation Proclamation. The implications of George’s actions ripple across the Old Ox, resulting in broken lives and eventually, death and destruction. Although George takes the initial action, it’s his wife Isabelle who emerges at the end of the novel as the more resilient of the two. There is also a significant sub-plot involving their son Caleb, which actually sets in motion the second half of the novel. The Sweetness of Water was longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize and was Oprah’s book of the month for June 2021.
Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris (2021): This detailed and fascinating biography of the director of classics such as The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf as well as crowd-pleasers like Working Girl and The Birdcage is a must-read for any fan of films. Mike Nichols truly lived an extraordinary life, starting off performing comedy skits with his partner Elaine May, then hitting the New York theatre scene like a whirlwind as a successful director of Broadway plays, before crashing into Hollywood as the ultimate outsider, with his first two films garnering a total of 20 Oscar nominations! Along the way, he worked with actors like Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, directing them in some of the most memorable roles of their careers. The book provides a fascinating inside view into the tortured soul of a genius and lays bare all the artistic chaos that lies behind the beautifully wrought works of art we enjoy on our screens. The end of the book was quite poignant, as Nichols in failing health and not having directed a film since Charlie Wilson’s War in 2007, still yearned for acknowledgement and recognition from an industry which had little interest in the kind of high-intensity character explorations that he was known for. It was quite a hefty read and took me several months to get through, but well worth the effort.
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani (2016): This creepy novel begins with a horrific crime committed by Louise, a middle-aged nanny working for an upper middle class family, then flashes back to the history of her relationship with that family, attempting to explore the “why” of the crime. Inspired by a real life incident that took place in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 2012, French-Moroccan writer Leila Slimani has transposed the story to Paris’s 10th arrondissement and was originally published in French under the title Chanson Douce and then released in English in 2018. Essentially a character study, Ms. Slimani paints all the protagonists in shades of grey – Louise, the parents Paul and Myriam, even their two small children Mila and Adam. The sequence of events begins with Myriam being offered a job by an ex-colleague, after she spent a period of time raising the two children. Naturally, for Myriam to go back to work, the couple have to hire a nanny, and very soon they are thrilled to discover that Louise is perfect in every way. Over time, their trust in Louise grows to the point that she is treated like a member of the family. Louise develops a sense of entitlement in terms of her place in the family, but of course, there are invisible lines that exist between employer and employee. As Louise knowingly or unknowingly crosses those lines, a subtle friction sets into the perfect relationship. Louise harbors a sense of unfulfillment in relation to her own family life, and with the safe haven she has built with her new adopted family now under threat, a growing neurosis sets in, which ultimately culminates in the grisly act. The unsettling conclusion to the story seems to be that one can never really know what goes on in another person’s mind, and on rare occasions, trust can be betrayed.
September was a “dry” month as far as reading is concerned, and so the two novels I started off on, both broadly falling into the eco-fiction sub-genre – Matt Bell’s Appleseed and Ash Davidson’s Damnation Spring – have not attained much reading momentum. I’m not even confident that I will finish either book. Meanwhile, Damon Galgut’s The Promise, which has just won the Booker Prize for 2021, indeed looks promising! And I’m looking forward to oceanographer Dr. Edith Wedder’s non-fiction book on deep sea marine life, titled Below the Edge of Darkness, which I bought last month.
Chronophlogiston 