Charlie

This book was an absolute treat. At the reading I attended for this book, Oyeyemi cautioned against using the f-word (fairytale) to describe the work, and I can see why. The characters in this book have so much more depth than any fairytale creatures, though the book is built on a familiar skeleton. It's a tale of pairs and parallels: Harriet and Gretel, Harriet and Perdita, London and Druhastrana, Ari and Ambrose, Gabriel and Rémy. Her prose sparkles (or shines, whichever is more complimentary) and it's the cleverest, funniest novel I've read in a long time. As with all great books, I'm inspired to dive into the author's back catalogue.

This book derailed my 2019 reading challenge progress and I couldn't care less. It felt longer than the page count suggested, but James's visceral prose really pulled me in. The framing device for the trilogy is absolutely brilliant (think Lord of the Rings meets Rashomon) and I can't wait to read the next volume. In the meantime, I think I'll have to pick up a copy of A Brief History of Seven Killings.

Like many, I first came to Lydia Davis through her short stories, many of which are EXTREMELY short, on the order of tens of words. I was intrigued to see she had written a novel, and much to my delight her modus operandi scaled beautifully; I don't think there is a wasted word on any of these 240 pages. The central theme of the work is memory, and Davis approaches this subject in a unique and compelling way. The novel is almost scientific in nature, and its form evoked the image of a jeweler scrutinizing a gem under a loupe, looking at each facet in different lights and at different angles in order comprehend the whole of it totally and fully. Most books I read leave something to be desired, but this one was polished to perfection.

The book fails to deliver on the promise of the title, in my opinion. Rather than a history of modern American diplomacy, it is a series of vignettes, many of which relate to Farrow's work at State. While these are interesting, they gave the book a rather disjointed structure. Still, Farrow's experiences are fascinating and he is a gifted writer. I appreciated the number and quality of people he interviewed, including Rice, Clinton, Kerry, and (surprisingly) Tillerson. The book is well worth a read, but did not leave me hopeful for the future of American diplomacy.

I rarely reread books, but I've been in a Murakami mood lately and was drawn back to this one, which was the second of his novels that I read, and the first really surreal one. Kafka on the Shore tells the story of a young student who runs away from his home to live in a library in the seaside city of Takamatsu, and is the closest thing to a beach read that Murakami has written. Kafka's story is interwoven with that of Nakata, an elderly man who was mentally handicapped after an accident (or attack?) he suffered as a child. I didn't fully understand the book when I first read it, and I don't fully understand it now. Themes from Greek mythology and western literature are melded with weird metaphysics and I don't even know what else to create a novel that, like all of Murakami's great works, is just as much a tone poem as a narrative story. Honestly, I find the lack of clear answers to be uniquely liberating, which I why I come back to Murakami again and again. I seriously doubt this will be my last time reading Kafka on the Shore.