Migrations/The Glass Hotel

I just finished a few books that I sort of read simultaneously. I'm finding it very hard to read during Covid so I'm just doing what I can, trying not to be hard on myself. For some dumb-ass reason I offered to review all these climate disaster novels for Newcity and it has been awful. I mean, great books, but really the last thing I want to read right now. 

 

                                             

Migrations, by Charlotte McConaghy is one of those books that really takes you to another place, which
was a real pleasure as I am currently Sheltering In Place with beloved husband. Who is great but for some reason just won't or can't fill the dishwasher per my specifications? Franny, in Migrations, doesn't stew over tedious and unimportant things like whether it's important for bowls to be placed a certain way on the bottom shelf, although it is, it is important, no! She's hitching a ride on a fishing vessel chasing the last of the worlds terns on their back and forth journey from North pole to South and back again.  "There's a compus in my heart that leads me not to true north but to true sea." Ugh. Could you die?  What kind of romantic-ass notion is that? Fucking romantic, that's what it is. Devastating, exhilarating, thoughtful and heartbreaking, Migrations is beautiful.  "Mam always said it was only a fool who didn't fear the sea, and I've tried to live by that. But there's no way to conjure fear if it doesn't exist. And here is the undeniable truth: I have never feared the sea. I have loved it with every breath of me, every beat of me."

MEANWHILE, what else comes out during this shit-show of a year but another book by Emily St. John Mandel - The Glass Hotel. Maybe it's because I read them on top of each other, but these books felt like sisters to me. Mandel, with her always perfect, exquisite words were a finely matched by McConaghy's prose - the main characters were two independent women that easily travelled the world and were drawn to dangerous ships. Based loosely on Bernie Madoff and his infamous Ponzi Scheme,  The Glass Hotel is not precisely uplifting material for this lowly time either, but it could be worse than getting lost in Mandel's world.

Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi

At the beginning of Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi, Grazia, an Indian-Italian woman returns to India after her mother dies. She uncovers a shocking family secret - she has a sister, who has been living in a group home in Pondicherry. Grazia is furious and confused by the decision her parents made to hide a sister from her, remembering how lonely she was a child, how she would have loved to have a sibling.  She removes her sister from the group home and moves to a small house on the sea (another secret her mother kept from her) and begins a new life as a caregiver for her disabled sister.  In some ways their life is idyllic - her sister loves sitting in the waves, they have wonderful dogs, she’s able to get away on the weekends, but, belied by that simple title and that charming cover art, their lives are difficult.  Her sister’s former school director alternately doesn’t trust Grazia and also requests money for improvements at the school, there’s unrest in the area due to wealth inequality, they are vulnerable as women living alone.  Doshi never romanticizes the setting or casts Gratzia as a saintly figure for caring for her disabled sister, she's a complex character full of doubts and occasional rage and her fair share of regrets.  Here's a bit that I loved:

I don't know what it is, about seeing groups of men together, but it unsettles me. The way they hold their bodies, the ownership of space. Nothing they offer, by way of their togetherness, engenders a sense of safety. It is all gnarl and hair and ballsack and matted heel. The world needs softness, not this.

Content warning: More than one dog dies in this book. 

A Discovery of Witches

I got a new job with a much longer commute, so naturally the first thing I did was get an Audible account.  First I listed to Olive Again, by Elizabeth Strout (12 hrs) - wonderful.  I love Olive dearly.  Then I listened to A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness (24 hrs).  I thought longer would be better but... it's not.  I was not crazy about A Discovery due to it having a VERY post-Twilight feeling in that there's a lot of gross smelling and explaining of smells going on (He smelled like cloves and summer nights sort of thing) and a weird old thousand-year-old vampire in no hurry to have sex.  But, at least, unlike Bella, Diana actually has a real personality and some skills and knowledge that make her attractive/interesting to the broody vampire/reader.  I kept thinking it would probably make a better movie than a book and, indeed, my colorist told me the tv series is really good.

Women Talking

I've been listening to a lot of books lately, but I read Women Talking with my eyes, and was an absolutely absorbing book that I practically finished in one sitting.  Although, at the beginning, I had to walk away from it several times, being quite overwhelmed with rage.  It's based on the true story of a Mennonite community where a number of the men were drugging and raping women and girls and blaming the attacks on the Devil and the women's wild imaginations.  In Toew's book, the men are in the far-away city bailing or being bailed out of jail.  The women remain at the remote community, trying to decide whether to do nothing, leave, or stay and fight.  They are heartbreakingly pragmatic about their situation, and behaving with what you might consider strange behavior for a group of women who have been systematically raped and then gaslighted UNLESS you knew that, HEY, everyone behaves differently after such a traumatic experience (also, watch Unbelievable).  Slowly, Toews releases details that will make you want to throw the book across the room, and yet it's an extremely tender book and even occasionally funny.

I was having trouble keeping track of the characters, although Toews helpfully defines their relationships at the beginning.  I scribbled down a family tree, as I often do.  What became startlingly clear with my little trees was that all the husbands and brothers were unnamed and unaccounted for - not just missing from the narrative, but blank spaces where they should be.  It also became fairly obvious that the harder and more cynical Loewen women have suffered generations of abuse at the hands of their husbands and fathers while the more optimistic Friesen are a bit more carefree and have the freedom to relax into female friendships and maternal care. 

What really struck me was how, despite having absolutely NO education, these women were bright, poetic, and thoughtful.  I can only assume that Toews, who herself lived in a Mennonite community, saw women such as these - resourceful, fierce, protective, and very bright.  There's a wonderful interview with her on NPR.

Did everyone read that op-ed in the NYT by Brit Marling about women and storytelling?  She nailed it (although I think she left out a major element that, aside from limiting women to either beautifully murdered corpses or "Strong Female Lead", no matter what: that lady better be pregnant).  Marling writes, "the hero’s journey is centuries of narrative precedent written by men to mythologize men. Its pattern is inciting incident, rising tension, explosive climax and denouement...a male orgasm." Hole. Ee. Shit.  I don't know why I'd never thought of that, I mean, it's called a climax, for christ's sake.  So, that's made me more aware of non-linear stories lately, or those that don't follow the classic narrative structure.  (MINI SPOILER AHEAD) Toews certainly steers away from the "hero's journey" in Women Talking in that the climactic moments have all happened before the book begins (the rapes, the discovery, the attempt of some of the women to murder the men for their actions.) Women Talking is just that: women talking.  With the exception, we find out just at the end, of the narrator's distress.  Keeping minutes and recounting the story is the melancholy school teacher.  At the beginning of the book, he tells us that he was asked to keep notes by Ona, who sees him out walking in the fields.  At the very end, he allows that he was out walking with his gun, struggling with suicidal thoughts.  One of the women sees his distress and asks him to keep notes of their meeting, both giving him direction, a sense of belonging, and providing a way to place him under the watchful eye of herself and the women of the community.  "The purpose was for me to take them, the minutes. Life."

I'll leave you with these hilarious pictures of "women talking" I found when I google image searched the cover of the book.  Apparently "women talking" equals coffee cups, upturned hands, and more coffee cups.