What I've been reading lately

 At the start of this year, I made a few resolutions. A few of which feel like they are beyond my control; I suppose they are more like hopes and wishes for the year ahead. And two of which are very much within my control. They are: commit to a daily yoga practice, more on that another time, and… keep track of what I have read throughout the year thus far. I thought today we could talk about a few of the books I’ve read lately.

To Krakow I (optimistically) brought 3 books along; 2 of which were by Hanya Yanagihara- The People in the Trees and A Little Life and then Jeffrey Eugenedes’ short story collection; A Fresh Complaint.

I read The People in the Trees throughout the majority of the trip; though not much on the plane over because one of my great life pleasures is watching Call the Midwife on my phone on aeroplanes. To give you the briefest of brief overviews of the book; Ronald Kubodera is kind enough to share with us Norton Perina’s memoirs. Perina is a successful and revered scientist whose professional success stems from a visit to a remote and largely unstudied Micronesian island. He is also a convicted paedophile. The book is largely from Perina’s perspective though we are reminded that this information is reaching us at Ronald’s discretion. This book was my first, very much long awaited, experience of Hanya Yanagihara’s writing and it swept me off my feet. The story is so precisely and delicately detailed, no narrative thread left loose and so thorough, for want of a better word, that it was completely immersive. It was, despite some of the subject matter, a pleasure to read something so finely tuned and meticulous. Perina was vile, highly intelligent, self-serving in the extreme and cruel; and beautifully written. The more I read the book the more I had to read it. It was the same a couple of weeks later when I read A Little Life. I couldn’t not read these books. Hanya Yanagihara is truly a genius and she has a status in my eyes akin to Donna Tartt- the intelligence and dedication and soul searching she must have put into these narratives is breath taking. A Little Life was so disturbing in parts that I actually think I shouldn’t have read it in such a concentrated time frame. What an amazing writer, I am honoured to read her work.

I finished The People in the Trees on the last full day in Krakow in Siesta Café and started A Fresh Complaint that night. I have loved Jeffrey Eugenides since the Virgin Suicides. One of the most perfect books ever written, one of the best film adaptations ever made. So gauzy and hazy and disturbed. This book builds an atmosphere that is stunted and close- like when you sit in a sauna that’s too hot and you try to take a breath and find our lung capacity has disappeared. I know, I know- the whole damn book is written through the lens (or lenses) of the male gaze, but it’s not a saviours male gaze. All this perspective does is prove how complex and selectively private the Lisbon girls were. Anyway, I digress. Where was I? And then Middlesex spans generations. In the same spellbinding way that Ursula Under sucks you into its timeline, so does Middlesex. I read The Marriage Plot in my last year at university which was appropriate. Its intertextual references and self-deprecating pretentiousness a bit close to home as an English student. It was perfectly observed, so funny in how it displayed and dissected literary snobbery. But I didn’t get the same frisson of excitement from his short story collection. They just didn’t excite me the way I had hoped but then I had such high expectations that perhaps I should have been less anticipative. I know a short story doesn’t hold quite the same potential as a novel does for the things I love; overlaid detail, rolling narrative, properly getting to know the protagonist... But I do read and enjoy a lot of short stories… Also, the depiction of the female protagonist in the title story didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t find it to be a very appropriate depiction of a woman being repressed, it lacked compassion which was a shame cause we know Eugenides writes excellent, full, intricate female characters. He’s done so in other stories in this very collection! I don’t know, like I say, I think I went into reading the book 1) straight after The People in the Trees which is a very tough act to follow and 2) with Virgin Suicides expectations when I should have come to the book with a fresh slate.

By the way, Eugenides is another author who only publishes one new novel per decade. Why do I do this to myself?