book ends
what I read in the heady month of June
Don’t you feel like in today’s day and age we simply do not use the word “heady” as much as we should? I feel like I’m in The Philadelphia Story when I use words like “heady”, and really, don’t we all want to feel as if we’re living in The Philadelphia Story??
Oh right. We’re here for quick book notes.
Table for Two by Amor Towles
This is the newest release from Towles, who I think is best beloved for his wonderful novel A Gentleman in Moscow. This is a book containing several short stories, what feels like were kicking around his desk, and a short novella come sequel to Rules of Civility. I wish it were published separately because altogether it runs close to 500 pages and I need a sense of accomplishment if I’m reading short stories, and 500 pages just doesn’t get me that hit. But really, these were fine. The stories felt charming and entertaining and enjoyable. Not exactly memorable, but they gave you that Towles general hazy glow. The novella itself wasn’t great but also not terrible, it really felt to me like the rough draft of a sequel that he or an editor realized was never going to be a great novel on its own so they decided to call it a novella, package it with some short stories kicking around, and publish a lot of pages for a lot of money. Your milage will vary in accordance to how much you love Towles’ prose, but it does feel like A LOT at times.
Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz
This is the fifth in the series by Horowitz in which he himself is a character in his own detective novels. It’s a bit meta and is a fun diversion, but I always feel as if Horowitz writes for the page count at some point in his books. The mystery of this one centres around a very disliked neighbour in a housing complex (not a regular housing complex mind you, a posh group of homes in Richmond!) who is murdered and all the neighbours are suspects. Horowitz then tries to solve the case himself by going back through Hawthrone’s notes and files. I find this series to be fairly entertaining, but for some reason I just don’t find myself liking these characters enough to care if they ever solve the mysteries. I feel like I’ll solve the mysteries before they will every time. Not that I do, of course, but that’s the feeling I get. Anyway, I seem to keep giving this series more chances, but that probably speaks to my desperation to find contemporary detective fiction when Louise Penny takes a year off.
The Summer Book by Tove Jannson
I will never be able to adequately describe my love for this book or why I love it so much. It is a short book of almost episodes describing a young girls time during the summers she spends with her grandmother and father on an island in the Finnish archipelago. I’m not sure if it’s the setting—completely nordic dream come true! The story—a six year old girl and her grandmother meandering around a wild island together every summer in the midst of grief and growing up—obviously perfect. Or the writing—sparse but descriptive and evocative, intimate yet never cloying. I just want everyone to read it. I hope I read it again and again.
Death of Jezebel by Christianna Brand
Another in the series of mystery novels that
have been reading each month this year then discussing on the podcast substack feed, the novel is a closed room novel that I started out really disliking. The closed room of a theatre with an audience, only the cast having access to the murder victim, felt very lame to me, but it’s only as the novel progresses that you realize Brand is playing with the trope and with a good deal of humour. While her detective doesn’t seem very likeable or brilliant, there is a unique charm to his curmudgeonliness and the solution to the murder is handled well. I’m glad to have gotten to know more writers of detective fiction that I’ve missed this year, and if you’re a fan of the genre you’ll enjoy this book too.Flannery O’Connor’s Why Do the Heathen Rage by Jessica Hooten Wilson
I don’t even know where to start with this one because there is so much to say about this book and so much to pull apart. This book is the culmination of Wilson’s work in O’Connor’s manuscripts and writings. Wilson has taken fragments of the novel O’Connor was working on during her last illness and includes them in this book alongside her own thoughts and explanations of what is happening in the fragments. There is literary criticism, historical background, biographical explanations alongside these fragments of O’Connor’s work. I firstly still don’t know how I feel about reading the unfinished writings of a writer of such gravity and skill as O’Connor. I feel like it might be violating their process somehow. I do love seeing her genius even in its seed stages however, her literary power is just awe-inspiring. I didn’t always agree with Wilson’s literary takes or ideas of where the story O’Connor was fashioning was going. The fact is this book has a lot of Wilson in it. It’s very clear that she wants us to understand on every page that she disapproves of O’Connor’s dealing with race. Wilson goes so far as to say O’Connor believed racism was not a spiritual issue to which I strongly disagree. So while I found the work of O’Connor worthwhile to read, I didn’t love how Wilson handled her own attitude towards it and her presentation of it at times. I think I’d really only recommend this book to an O’Connor scholar or superfan like myself. This to me isn’t great literary criticism, and the fragments of O’Connor’s actual writings don’t make up enough of the book for it to be general recommended reading.
And somehow that is all I read in June! I was listening to audiobooks but that were extremely long ones so I’ll include them in my July wrap up which I hope to publish before August runs away on us. Thanks for reading, and tell me your thoughts if you’ve read any of these!
The Philadelphia Story! One of my all time favourites. I want a boat so I can say, “my, isn’t she yarr”….
Interesting thoughts re Wilson/O’Connor. I had a similar reaction although from the opposite position when I used her lecture series on the Brothers K to pull me through the novel - it was definitely helpful to someone, such as I, who knows little to nothing about Dostoevsky and the Russian literary tradition, but I felt there was a lot of *her* in her comments and reflections and I didn’t agree with many of her takes. I liked the concept and was grateful for the tool, but it didn’t leave me eager for more of Wilson’s literary takes.
I’ve only come to O’Connor in the past few years and think she is probably the best writer I’ve read, so I feel nervous about seeking literary criticism on her works since there seems so much scope for fudging something that is probably best left in its purest form. I do often find myself wanting “help” in understanding her stories and themes and form, but I’m not convinced that it would actually add anything to the experience of reading her work - quite the contrary. If you have any suggestions though, I’m all ears! I have been planning to do the Close Reads series on her.