Review: Daughter Dalloway, Emily France

Review: Daughter Dalloway, Emily FranceDaughter Dalloway by Emily France
Published by Blackstone Publishing on March 14, 2023
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 350
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
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Goodreads
four-stars

A retelling of Virginia Woolf's classic Mrs. Dalloway, from the point of view of the famous socialite's only child, Elizabeth.

It is 1952 and forty-six-year-old Elizabeth Dalloway—arguably the most inept socialite in all of London—is fresh off yet another of her awkward parties. She feels she has failed at most everything in life, especially living up to her perfect mother—the elegant Mrs. Dalloway, the woman who never made a misstep, the woman who never arrived for her very own party at the end of the 1923 Season. And hasn't been heard from since.

Elizabeth has given up ever finding out what really happened that summer until she comes across a WWI medal inscribed with a mysterious message from her mother to a soldier, Septimus Warren Smith. Elizabeth sets out to find a member of his family in the hopes she will finally learn her mother's fate. Her journey takes her across London as she pieces together that last summer of 1923 when Elizabeth was a seventeen-year-old girl who escaped her mother's watchful eye and rebelled against the staid social rules of prewar England. A girl who caroused with the Prince of Wales and sons of American iron barons, a girl determined to do it all differently than her mother. A girl who didn't yet feel like a failure.

Faithful to the original yet fully standing alone, Daughter, Dalloway follows Elizabeth as she discovers the truth: though decades have passed and opportunities for women have changed, expectations haven't: to be it all, whatever the costs. And that she shares much more with her mother than she ever knew.

I finished this book a few days ago and had to think about how to rate it. Any author who takes up Virginia Woolf’s mantle is bound to pale in comparison. She’s one of the greatest writers to have lived, and some consider Mrs. Dalloway to be her masterpiece. It’s a book I love, and I love teaching it. On the other hand, this book has some great moments and is well-researched. While Elizabeth Dalloway is Woolf’s creation, Septimus Warren Smith’s sister Octavia is France’s invention, and I enjoyed her character. I didn’t enjoy her companions Redvers and his brother George—they were stock street urchin characters, and they didn’t seem as realistic to me as the other characters France invented. I thought it was far-fetched that Clarissa would commission a medal for Septimus, and her fate, which is a bit spoilery, also struck me as a stretch given what I know of Woolf’s thinking about her characters.

However, I admit France made me think about the concept of the stream of consciousness in a new way, and I plan to share this idea with my students. Typically, I teach stream of consciousness as the way our thoughts flow from one to another, and France also adheres to this definition, but she also conceives of the stream of consciousness as the thread that joins all of us together. This idea resembles Ralph Waldo Emerson’s concept of the Over-Soul more than it resembles the traditional conception of stream of consciousness, but I liked it. In his essay on the Over-Soul, Emerson quotes Byron in arguing that the soul “Can crowd eternity into an hour, / Or stretch an hour to eternity.” One could argue Woolf was trying to do both with Mrs. Dalloway.

Reading this book has given me some ideas for teaching Mrs. Dalloway, and it’s better than average historical fiction. Compared to its source material, it can’t help but suffer—it does not quite pull off the same feat as The Hours—but it was pretty good.

four-stars

Review: The Golden Spoon, Jessa Maxwell

Review: The Golden Spoon, Jessa MaxwellThe Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell
Published by Atria Books on March 7, 2023
Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Mystery
Pages: 269
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
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Goodreads
four-half-stars

For six amateur bakers, competing in Bake Week is a dream come true.
When they arrive at Grafton Manor to compete, they're ready to do whatever it takes to win the ultimate The Golden Spoon.

But for the show's famous host, Betsy Martin, Bake Week is more than just a competition. Grafton Manor is her family's home and legacy—and Bake Week is her life's work. It's imperative that both continue to succeed.

But as the competition commences, things begin to go awry. At first, it's small acts of sabotage. Someone switching sugar for salt. A hob turned far too high.

But when a body is discovered, it's clear that for someone in the competition, The Golden Spoon is a prize worth killing for...

This book was a lot of fun, and the mysteries (plural!) kept me turning the pages. On the jacket, Janet Evanovich’s blurb describes it as a “delicious combination of Clue and The Great British Bake Off,” and I could think of a better way to sum it up.

Hosts of Great British Bake Off cheering

It’s clear that Jessa Maxwell is a fan of The Great British Bake Off,  though she chose to set her book in Grafton, Vermont, with American characters. In a way, that decision makes a lot of sense, as Americans would be much more horrible and ruthless, and it’s entirely believable that acts of sabotage would cloud the competition from the start. I think The Great British Bake Off has a lot of fans precisely because it’s so wholesome—the contestants hardly seem to be competing against each other.

Bake Off Finalists hugging each other

Maxwell has identified a few “types” of Bake Off contestants and included them in her novel: the grandmotherly type who has been baking for her family for decades; the young baker who started baking less than a year ago; the precise engineer/scientist. Archie and Betsy bear a small resemblance to Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry, respectively.

Gif image of Mary Berry saying,

I loved the idea for the book. It works as a mystery, and Maxwell drew an appropriate atmosphere for the book. I did think some of the characters were over-the-top and hard to believe as actual human beings. Melanie, Betsy’s assistant, and the apparent showrunner and camera crewman Graham are just… weird.

Great British Bake Off contestant saying,

I noted several annoying typos in the book; they might be the fault of the copyeditor.

Mary Berry saying,

However, the net result is that I still devoured the book in a few big gulps this week. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes Bake Off and enjoys a good cozy mystery.

Bake Off hosts saying, "On your marks, get set, bake."

four-half-stars

Review: The London Séance Society, Sarah Penner

Review: The London Séance Society, Sarah PennerThe London Séance Society by Sarah Penner
Published by Park Row on March 7, 2023
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
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Goodreads
three-stars

A spellbinding tale about two daring women who hunt for truth and justice in the perilous art of conjuring the dead.

1873. At an abandoned château on the outskirts of Paris, a dark séance is about to take place, led by acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire. Known worldwide for her talent in conjuring the spirits of murder victims to ascertain the identities of the people who killed them, she is highly sought after by widows and investigators alike.

Lenna Wickes has come to Paris to find answers about her sister’s death, but to do so, she must embrace the unknown and overcome her own logic-driven bias against the occult. When Vaudeline is beckoned to England to solve a high-profile murder, Lenna accompanies her as an understudy. But as the women team up with the powerful men of London’s exclusive Séance Society to solve the mystery, they begin to suspect that they are not merely out to solve a crime, but perhaps entangled in one themselves…

I did not enjoy this book as much as Sarah Penner’s first book, The Lost Apothecary. The story was not as compelling to me. The ending held some surprises, and I liked the scripted process Penner created for the séance. I also appreciated the fact that Penner created a plausible Victorian lesbian romance—it didn’t feel tacked on, but I think Lenna thought about her attraction to Vaudeline at weird times—like when she was angry with her. Vaudeline, the medium, was an interesting character. I didn’t find Lenna or her deceased sister Evie compelling, and Mr. Morley was a cartoonish Snidely Whiplash type.

Too much of a caricature. I also wanted a bit more of a feel for the setting, which is something I got from The Lost Apothecary. There was a bit of a feel for the setting, but not much. I saw a Goodreads reviewer describe this book as a “great concept, average execution.” That’s exactly the way I felt.

three-stars

Review: Above Ground: Poems, Clint Smith

Review: Above Ground: Poems, Clint SmithAbove Ground by Clint Smith
on March 28, 2023
Genres: Poetry
Pages: 128
Format: Audio, Audiobook, Hardcover
Source: Audible
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Goodreads
five-stars

The number one New York Times bestselling author, intellectual, and spoken-word poet Clint Smith gives his devoted readers a collection of poetry straight from the heart. It is a meditation on the country he studies through the lens of all he has learned from fatherhood. The poems are manifestations of Smith's wisdom and latest observations, starting with the precarious birth of his son, to the current political and social state of the country, to childhood memories, and back again. Smith traverses the periods of his life from four different cities and the process of realizing what it means to build a life that orbits around his family. Amid all of it, he has watched as the country has been forced to confront the ugliest manifestations of itself, and he has thought about what it means to raise children amid the backdrop of political tumult. Smith is a poet who uses the form to interrogate his own autobiography and the state of the country today, affording those who prefer reading poetry a shot of news, and those who normally seek out nonfiction, some lyrical beauty. Above Ground is a lyrical, sometimes narrative work of poetry that follows from Smith's first book of poetry, Counting Descent.

I thoroughly enjoy everything Clint Smith writes. My students read Smith’s previous collection Counting Descent, and we engage with his work in other ways over the course of the school year. I was very excited about this collection when I first heard about it and pre-ordered it from Loyalty Books in Silver Spring, MD, so I could get a personalized, signed copy. Smith is my favorite living poet, hands down. I love what he says about poetry in his guest spot on The Late Show.

I downloaded the audiobook to listen to Smith reading the poems as I followed in the book. I highly recommend you do the same because these poems are meant to be savored both in print and in Smith’s reading voice.

Some of my favorites in the collection:

  • “When People Say ‘We Have Made It Through Worse Before'”
  • “Your National Anthem”
  • “For Willie Francis, the First Known Person to Survive an Execution by Electric Chair, 1946”
  • “Roots”
  • “Pangaea”
  • “The New York Times Reports That 200 Civilians Have Just Been Killed by U.S. Military Air Strikes”
  • “Nomenclature”
  • “This Is an Incomplete List of All the Reasons I Know I Married the Right Person”
  • “We See Another School Shooting on the News”
  • “The Gun”
  • “Gold Stars”
  • “The Most Remarkable Thing About Dinosaurs”
  • “Ars Poetica”
  • “The Andromeda Galaxy Is the Closest Galaxy to Our Milky Way”

If that sounds like a lot, well, that’s because this collection is incredible. I really liked all of the poems, but the list above stood out to me as I read.

April is National Poetry Month. Do yourself a favor and enjoy this new collection of poems by one of the greatest living poets.

five-stars

Review: Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” Zora Neale Hurston

Review: Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” Zora Neale HurstonBarracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston, Deborah G. Plant
Published by Amistad on May 8, 2018
Genres: History, Nonfiction
Pages: 171
Format: Hardcover
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Goodreads
five-stars

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.

In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo’s past—memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.

Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.

This book is such a valuable record. It’s wonderful that it has come to light at long last, and I’m so glad it exists. I first heard about the Clotilda on an episode of Finding Your Roots, hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The show’s genealogists uncovered that Questlove descended from Charles Lewis, one of the 125 people captured, enslaved, and brought to the United States on the Clotilda. This ship was the last ship to bring enslaved Africans to the United States in 1860. While the slave trade had been abolished, it didn’t stop the illegal trafficking of enslaved people, and of course, slavery had not yet ended in the United States. The men responsible for trafficking the people brought to the United States aboard the Clotilda were never punished for the crime.

Netflix currently has a documentary, Descendant, about the Clotilda descendants in Africatown, Alabama.

We now know that two other survivors of the Clotilda outlived Cudjo Lewis, but when Hurston interviewed him, he was believed to be the last person alive to have survived the Middle Passage. She captured video footage of Cudjo Lewis, a powerful documentation of the legacy of slavery.

I appreciated the opportunity to read this first-hand account of Cudjo Lewis’s story and am grateful to all those who brought his story to light.

five-stars

Review: The Door of No Return, Kwame Alexander

Review: The Door of No Return, Kwame AlexanderThe Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander
on September 27, 2022
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 432
Format: Hardcover
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Goodreads
four-half-stars

An instant #1 New York Times Bestseller!

From the Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Kwame Alexander, comes the first book in a searing, breathtaking trilogy that tells the story of a boy, a village, and the epic odyssey of an African family.

In his village in Upper Kwanta, 11-year-old Kofi loves his family, playing oware with his grandfather and swimming in the river Offin. He’s warned, though, to never go to the river at night. His brother tells him, "There are things about the water you do not know." "Like what?" Kofi asks. "The beasts." His brother answers. One fateful night, the unthinkable happens, and in a flash, Kofi’s world turns upside down. Kofi soon ends up in a fight for his life, and what happens next will send him on a harrowing journey across land and sea and away from everything he loves. This spellbinding novel by the author of The Crossover and Booked will take you on an unforgettable adventure that will open your eyes and break your heart. The Door of No Return is an excellent choice for independent reading, sharing in the classroom, homeschooling, and book groups.

Kwame Alexander’s new verse novel, The Door of No Return, fills an important gap. There are some wonderful books for adults, such as Homegoing and Roots, that explore the experiences of enslaved Africans, and the wonderful children’s book The 1619 Project: Born on the Water by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renée Watson, but I cannot think of a middle-grade or YA novel that explores this story. This book would make a wonderful addition to any middle school English language arts classroom. I can see the potential for cross-curricular study in history as well. One of the great lies that White enslavers believed about those they enslaved was that they had no history, no culture. It couldn’t be a bigger lie—one Kwame Alexander deftly refutes in this beautiful story of Kofi Offin. I somehow missed that this was the first in a planned trilogy, and I’m very excited to see what he does with the other two books.

NPR’s Book of the Day podcast features an interview with Kwame Alexander:

four-half-stars

Review: Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation, Hannah Gadsby

Review: Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation, Hannah GadsbyTen Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby
Published by Allen & Unwin on March 29, 2022
Genres: Memoir
Pages: 400
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
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Goodreads
five-stars

Multi-awardwinning Hannah Gadsby transformed comedy with her show Nanette, even as she declared that she was quitting stand-up. Now, she takes us through the defining moments in her life that led to the creation of Nanette and her powerful decision to tell the truth-no matter the cost.

"There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself."—Hannah Gadsby, Nanette

Gadsby's unique stand-up special Nanette was a viral success that left audiences captivated by her blistering honesty and her ability to create both tension and laughter in a single moment. But while her worldwide fame might have looked like an overnight sensation, her path from open mic to the global stage was hard-fought and anything but linear. Ten Steps to Nanette traces Gadsby's growth as a queer person from Tasmania—where homosexuality was illegal until 1997—to her ever-evolving relationship with comedy, to her struggle with late-in-life diagnoses of autism and ADHD, and finally to the backbone of Nanette—the renouncement of self-deprecation, the rejection of misogyny, and the moral significance of truth-telling. Equal parts harrowing and hilarious, Ten Steps to Nanette continues Gadsby's tradition of confounding expectations and norms, properly introducing us to one of the most explosive, formative voices of our time.

I had this book on hold in the library for so long that I forgot I’d done so. I was eager to read it because I found Nanette profoundly moving.  If you’ve seen Nanette or Gadsby’s newer show Douglas, some of the material in the memoir will be familiar to you. There are some traumatic details in the memoir that Gadsby elides, while other events are given more context than she has previously given in her show. We are all in charge of our stories and tell them the way we need to tell them, so I was unbothered—this is a memoir after all. I was fascinated by Gadsby’s stories about learning she had ADHD and autism. Her descriptions of how she struggled with tasks and frustrated others felt so familiar to me as I have watched my own children struggle in similar ways. Some parts of the memoir are much longer—Gadsby’s formative years take up the longest chapter—but I understand why the book was broken up the way it was. She is grouping parts of her life together in ways that explain where Nanette came from, so some parts just have to be longer. Gadsby sprinkles footnotes throughout, and they reminded me of Gadsby’s asides during her shows. I’m not sure how they’d impact the audiobook, but I didn’t find them distracting in the hardcover. I’d definitely recommend this memoir to anyone who has appreciated Hannah Gadsby’s shows and wants to know more about her creative process and inspiration.

five-stars

Mid-March Reviews

I’m in spring break for school and catching up on some recent book reviews.

Mid-March ReviewsKeep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change by Maggie Smith
Published by Atria Books on October 6, 2020
Genres: Nonfiction
Pages: 224
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
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Goodreads
four-stars

Perfect for fans of Anne Lamott and Cheryl Strayed, this is an inspiring and uplifting collection of essays and quotes on creativity and resilience by the award-winning author of the viral poem Good Bones.

When award-winning poet Maggie Smith started writing daily Twitter posts under the title “Keep Moving” in the wake of her divorce, they unexpectedly caught fire. People around the world connected to her short, inspiring quotes which brilliantly captured the complexities of the human heart. Funny, wry, and profound, Maggie’s writing has been and continues to be a form of healing for herself and countless fans.

Now, you can experience her outstanding and healing prose with this powerful and evocative collection. Featuring some of her most popular posts and essays, Keep Moving also includes new and never before published writing. Gorgeously and lovingly wrought, this is the perfect gift for anyone looking for a daily dose of optimism and spiritual nourishment.

This book is mostly encouraging aphorisms and short meditations. I found some of it helpful, hence four stars, but I prefer Maggie Smith’s poetry.

Mid-March ReviewsDavid Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Narrator: Richard Armitage
Published by Audible Studios on February 9, 2016
Genres: Classic
Length: 36 hours 30 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Audible
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Goodreads
five-stars

David Copperfield is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters he encounters are his tyrannical stepfather, Mr Murdstone; his brilliant, but ultimately unworthy school-friend James Steerforth; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble, yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora Spenlow; and the magnificently impecunious Wilkins Micawber, one of literature's great comic creations. In David Copperfield—the novel he described as his 'favourite child'—Dickens drew revealingly on his own experiences to create one of the most exuberant and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure.

My husband and I listened to this one. First, it’s completely easy to understand why this novel has always been popular and remains a classic. It’s a delight from start to finish. Betsey Trotwood has to be one of the most brilliant characters ever conceived, and David’s old nemesis Uriah Heep is horribly realistic (surely Charles Dickens knew a guy like this, right?). Richard Armitage’s narration is amazing. His acting talent is on full display in the various voices; his Uriah Heep is entirely unctuous. Every time he says “Uriah writhed,” you can feel it. Gross. To be fair, Dickens’s writing suffers a bit from the addition of an annoying-young-damsel-who-is-supposed-to-be-attractive-for-some-reason-no-one-can-figure-out. I noticed it in A Tale of Two Cities and to an extent in Great Expectations, but Dora takes the cake. I thought she was stupid and annoying and completely incompatible with David. What a cast of memorable characters. What a great book. I’m glad I finally read it.

Mid-March ReviewsSongs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie
Narrator: Kristen Sieh
Published by Random House Audio on June 22, 2021
Length: 10 hours 45 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Library
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Goodreads
three-half-stars

A scintillating debut from a major new voice in fiction, Songs in Ursa Major is a love story set in 1969, alive with music, sex, and the trappings of fame.

Raised on an island off Massachusetts by a mother who wrote songs for famous musicians, Jane Quinn is singing in her own band before she's old enough to even read music. When folk legend Jesse Reid hears about Jane's performance at the island's music festival, a star is born—and so is a passionate love affair: they become inseparable when her band joins his on tour. Wary of being cast as his girlfriend—and haunted by her mother's shattered ambitions—Jane shields her relationship from the public eye, but Jesse's star power pulls her into his orbit of fame. Caught up in the thrill of the road and the profound and lustful connection she has with Jesse, Jane is blind-sided by the discovery she makes about the dark secret beneath his music. Heartbroken and blackballed by the industry, Jane is now truly on her own: to make the music she loves, and to make peace with her family. Shot through with the lyrics, the icons, the lore, the adrenaline of the early 70s music scene, Songs in Ursa Major pulses with romantic longing and asks the question so many female artists must face: What are we willing to sacrifice for our dreams?

I wanted to like this book more. It suffers from the fact that Daisy Jones & The Six and The Final Revival of Opal & Nev exist and it’s not as strong in comparison. This novel is sort of a thinly-veiled story of James Taylor and maybe Joni Mitchell set mostly on a fictionalized version of Martha’s Vineyard. I think there are some anachronisms to start with. For example, “What Would Jane Do” based on “What Would Jesus Do?” might be a bit out of time. While the WWJD saying goes back to the 1800s, its resurgence only dates to the 1990s. It felt out of place for Jane Quinn’s fans to pick it up. At one point, Jane’s record label guy (I forget what exactly his role was, but he discovered Jane) had an answering machine. I guess they existed prior to the 1980s, but they were not widely used. The fact that things DID exist doesn’t mean they were WIDELY USED, hence the feelings of anachronism. These were the two most glaring issues, but they were not the only ones. The other issue was a spoilery plot point. I won’t divulge it, but it felt like a cheat when it was revealed because the author used third-person limited and focused on Jane. It’s one thing for Jane to keep something from Jesse, but it’s another for her to keep it even from the reader. I understand why the author felt the need to save the secret, but I didn’t like the way it was handled, and it was at that point that the book lost me. If you’re going to have a protagonist lie to the reader, you need to pull it off with a bit more finesse. I finished it because I’d become invested, and I did enjoy part of the journey, which is why it ultimately landed on 3.5 stars.

February Reviews

I fell a little behind in reviewing books. It seems like January and February are always the busiest months at my school. I finished three books in February and early March, some of which I counted for reading challenges.

February ReviewsCaste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Published by Random House on August 4, 2020
Pages: 496
Source: Audible
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Goodreads
five-stars

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.

While Wilkerson’s analogy between caste and race has been criticized, I found this book very interesting and illuminating. I agree with some of Charisse Burden-Stelly’s arguments in the article I linked. I don’t know enough to argue either for or against thinking of the U.S. as a race-based caste system, but it was interesting to see the ways in which the Indian caste system, the Nazi regime, and America’s racism were similar in construction. I will also add that it’s important to be cautious about comparing any system to Nazi Germany. The Nazis killed 11 million people. I would never argue that American racism or India’s caste system haven’t been deadly. Of course they have. As Sunil Khilnani argues in an article for The New Yorker, “Applying a single abstraction to multiple realities inevitably creates friction—sometimes productive, sometimes not. In the book’s comparison of the Third Reich to India and America, for example, a rather jarring distinction is set aside: the final objective of Nazi ideology was to eliminate Jewish people, not just to subordinate them.” In spite of these valid critiques, I found the book interesting, and I recommend it to people who want to understand racism.

February ReviewsJohn Keats: A New Life by Nicholas Roe
Published by Yale University Press Genres: Biography, Nonfiction
Pages: 446
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
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Goodreads
five-stars

This landmark biography of celebrated Romantic poet John Keats explodes entrenched conceptions of him as a delicate, overly sensitive, tragic figure. Instead, Nicholas Roe reveals the real flesh-and-blood poet: a passionate man driven by ambition but prey to doubt, suspicion, and jealousy; sure of his vocation while bitterly resentful of the obstacles that blighted his career; devoured by sexual desire and frustration; and in thrall to alcohol and opium. Through unparalleled original research, Roe arrives at a fascinating reassessment of Keats's entire life, from his early years at Keats's Livery Stables through his harrowing battle with tuberculosis and death at age 25. Zeroing in on crucial turning points, Roe finds in the locations of Keats's poems new keys to the nature of his imaginative quest.

Roe is the first biographer to provide a full and fresh account of Keats's childhood in the City of London and how it shaped the would-be poet. The mysterious early death of Keats's father, his mother's too-swift remarriage, living in the shadow of the notorious madhouse Bedlam—all these affected Keats far more than has been previously understood. The author also sheds light on Keats's doomed passion for Fanny Brawne, his circle of brilliant friends, hitherto unknown City relatives, and much more. Filled with revelations and daring to ask new questions, this book now stands as the definitive volume on one of the most beloved poets of the English language.

I checked this book out of my local library, and as I was writing this post, I discovered I must have purchased it about nine years ago. At any rate, Amazon says I did. I have no memory of buying it, and I could not tell you where it might be. However, I’m glad to learn that I have a copy of this book somewhere because I really enjoyed it. Nicholas Roe is extremely thorough. I have to admit I was really waiting to get to the part when Keats met Fanny Brawne. I have a girl crush on Fanny Brawne. However, I enjoyed meeting the Keats who emerges from the pages of Roe’s biography. The biggest scandal stirred up by this particular book was Roe’s speculation that Keats was an opium addict, or at least that he dosed himself with laudanum. I didn’t find that particularly shocking. If it’s true, Keats joined a great number of other people living in his era (and for that matter, our own, as we’re in the midst of an opioid epidemic). One aspect of Keats’s story that really struck me was that he knew immediately that he was dying when he contracted tuberculosis because of his medical training. He identified the blood sputum as “arterial blood.” How horrible it must have been to be a young man, just discovering his genius as a writer, only to understand he would not live. No wonder he wrote this remarkable poem:

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

I’d love to read more literary biographies like this one. My one quibble with the book is that it had two image collections, including pictures of many people and places important to Keats, but no pictures of Keats. I mentioned this complaint on Twitter, and a writer acquaintance of mine said it might be true that Roe couldn’t afford pictures of Keats. When I asked if his press couldn’t have helped with that, she said maybe not. I find that to be puzzling, if true, especially as Roe describes some of the more famous images of Keats. I would think he’d want to have copies of those images, at least, in the book.

February ReviewsIreland by Frank Delaney
Narrator: Frank Delaney
Published by HarperAudio on February 1, 2005
Genres: Historical Fiction
Length: 19 hours and 29 minutes
Format: Audio, Audiobook
Source: Library
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Goodreads
five-stars

From a land famous for storytelling comes an epic novel of Ireland that captures the intimate, passionate texture of the Irish spirit.

One evening in 1951, an itinerant storyteller arrives unannounced at a house in the Irish countryside. In exchange for a bed and a warm meal, he invites his hosts and their neighbors to join him by the wintry fireside, and begins to tell formative stories of Ireland’s history. Ronan, a nine-year-old boy, grows so entranced by the storytelling that, when the old man leaves abruptly under mysterious circumstances, the boy devotes himself to finding him again.

Ronan’s search for the Storyteller becomes both a journey of self-discovery, long unspoken family secrets, and an immersion into the sometimes conflicting histories of his native land. A sweeping novel of huge ambition, Ireland is the beautifully told story of a remarkable nation. It rings with the truth of a writer passionate about his country and in full command of his craft.

This book was utterly charming! I put out a call on Twitter for books set in Ireland, and everyone was recommending Tana French. I am not opposed to mystery or thrillers. I read them sometimes. But I was looking for this book, which no one was recommending—I found it on my own. I wanted to read something that captured the place and its people. Delaney was a fantastic narrator, and the book was shot through with humor. When I initially saw how long the audiobook was, I was nervous about finishing it before it was due to the library. I was only able to borrow it for 14 days, and it’s over 19 hours long! But I needn’t have worried. I was looking for excuses to listen to it. Part travelogue, part history, part myth, and all story, Ireland is highly recommended for anyone who wants to travel to Ireland through a book. It’s one of the most delightful books I have read in a long time. I won’t give away the ending, but I appreciated the direction Delaney took it.

I’m going to make an effort to finish writing reviews a bit more quickly, but we’re all caught up for now.