Smoke filters through the open window, leaving
the scent of the past, of a fire once trapped within
that stone surround, so warm and giving
that it seemed like it would last long past the night.
There There book review
Tommy Orange’s There There was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer. It’s a story about Native Americans, many of whom live in Oakland, California, and how their lives entwine at a powwow.
I found the writing to be compelling and the characters were like old friends. The author toyed with perspective, using even the second person voice for some of the character’s stories.
For instance, one of the character’s description of a warning from his mother comes direct at us, and brings us closer to the telling simply by using the second person narrative.
“Later you remember your mom saying to take drugs was like sneaking into the kingdom of heaven under the gates. It seemed to you more like the kingdom of hell, but maybe the kingdom is bigger and more terrifying than we could ever know. Maybe we’ve all been speaking the broken tongue of angels and demons too long to know that that’s what we are, who we are, what we’re speaking. Maybe we don’t ever die but change, always in the State without hardly ever even knowing we’re in it.”
My biggest problem with the book was keeping up with the sheer number of characters, most of which make a new appearance throughout the book, but their whole stories might be told throughout a few decades time. This jumping around made it difficult to keep track, to the point I was jotting down little blurbs about the characters (my x-ray feature) to keep their stories inline.
Spoilers ahead
At the big ending, when all these characters came together, it was the powerful evocative scene that mirrored a lot of what we see portrayed as Native American encounters of old through media. The murderous scene at the powwow was evocative of the battles described in the opening of the book. Of course, we’re often in the third person inside the individuals head, feeling the bullets hit them, the waves crashing over them, one boy who was shot described the blades of green grass on his face as the only feeling he had. The bullets were described as pulling the men into the ground, towards the core of the earth. It was a callback to the slaughters that happened to Natives throughout history. The betrayals, often times carried out by neighboring tribes.
The ending did leave me a bit wanting. I grew attached to the three boys who had ordinary names, but spelled ridiculously, Lony, Orvil, and Loother. Orvil was shot as he was one of the native dancers. But we never find out if he survived. We get a clue by the grandmother reading the door swiveling eight times as a good omen, and then she pays attention to the doctor. But why is the doctor coming to them such a short time after he was brought into the hospital. It seems to me like Orvil didn’t make it, and the Red Feather family is going to have to learn to cope with this loss. One that will forever shape their family, even as lost members are finding their way back to the fold.
I can understand why There There did not win in 2019, as I believe Overstory was a better novel. But this was an impeccable tale, told with real skill and should be one that writer’s look to for inspiration.
Things of Interest – January 27th – February 2nd
The Things of Interest (TI) series looks at the previous week and some interesting things I’d like to log and share. No theme, other than I found them interesting.
Basketball Fans Uniting
How a tragedy brought the sports world together
All week the basketball world, and many outside of it, have struggled with the tragedy of Kobe, his daughter, and the teammates, coach, and their friends deaths in the helicopter crash in California. Pushing aside the feelings involved, there’s really something about the human spirit shown in the response of fans and really all around the world. I heard a talking head describe it as, “As fans we come to sports to get away from the realities of the world, and then this happens.” We’re falling into sports for an escape, and when the real world intercedes and takes a legend way too soon, there’s not much left but to wonder why.
Quitting Video Games
At least for the time being.
I’ve all but given up on video games, at least for now. I’m sure I’ll still play, but I’ve got to find better things to do with my time. I listened to the Penn Jillette interview on Tim Ferris’ podcast a few weeks ago. In it, he described losing over a hundred pounds of weight. He started the diet with a well known nutritionalist, who had him only eat potatoes for two weeks. The experience wasn’t some newfound starch diet, but one that was to teach him more about food, preparation, what he was putting into his body, and going without variety.
The past few weeks, I’ve done something similar and left video games behind for now. I don’t doubt I’ll still play, but I have read, wrote, rode the bike, played with my daughter, and done so much other more fulfilling things with my time. It’s remarkable how much I can get done without video games taking up so much of my time.
Nytimes Crossword
And even the mini
I’ve found a new piece of entertainment for at least a few minutes each night. I’ve been doing the NYTimes Crossword for at least a week now and I’ve found it to be a good substitute for some engagement on my phone.
I’m also a subscriber to the Times now. I wanted to continue supporting newspapers even though I don’t work at one anymore. This seemed like a good choice, albeit only the digital edition, which so far has been great.
I know this was late this week, but I still wanted to get it out there for the three people frequenting this blog
Less book review
It’s a Pulitzer fiction prize winner, class of 2018. What is this schmuck going to say about the book that will have any impact on whether you should read it or not? Oh, likely nothing, but these reviews also serve as a way for me to put my immediate thoughts down on a book I finish. They’re a later touchstone for when I want to recall bits and pieces of the literary adventure.
So here’s the thing about Less, that’s the main character’s last name. He’s Arthur Less, a 49 year old author who has a midlife crisis when his lover goes off to marry someone else. He shirks the thought of going to the wedding and instead decides on a trip around the world (who wouldn’t?). The trip takes him on some seriously entertaining locales, like Mexico, Paris, Italy, Morocco, and India. The thing that struck me about each of these stops, he always encounters one or two wholly fleshed out characters, people who drop into the story, make an impact, and then leave as quickly as they came. For instance, while he’s in India, he meets a woman named Rubina, who he describes quite well by saying she looked like the profile of Caesar on a coin. She’s jovial and helpful for much of the chapter, and then she’s gone in a flash never to be seen again. These characters show us different sides of Less, but they also give the story its pace, as each destination holds a new and enchanting character that draws more and more out of Less and his partner.
There’s a reason Andrew Greer won the Pulitzer for this novel. The constant onslaught of timely, well positioned descriptors. “He has always felt insignificant to these men, as superfluous as the extra a in quaalude.” That’s just great. It sets tone, has a double entendre of insinuating that the quaalude would help me get over being insignificant to these men, and it’s, well, funny.
Throughout I was hit by passages like that.
In remembering what it was like to be poor at baseball as a twelve year old, he’s describing being put in right field where there’s no action…
“Nothing has happened in right field all season, which is why he was put there: a kind of athletic Canada.”
Or his description of the coffee maker in the hotel room as a “hungry little mollusk, snapping open its jaws to devour pods and subsequently secreting coffee into a mug.”
Overall the story and plot carried on like a Wes Anderson film. Quirky characters. Odd settings. Being rich. It all fit like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if it got picked up as his next film.
My Goodreads review (the definitive judgement center for all things books) where I gave it a 5 out of 5 stars. I enjoyed it. I’ll probably read it again. I’ll also use it as inspiration for my work — it was that powerful.
Now onto other Pulitzer winners from the last decade. I have a goal.
The Big Sick – Review
I’ve been meaning to watch this movie for a while. Kumail Nanjiani of Silicon Valley fame stars in this comedic drama. Check out the score on Rotten Tomatoes, a whopping 98%. Might as well have the backing of the Pope with a score like that.
At the outset it felt a little slow, but picked up and the character development carried the title through the final credits. The actress playing Emily was quite good and the whole experience as the movie dove into the strangeness of hospitals, especially so early on in a serious relationship, felt authentic and evocative. There were spots where the movie had me laughing, mostly due to the absurd situations (the cigar box of female headshots from failed arranged meetings), especially when it came to the family dynamics. Strangely the laughs weren’t realized during the standup bits. It was good to Bo Dunham as I’ve been a fan of his for a while.
Kumail’s character goes through a great transformation. One that felt meaningful for a movie and the pace it set. There was a lot touched on, including arranged marriages, spirituality and religion, honesty, and motivation.
I’d recommend this one. If you have Amazon Prime, it’s available to stream for free.