While Reading and Walking

Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak is the astounding tale of the five Dunbar brothers, about classic male camaraderie and family love, about how their mother died, about where their father went, and most of all about the fourth brother, Clay, their center.

It is a long novel that moves quickly thanks to its short chapters, that begins slow but steadily pulls you in, until by the end, you are racing to finish. Some things I guessed, but in Zusak’s classic way, the things you already know mean little—he could (and sometimes does) tell you what’s coming, and the pull and push of it all will still rend your heart into pieces. I found my heart in Carey, Clay’s friend and an apprentice jockey, and her story. The unspooling saga through flashbacks and jumps keep you close to the characters—Zusak has a gift for writing realistic, complex people with clear laughter and sorrows, each of them. Each brother is distinct and fresh in his own way; ultimately, this story is about them, the parents who formed them, the stories that made them, and the way they supported one another, bolstered each other up, fought, and survived. The places, the items, the races, all take on tactile realness in the haze of the Dunbar brothers’ world. Zusak’s newest is a touching, worthwhile read that may take a while to catch you up, but once it does, you are fully and truly invested in making it to the end—and in some ways the beginning—of Clay’s story.

Nature is full of wonders. I am consistently wowed by the complexity of colors that the earth has the capacity to create.

The Garfield Park Conservatory is a joy with lots of gorgeous flowers, and a grapefruit tree, and a room full of poinsettias and peppermint, and a ton of facts about cacti that I didn’t know. I want to go back tomorrow.

I had very mixed feelings about Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. It tells the story of a modern-day family who have done everything right yet now live on the poverty line in a crumbling house in Vineland, New Jersey. It also dives into historical fiction with the story of Thatcher Greenwood, a 1800s-teacher who befriends scientist Mary Treat while making enemies as he insists on his right to teach Darwinism and other true science.

The highlight of this novel was learning about the life and discoveries of Mary Treat, a scientist I knew nothing about who corresponded with famous scientists such as Charles Darwin and lived off of her contributions to scientific journals of her day. The modern-day (2016ish) storyline focused sometimes too closely on the revelations and debates of the family, making it come off as a highlight reel of sorts. The many political conversations the family has weren’t unrealistic as some reviewers claim, but the pacing of the novel makes it seem as though the big questions are all they discuss, while skipping over most actual events. The most effective moments are the ones she allows to be more personal, real, quiet: a conversation where Tig opens up to Willa about her time in Cuba, for example.

There are other problems with the text. Kingsolver captures the many complexities of all the characters to try and make them realistic as modern-day white liberals. She does succeed in some ways—the microaggressions that lead to arguments within the family are very realistic and successful—but Willa’s internal lapses into ableism, fatphobia, and her casual racism are jarring because they go unexamined. The ableism in this text is particularly insidious: the old racist grandfather and Trump supporter is dying and his dependence on a wheelchair and oxygen is meant to be a source for sympathy even as he spews racism, which is fine as that’s just a portrayal of a stubborn older racist, but the villain in Thatcher’s story, the creationist principal is also disabled—he has a wooden hand that’s evoked when he’s being his most stubborn. This links backwardness with being disabled, with physical weakness or difference. I also felt the excellent character of resourceful, anti-capitalist millennial Tig was held back by the risks of her becoming a caricature through her insistence that her dreads aren’t a problem because her whiteness is a construct and her romanticization of Cuba that’s never nuanced.

Kingsolver was too ambitious with this novel, or perhaps just didn’t finish what she started. Whenever a work of fiction is written, eventually as it’s edited, its construction blends into the background. Here, it’s clearly constructed, which is why so many reviewers find it preachy. In terms of craft, for example, each chapter title is the final words of the chapter before it, a very forced way of connecting Kingsolver’s two storylines. Kingsolver’s novel feels consistently created. It’s impossible to truly lose yourself in the characters’ narratives—while so much of what Kingsolver writes is interesting, it’s impossible to shake off the sense that this was written to you in the modern day. Ultimately, the weakness of the novel emerges in the unshakeable presence of the author, who won’t allow the text to speak for itself.

The Seminary Co-op is a dream.

“‘I say that is wine,’ Brett held up her glass. ‘We ought to toast something. ‘Here’s to royalty.’
‘This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. you don’t want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste.’”
—from A Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The Garfield Park Conservatory is a joy. I can’t believe I haven’t been until today.

grace–upon–grace:

MUR

I’m giving so many friends N.K. Jemisin this holiday season. Because she’s the queen of fantasy and science fiction, and if you’re not reading her, you should get up-to-date.