jdscott50's reviews
1509 reviews
Biography of X by Catherine Lacey
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Author Catherine Lacey made a name for herself with the breakout hit No One Is Ever Missing, which would become a New Yorker's Best Books of 2014. Her new fiction book, Biography of X, chronicles the mysterious life of X. An Author, An artist, and a creator who mesmerized the American public for 25 years until her death. When a biography is written about her life, X's wife finds it flat and sets out to write her own biography. However, she finds the ever-elusive X is a mystery even to herself.
A biography within this fiction book, C. M. Luca, the author and wife, sets up to find the true story of X. Whether this act is out of love, grief, or her own need to know is irrelevant. She finds X's true birthplace in the South (or Southern Territory), a timeline where the South succeeded again after World War II and created a Christofascist state.) She finds Xs real name and that she escaped by faking her own death. This is just the beginning of her crisscrossing the territories and around the world. Each place had a different identity and a different art movement. She's a writer, an actor, and a painter; the changing identities become art in and of itself. Finally, going by X, she claims that one's entire identity is drag. Ultimately, is the wife unknowingly part of the act? Or is the final act one of love?
A fun journey through contemporary art movements with some creative license for a more feminist world.
Favorite Passages:
Grief has a warring logic; it always wants something impossible, something worse and something better.
The title of this book—as titles so often are—is a lie. This is not a biography, but rather a wrong turn taken and followed, the document of a woman learning what she should have let lie in ignorance. Perhaps that’s what all books are, the end of someone’s trouble, someone putting their trouble into a pleasing order so that someone else will look at it.
“The circumstance of someone’s birth should have no bearing on their life, and any insistence on the importance of those accidental facts is violence, ignorance. A person can be understood only through the life they choose, the people they choose, the things they do, and not the things that are done to them.*”
The photo develops. And this is what life is, little Waldo Emerson, little Charlie, darling. You put people in situations and their personality develops. Their little freaky heads.
This is one of the darker, less contested realities of authoritarian governments—that the human animal is a meek thing, easily manipulated. No one wants to admit that they, too, might live quite happily in a simulation, in a simulacrum of life. No one wants to believe that they are, at heart, more interested in comfort than in truth.
“How close I felt to him, close against my will. Despite every trouble she caused me, and despite all the falsehoods I was left to untangle, and despite the rage I sometimes feel these days toward her, I wanted then and still want now to be singular in X’s life. Was that all this was? An attempt to prove myself to be irreplaceable, the victor, the most crucial and true love in her life? I didn’t know that trying to prove this fantasy would so certainly undo it.”
That’s a real story, Gioia said. A real story from a real life. It’s never a kidnapping, a deathbed confession. It’s always much simpler—letters thrown out. That’s a real story.
A biography within this fiction book, C. M. Luca, the author and wife, sets up to find the true story of X. Whether this act is out of love, grief, or her own need to know is irrelevant. She finds X's true birthplace in the South (or Southern Territory), a timeline where the South succeeded again after World War II and created a Christofascist state.) She finds Xs real name and that she escaped by faking her own death. This is just the beginning of her crisscrossing the territories and around the world. Each place had a different identity and a different art movement. She's a writer, an actor, and a painter; the changing identities become art in and of itself. Finally, going by X, she claims that one's entire identity is drag. Ultimately, is the wife unknowingly part of the act? Or is the final act one of love?
A fun journey through contemporary art movements with some creative license for a more feminist world.
Favorite Passages:
Grief has a warring logic; it always wants something impossible, something worse and something better.
The title of this book—as titles so often are—is a lie. This is not a biography, but rather a wrong turn taken and followed, the document of a woman learning what she should have let lie in ignorance. Perhaps that’s what all books are, the end of someone’s trouble, someone putting their trouble into a pleasing order so that someone else will look at it.
“The circumstance of someone’s birth should have no bearing on their life, and any insistence on the importance of those accidental facts is violence, ignorance. A person can be understood only through the life they choose, the people they choose, the things they do, and not the things that are done to them.*”
The photo develops. And this is what life is, little Waldo Emerson, little Charlie, darling. You put people in situations and their personality develops. Their little freaky heads.
This is one of the darker, less contested realities of authoritarian governments—that the human animal is a meek thing, easily manipulated. No one wants to admit that they, too, might live quite happily in a simulation, in a simulacrum of life. No one wants to believe that they are, at heart, more interested in comfort than in truth.
“How close I felt to him, close against my will. Despite every trouble she caused me, and despite all the falsehoods I was left to untangle, and despite the rage I sometimes feel these days toward her, I wanted then and still want now to be singular in X’s life. Was that all this was? An attempt to prove myself to be irreplaceable, the victor, the most crucial and true love in her life? I didn’t know that trying to prove this fantasy would so certainly undo it.”
That’s a real story, Gioia said. A real story from a real life. It’s never a kidnapping, a deathbed confession. It’s always much simpler—letters thrown out. That’s a real story.
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
challenging
dark
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
In the not-so-distant future, private prisons get creative in how to make money. Not content with federal tax dollars and crooked schemes, they create a reality show network. CAPE develops Hard Action Sports, a gladiator show where prisoners kill each other for a chance at freedom. One-on-one attacks with weapons in a stadium arena, complete with announcers.
Prisoners have teams known as chains and links (hence chain gangs). Hurricane Staxx and Thurwar are the leaders of their chain. Kill after horrendous kill moves them closer to freedom until a change in the rules will bring them face to face.
A condemnation of the carceral state and the horrors that exist in prison combined with exploitation and entertainment. I think prisons wouldn't do this because they would not want to set anyone free. Of course, even that problem is solved in the worst way in the conclusion.
Favorite Passages:
Door number two slides away, then the man sees his own dead body. Jackpot, triple seven, somebody wins, just definitely not him. He stops shaking. I watch him close. Workers hand him a purple pillow with a spoon resting on top of it. More salt for new wounds. He holds the spoon in his hand. Looks at it. Sees himself stretched against the curve. I watch him close. It’s a show I’ve seen before. When a man sees he has been forsaken. Discovers he might be unblessed. Thinking he understood. All at once he see the gods he kept don’t keep him the same way. Not how he hoped. He see he had it all wrong the whole time.
His mama named him a king’s name
’Cause she knew what he had within
His only sin, was too human
So please, God, let him in
So please, Lord, let him in
Prisoners have teams known as chains and links (hence chain gangs). Hurricane Staxx and Thurwar are the leaders of their chain. Kill after horrendous kill moves them closer to freedom until a change in the rules will bring them face to face.
A condemnation of the carceral state and the horrors that exist in prison combined with exploitation and entertainment. I think prisons wouldn't do this because they would not want to set anyone free. Of course, even that problem is solved in the worst way in the conclusion.
Favorite Passages:
Door number two slides away, then the man sees his own dead body. Jackpot, triple seven, somebody wins, just definitely not him. He stops shaking. I watch him close. Workers hand him a purple pillow with a spoon resting on top of it. More salt for new wounds. He holds the spoon in his hand. Looks at it. Sees himself stretched against the curve. I watch him close. It’s a show I’ve seen before. When a man sees he has been forsaken. Discovers he might be unblessed. Thinking he understood. All at once he see the gods he kept don’t keep him the same way. Not how he hoped. He see he had it all wrong the whole time.
His mama named him a king’s name
’Cause she knew what he had within
His only sin, was too human
So please, God, let him in
So please, Lord, let him in
A Brief History of Equality by Thomas Piketty
informative
slow-paced
4.0
The complicated narrative of Thomas Piketty is focused on equality. In his books Capital and Capital and Ideology, he examines today's capitalism's root problem. He creates scenarios on how to rectify the inequality caused by capitalists.
Piketty's attempt here is to shorten his work to make it more digestible, but it is equal parts dense even if the page count is less daunting. Of the three books in this series, Capital and Ideology is the closest to making his points and creating a plan of action. This book is a mere condensed version of that.
Capital is a long-form retelling of Pere Goirot. If you don't already have wealth, it will be impossible to create it. Even the most corrupt, soulless person could not cheat to the top from nowhere. Capital and Ideology details the problems with economic systems benefitting the powerful over the centuries and the need to recalibrate wealth to be fair and prevent war. The main thrust in all of these works is that without controlled efforts at wealth distribution, the world will be forced into it through war and crisis. The biggest wealth restriction in history comes from World Wars, revolts, and disease. One can restructure peaceful or through a natural cause of events of forceful redistribution.
Piketty's attempt here is to shorten his work to make it more digestible, but it is equal parts dense even if the page count is less daunting. Of the three books in this series, Capital and Ideology is the closest to making his points and creating a plan of action. This book is a mere condensed version of that.
Capital is a long-form retelling of Pere Goirot. If you don't already have wealth, it will be impossible to create it. Even the most corrupt, soulless person could not cheat to the top from nowhere. Capital and Ideology details the problems with economic systems benefitting the powerful over the centuries and the need to recalibrate wealth to be fair and prevent war. The main thrust in all of these works is that without controlled efforts at wealth distribution, the world will be forced into it through war and crisis. The biggest wealth restriction in history comes from World Wars, revolts, and disease. One can restructure peaceful or through a natural cause of events of forceful redistribution.
A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
Nicole Chung brought insights into transracial adoption with her memoir All You Can Ever Know. She has a new memoir out. In A Living Remedy, Chung's parents are ill and pass away. She recounts the agony of having sick and dying parents. Without health insurance or support, her parents ignore their health concerns until one day, her father goes to sleep and doesn't wake up. Her mother died of cancer during the Covid pandemic, and she could not be with her when she passed.
This one was a hard one to read. As a child, having to coerce parents to do anything is an impossible task. Her father refuses to go to the doctor. Only after much cajoling does he apply for Medicaid. When he is refused, his price is hurt, and he doesn't reapply. He eventually does get help but then passes away suddenly. After burying their father, the mother is diagnosed with cancer. The pandemic hits, and then she cannot visit. She barely has one phone call with her before she passes. She watches the services virtually. It reflects on her parents, their inner life once she moved out, and the shortcomings of the American healthcare system.
Favorite Passages:
But in this country, unless you attain extraordinary
wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you’d hoped. You will learn to live with the specific,
hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them.
Grief is a chasm, one I can lose myself in without trying. And yet it’s not quite the unyielding abyss I feared it would be.
I thought they would feel farther away—that they would both be lost to me, and that it was what I deserved. But now, sometimes, I feel they are so close, as if they were only in the next room, as if one of them might hear me if I
called. It’s not a presence, exactly. But not an absence, either
This one was a hard one to read. As a child, having to coerce parents to do anything is an impossible task. Her father refuses to go to the doctor. Only after much cajoling does he apply for Medicaid. When he is refused, his price is hurt, and he doesn't reapply. He eventually does get help but then passes away suddenly. After burying their father, the mother is diagnosed with cancer. The pandemic hits, and then she cannot visit. She barely has one phone call with her before she passes. She watches the services virtually. It reflects on her parents, their inner life once she moved out, and the shortcomings of the American healthcare system.
Favorite Passages:
But in this country, unless you attain extraordinary
wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you’d hoped. You will learn to live with the specific,
hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them.
Grief is a chasm, one I can lose myself in without trying. And yet it’s not quite the unyielding abyss I feared it would be.
I thought they would feel farther away—that they would both be lost to me, and that it was what I deserved. But now, sometimes, I feel they are so close, as if they were only in the next room, as if one of them might hear me if I
called. It’s not a presence, exactly. But not an absence, either
Sea Change by Gina Chung
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The women in Ro's family have never had much luck with men. Her boyfriend shuffles off to Mars, her father is missing at Sea, and her favorite octopus is being purchased by a private collector. All these events force Ro to reflect on her life to find a new way forward.
This seems to be published on the heels of similar books like Remarkably Bright Creatures. Always an octopus giving you insights on life. This book seems to be the tamer of the two. Ro is stuck working at the aquarium. It seems the loss of the octopus may force her hand. However, when the collector has an incident with the octopus, he has second thoughts, but the dye is cast for Ro.
I didn't get a lot out of this and the book doesn't seem to live up to the title.
This seems to be published on the heels of similar books like Remarkably Bright Creatures. Always an octopus giving you insights on life. This book seems to be the tamer of the two. Ro is stuck working at the aquarium. It seems the loss of the octopus may force her hand. However, when the collector has an incident with the octopus, he has second thoughts, but the dye is cast for Ro.
I didn't get a lot out of this and the book doesn't seem to live up to the title.
Greek Lessons by Han Kang
challenging
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Han Kang returns with a new work. She was first put on the map with her breakthrough debut, The Vegetarian. She has a knack for writing unusual characters. Their actions become a reflection of society.
In Greek Lesons, a young woman has lost her voice. She is unable to sound out the words to communicate. It's not the first time. When she was young, she solved the problem by learning a new language. The first time, it was French. This time, it's Greek, hence the title. We watch her heartbreaking journey as she goes from being a known writer and lecturer to losing her mother and custody of her eight-year-old son in the divorce. The novel examines her agony. The sharpness of words becomes too much. Just like in the Vegetarian, there is this metaphor for withdrawal from society. She seems helpless to stop it. The Greek professor is losing his sight. They come together in the conclusion. Will they be made new, or will everything vanish?
Poetic and haunting, its difficult not to get lost in this novel. I read it almost straight through as often as I could. A desperate connection to one another in a vanishing world.
Favorite Passages:
She no longer thought in language. She moved without language and understood without language—as it had been before she learned to speak, no, before she had obtained life, silence, absorbing the flow of time like balls of cotton, enveloped her body both outside and in.
Now and then, words would thrust their way into her sleep like skewers, startling her awake several times a night. She got less and less sleep, was increasingly overwhelmed by sensory stimuli, and sometimes an inexplicable pain burned against her solar plexus like a metal brand.
The most agonizing thing was how horrifyingly distinct the words sounded when she opened her mouth and pushed them out one by one. Even the most nondescript phrase outlined completeness and incompleteness, truth and lies, beauty and ugliness, with the cold clarity of ice. Spun out white as spider’s silk from her tongue and by her hand, those sentences were shameful. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to scream.
Around the period her child—the child she had borne eight years ago and for whom she had now been deemed unfit to care—first learned to speak, she had dreamed of a single word in which all human language was encompassed. It was a nightmare so vivid as to leave her back drenched in sweat. One single word, bonded with a tremendous density and gravity. A language that would, the moment someone opened their mouth and pronounced it, explode and expand as all matter had at the universe’s beginning. Every time she put her tired, fretful child to bed and drifted into a light sleep herself, she would dream that the immense crystallized mass of all language was being primed like an ice-cold explosive in the center of her hot heart, encased in her pulsing ventricles.
“It wasn’t an issue of vocal cords or lung capacity. She just didn’t like taking up space. Everyone occupies a certain amount of physical space according to their body mass, but voice travels far beyond that. She had no wish to disseminate her self”
In Greek Lesons, a young woman has lost her voice. She is unable to sound out the words to communicate. It's not the first time. When she was young, she solved the problem by learning a new language. The first time, it was French. This time, it's Greek, hence the title. We watch her heartbreaking journey as she goes from being a known writer and lecturer to losing her mother and custody of her eight-year-old son in the divorce. The novel examines her agony. The sharpness of words becomes too much. Just like in the Vegetarian, there is this metaphor for withdrawal from society. She seems helpless to stop it. The Greek professor is losing his sight. They come together in the conclusion. Will they be made new, or will everything vanish?
Poetic and haunting, its difficult not to get lost in this novel. I read it almost straight through as often as I could. A desperate connection to one another in a vanishing world.
Favorite Passages:
She no longer thought in language. She moved without language and understood without language—as it had been before she learned to speak, no, before she had obtained life, silence, absorbing the flow of time like balls of cotton, enveloped her body both outside and in.
Now and then, words would thrust their way into her sleep like skewers, startling her awake several times a night. She got less and less sleep, was increasingly overwhelmed by sensory stimuli, and sometimes an inexplicable pain burned against her solar plexus like a metal brand.
The most agonizing thing was how horrifyingly distinct the words sounded when she opened her mouth and pushed them out one by one. Even the most nondescript phrase outlined completeness and incompleteness, truth and lies, beauty and ugliness, with the cold clarity of ice. Spun out white as spider’s silk from her tongue and by her hand, those sentences were shameful. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to scream.
Around the period her child—the child she had borne eight years ago and for whom she had now been deemed unfit to care—first learned to speak, she had dreamed of a single word in which all human language was encompassed. It was a nightmare so vivid as to leave her back drenched in sweat. One single word, bonded with a tremendous density and gravity. A language that would, the moment someone opened their mouth and pronounced it, explode and expand as all matter had at the universe’s beginning. Every time she put her tired, fretful child to bed and drifted into a light sleep herself, she would dream that the immense crystallized mass of all language was being primed like an ice-cold explosive in the center of her hot heart, encased in her pulsing ventricles.
“It wasn’t an issue of vocal cords or lung capacity. She just didn’t like taking up space. Everyone occupies a certain amount of physical space according to their body mass, but voice travels far beyond that. She had no wish to disseminate her self”
King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
challenging
informative
slow-paced
5.0
A new biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. focuses on the man instead of the myth. A young preacher, only 28 years old, was suddenly thrust into the national spotlight. He leads the nation in peaceful protest for rights. Instead of focusing on the larger battles, Eig focuses on the everyday. King was keeping SCLS together. King was trying to get people to protest. The stress of the first bus boycott and not knowing if enough would get involved. He had no idea how much the people needed his leadership at this time. He thought he would preach for a few years and then be a professor. Eig even uses the FBI tapes that expose King's infidelity. People knew at the time and now and expressed no interest in it. The records reveal how obsessed Hooer was with King. He even forced agents to retract what was obvious: that King was not a Communist.
The hard part is watching the movement fall apart. The goal was harmony, but not enough white people wanted to get along and then become resentful. Malcolm X, and Carmichael, would spring out of this gap to create a path for Black Agency. The assassination ends the story abruptly but the movement clearly stalle before. His legacy already solidified. Inspirational in that anyone can be a leader, and they don't have to be a saint. The mythology of kKing works against the present and future leaders. This book gives us the man.
Favorite Passages:
Where do we go from here? In spite of the way America treated him, King still had faith when he asked that question. Today, his words might help us make our way through these troubled times, but only if we actually read them; only if we embrace the complicated King, the flawed King, the human King, the radical King; only if we see and hear him clearly again, as America saw and heard him once before.
The hard part is watching the movement fall apart. The goal was harmony, but not enough white people wanted to get along and then become resentful. Malcolm X, and Carmichael, would spring out of this gap to create a path for Black Agency. The assassination ends the story abruptly but the movement clearly stalle before. His legacy already solidified. Inspirational in that anyone can be a leader, and they don't have to be a saint. The mythology of kKing works against the present and future leaders. This book gives us the man.
Favorite Passages:
Where do we go from here? In spite of the way America treated him, King still had faith when he asked that question. Today, his words might help us make our way through these troubled times, but only if we actually read them; only if we embrace the complicated King, the flawed King, the human King, the radical King; only if we see and hear him clearly again, as America saw and heard him once before.