John’s Comments (group member since Sep 07, 2020)

John’s comments from the YHS Class of 2023 group.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As a typically existential-crisis-prone middle-aged man, I regularly find myself pausing to ask, "Wait -- what's the point of all this nonsense again?" This being the case, Anna Karenina was a great read since, at its core, this is the fundamental question its main characters struggle against (with varying levels of success).

There are some not insignificant issues: it's too long, it gets overly didactic... And yet I found myself supremely satisfied throughout--and especially at the end.

Critics speak of this book as a prime example of realism in literature, and that feels so apt. The world of 19th century imperial Russia, as experienced by these dozen or so characters, stuns in its completeness. Tolstoy's omniscient narrator may be inherently unrealistic in and of itself, but all that is revealed as the narration dips into one character's psyche after another absolutely smacks of truth.

(Speaking of characters, Dolly and Levin are my personal favs, and Dolly's feminist revelations en route to visit Anna in Part VI are my favorite part of the whole novel.)

The dreams especially got me. Dreams often feel artificial in literature, their unique, untranslatable logic and their elusive trajectories so hard to mimic believably. Not for Tolstoy though. Each dream in AK is a humble work of genius.

If you can put up with the incredible length and the sometimes mind-numbing level of detailed digression (what was up with all that election crap at the end of Part VI!?), this is a borderline life-changing novel, so read it already!



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Beloved by Toni Morrison

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A novel of mammoth importance that had remained unread by me for too long. Actually, this is the first of Morrison's works I've read PERIOD, so now I can feel ever-so-slightly less shamefully underqualified for my job now than I did before.

Many surprises of the plot of Beloved were spoiled for me long ago. They may have been already for you as well, but I won't say much in case you're fortunate enough to approach this with a blank slate. In essence, though, it's the story of Sethe, a woman living on the edge of Cincinnati who grew up in and escaped from slavery and who is now living in hopeless isolation with her daughter Denver, the rest of the family out of the picture for a range of horrible reasons. Mother and daughter have long been haunted by the very real ghost of Sethe's third child, known as Beloved. It's a desperate state of affairs, but they've grown accustomed to it when in walks Paul D, a man who was enslaved on the same plantation as Sethe. His arrival disrupts the delicate stasis, and there's no going back.

It was, predictably, a stunning reading experience. Too powerful, I fear, for the mindset and the manner in which I read it. I spread it out over too long a time period, read it at too many moments when I was unable to give it the attention it requires and deserves. I've called many novels poetic before, but I usually do so in reference to the melodic beauty of an author's phrasing. Beloved is more comprehensively poetic, by which I mean to say that Morrison seems to have packed layer upon layer meaning into pretty much each and every syllable in a way that is both awe-inspiring and, at times, confounding. I have a conviction stronger than I've had with perhaps any other novel that rereading this text will open it up in brilliant and compelling new ways. At that point, I imagine my rating may well tick up to five stars, but, in all humility, I just don't feel like I got it well enough to grasp its full excellence this time around.

But I did still love it! Though it's only as old as I am (read: not that old!), many have already bestowed upon it that illustrious and somewhat ridiculous label of "Great American Novel," yet for once this feels undeniably appropriate to me. At its core, Beloved explores what happens when the intense love and dutiful protection expected of a mother collides with the raw truth embodied in Patrick Henry's idea of "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Morrison engages with this theme at its most fundamental level -- in a way that enslavers like Henry were too spinelessly and hypocritically inhumane to fathom. The reader cannot help but sympathize with Paul D's characterization of Sethe's love as "too thick," and yet if anything her actions fiercely declare her allegiance to the full scope of what many would claim it means to be American. If you can handle that all that glorious, terrible contradiction, then you need to read Beloved.



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The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


You have to rate a book like this for what it is. Does a four-star experience with The Silmarillion compare with what such a rating might entail for a more typical novel or even a solid work of narrative nonfiction? No and yes. No insofar as Tolkien doesn't provide the same level of character development that makes typical fiction so engaging and powerful. Yes in that you still come away from it feeling you've had a solidly gorgeous encounter with an impressive piece of art. Or I did at least.

If you need a synopsis of this book, then you probably aren't seriously considering reading it. I can't imagine anyone picks this up before having read (and indeed fallen in love with) both LOTR and The Hobbit . Essentially, it's Tolkien's attempt at writing scripture, and indeed it reads a lot like The Bible or The Bhagavad Gita . Personally, I love reading these sorts of religious texts, but, if you find scripture dry and/or lack an investment in Tolkien's legendarium, then you'd probably hate this, as it gives the backstory of the world in which his more famous novels are set, from the very act of creation right on down to the age of Frodo&co.

The breadth of the man's imagination and the intricacy of his world-building are what make this so spellbinding and remarkable. It truly is an impressive and uncommon achievement. Furthermore, reading it has vastly enriched my understanding of and affection for LOTR and The Hobbit, so many echoes are there of these narratives there. Melkor is the original Sauron. Ar-Pharazôn is the original Saruman. Ungoliant is the original Shelob. Beren and Lúthien are the original Frodo and Sam. Heck, Eru Ilúvatar may even be the original Tom Bombadil! Sorry -- love me some far-fetched Tom Bombadil theories.

And while Tolkien rarely drops the reader into a story with much real depth, there are still so many moments that are absolutely captivating and, well, just plain cool. Some of my personal favorites include the destruction of the trees of light, the kinslaying at Alqualondë, the crossing of the Helcaraxë (who knew Galadriel was an arctic explorer!), the duel between Morgoth and Fingolfin, the battle between space-Eärendil and literally an entire army of dragons, what finally happens when the sons of Fëanor get the Silmarils back, and the sailing of the fleet of the fallen Dúnedain to wage war against the gods and the subsequent wholesale destruction of Numenor and complete reshaping of Arda (take that, flat-earthers!).

There is a spell about a third of the way through that gets pretty darned dry, even for a nerd like me. I actually first tried reading this back in eighth grade, but I think that was the spot where I stopped. I'm glad I soldiered on this time though. If you're a Tolkien nerd like me, I think you'll find it's worth the effort.



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A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A Gesture Life is another in a great tradition of what is becoming one of my favorite types of literature: the beautifully dreadful novel depicting the horrible desolation of a human being at life's end gazing back on the vast landscape of memories and realizing with shame how much has been wasted. Lee's iteration is an exceptionally fine specimen.

Specifically, it's the tale of Doc Hata, a retired medical-supply salesman living out his final years in Westchester County (read: swanky NYC suburbs), feebly attempting to repair his severely damaged relationship with his adopted daughter. Doc is not actually a doctor. Rather, our hero got his start as a medic in the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII, immigrating to the States in the years that followed his nation's defeat.

Hata's narration is an elegant and intricate interlacing of past and present, an estimable challenge that I've seen many authors attempt but few pull off as well as Lee does here (though Ishiguro, for one, does it even better). Hata's present existence is so sad, lacking in so many ways: the man has no interest in looking backward -- and barely any stomach for it either. And yet Lee's gradual and natural revelations of the character's traumatic and shameful past and the ways in which his misfortunes and mistakes have gotten him to this point are nothing short of marvelous.

Just look at this gloriously upsetting passage, the first time in the novel that Hata finds his story suddenly yanked way backward. When it occurs, Hata is in a young boy's hospital room where he has been ponderously regarding the sleeping child, who is in need of a heart transplant. All of a sudden: "Once, during the war, I witnessed our outpost's doctor pull apart the ribs of a man in order to hand-massage his heart. It's a strange technique to see, the procedure at once God-like and lowly animal." It just gets worse/better from there.

It's a damned good story told damned well. Everyone should probably just read it, but you might especially enjoy it if you're intrigued by WWII (particularly the Pacific Theater of course), crimes against humanity, immigration, racism, adoption, and general questions of mortality and meaning(lessness?). It is deeply disturbing at many points though, so, sensitive readers, beware.



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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I seem to be collecting Brontës, and I'd been looking forward to this one in particular. Apparently, despite the way history has discounted Anne, the youngest Brontë has increasingly been seen as perhaps the most modern of the three, and The Tenant is now sometimes ranked as the best book produced by anyone in the family -- just far too "racy" (read: feminist) for its time.

I certainly did enjoy the uniquely independent spirit and circumstances of Helen, the tenant of the title. The story centers on her arrival at Wildfell Hall, accompanied by just her son and a maid (gasp!). The neighborhood is deeply scandalized by this. How can a woman possibly live without a man in early nineteenth-century England? Well, not very easily, it turns out. Helen's story is deeply tragic. Prior to arrival, she has already overcome many daunting challenges, and many more greet her as the novel progresses.

But best Brontë novel? No, I wouldn't go that far. It lacked the gothic intrigue of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre , not to mention the narrative perfection of Charlotte's masterpiece. The pacing, which starts out downright bracing, really slows down in the middle bit when we are treated to an exceptionally extensive excerpt from Helen's diary. Useful info for sure, but it's a lot more than we need or were hoping for given the competing interests that the beginning of the novel has ignited.

But Tenant certainly holds its own, and I am gladdened to behold its revival. The novel features some wonderful meditations on the the nature of love and the implications of afterlife. It also deals very rawly with the horrors of alcoholism in a way that still rings true today. Certainly worth a read, especially if you're a Brit-lit person or, better yet, into the Brontës in particular. Also especially valuable for those desiring to trace the development of feminism in literature.



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Obasan by Joy Kogawa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Aunt Emily, are you a surgeon cutting at my scalp with your folders and your filing cards and your insistence on knowing all? The memory drains down the side of my face, but it isn’t enough, is it?

Joy Kogawa's Obasan is a giant of Canadian literature, though it is barely known here in the States. The novel depicts that nation's internment of its citizens of Japanese descent, a program that, to the amazement of many, rivals our own in terms of cruelty, the main difference being that Japanese Canadians were prevented from returning to their homes for an additional four years following the end of the war. They were effectively exiled from their exile.

The story is narrated by Naomi Nakane, an elementary school teacher living in the plains of Western Canada. Upon learning of the death of her uncle, who along with her aunt (the titular Obasan) raised Naomi and her brother after WW2 and internment splintered her immediate family, she returns "home" and finds herself catapulted into a reckoning with the trauma of her childhood, of which internment was only one factor, albeit a chief one. This reckoning is largely thanks to the prodding of another of her aunts, her deleterious but vital impact made clear in the quotation above.

Kogawa's novel gets a lot of flack for being too poetic. I think it balances this dynamic very elegantly but take more issue with the integration of its historical threads. Some portions feel overly didactic, and the pacing suffers as a result.

But the overall effect, especially once you hit the end, is deeply tragic and uniquely beautiful. Recommended for readers who love the marriage of poetry and prose as well as those fond of historical fiction and narratives of social justice.



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Native Son by Richard Wright

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Few books have I undertaken with the unease I felt in tackling Native Son. Between Wright's tasteless criticism of Zora Neale Hurston and James Baldwin's thoughtful criticism of Wright, the book just felt like it might be too mired in controversies and complexities beyond my ability to reconcile for me to be able to reckon earnestly with its truth and beauty.

Still, I decided it was time I read it -- and hot damn was it riveting! Insanely disturbing and tragic too, but I could barely put the thing down. Bigger Thomas, notoriously problematic though he may be, is fascinating, sad, appalling, and, as far as I can intuit, real in at least some very important if troubling ways.

I hesitate to give any synopsis whatsoever since so much of the power of this novel rests in the shocking trajectory it so suddenly and aggressively pursues. Basically, Bigger is a 20-year-old Black man living with mother and younger siblings in dire, hopeless poverty on the South Side of Chicago in the 1930s. A local businessman, whose company ironically bears significant responsibility for the abject living conditions of Bigger and his family, offers him a chance to "better" himself by hiring him as his family's chauffeur. Bigger is not eager to take him up on this but ultimately feels like he has no choice -- a common refrain in his decision-making and a major theme in the novel as a whole.

Toward the end, the story's breakneck, fascinating intensity gets pretty majorly waylaid by some very extensive expostulations -- the sort of stuff that often makes me think, "Hmm, I wonder if maybe this should've been an essay..." These pages are still intriguing, but they also cast the events of Bigger's life and of race relations in America pretty reductively and so are probably the most objectionable material in the whole book. The primary expostulator, though, is not the author, and the ending gives me some sense that Wright's overall message is a bit more complex and perceptive than he sometimes gets credit for. But I say with full humility, what do I know?

If you find violent crime intriguing, or if you like thrillers or courtroom dramas, you should definitely check out Native Son. Personally, I'm not uniquely fond of any of these, and yet I still TORE through it, even if it was deeply upsetting and will continue to haunt me for quite some time.



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The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I can't believe it. After my third rereading, I like it better than I ever liked it before. Much better than the second time (see original review below)... not sure what happened there! But even better than when I first experienced it in 1999 as an absolutely awe-stricken seventh grader.

I reread so many books that captivated me in my youth only to find they haven't held up so well (or maybe I haven't?), but LOTR, like a fine 1320 Shire vintage, only gets better with time. There's so much here, so much to praise -- the deft interweaving of myriad compelling yet disparate narrative threads, the potent and symbolic imagery that graces nearly every page, the perfection of what goes down in Mount Doom and the truth with which that moment imbues so many of the novel's central themes, the sublime MAGIC (there's no other word for it) of the Ents... Heck, I even found myself enjoying Bombadil.

It can't be denied that there is some problematic gender and race stuff here. I wish Tolkien had been more thoughtful about these, especially since all evidence points to him having been a surprisingly progressive fellow in real life, a fact that I really cling to so as to keep these issues from tarnishing the work more significantly for me. Still, this stuff is a drag.

I read it aloud to my kids this time through. I even got pretty into it with the voices (Treebeard was exhausting!). This probably had something to do with how much I enjoyed it. Seeing these guys leap around the room with excitement each time hobbits were reunited against all odds or literally quake with fear whenever we get the screech of a Nazgul... well, it added a lot.

These rereads seem to be coming about once a decade. I think I'll keep that up. Therefore, I look forward to my forties, when I shall next venture forth with Gandalf &co.

ORIGINAL REVIEW (December 2012)
Well, it wasn't as mind-blowingly amazing as it was when I read it in seventh grade, but what did I expect? To be honest, Fellowship was kind of a drag. Tolkien doesn't seem to have fully abandoned his Hobbit affects, and he hasn't quite picked up the epic beauty of the rest of the series yet. However, at some point in the middle of The Two Towers, it suddenly struck me that this book is still amazing (I'm sure it had something to do with Ents and Gandalf breaking Saruman's staff). Return of the King is solid awesomeness. Rereading this was certainly a commitment, but, even if I didn't get quite as much out of it as I did the first time, it was a fantastic, peerless adventure.



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Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I avoided the Brontës for a stupid long time. When I finally got off my lazy (and, let's be honest, subconsciously sexist) butt and read Jane Eyre a few years ago, I was absolutely floored. It has become one of my all-time favorites. I even own a Jane Eyre t-shirt! #2cool4school

I began Wuthering Heights with hopes of a repeat from Charlotte's younger sister Emily. While it definitely didn't have the same impact on me as Jane Eyre, it was a powerful, harrowing, gorgeous novel all the same, and I strongly recommend it, especially to those who enjoy 19th century literature.

The story focuses on two generations of a pair of exceptionally dysfunctional families living in the countryside of northern England in the late 18th century. Well, really only one of the families, the Earnshaws of Wuthering Heights, is exceptionally dysfunctional. The other, the Lintons of Thrushcross Grange, is just kind of... meh.

Into the mix comes a mysterious little orphan boy named simply Heathcliff. The kid literally has no first name, which is kind of hardcore. Anyway, as Heathcliff grows, he falls madly in love with his adopted sister, Catherine Earnshaw, and she with him, which is creepy (but not out of character for the book). Alas, due to classism and other sorts of bigotry, it is not to be. Heathcliff doesn't take it too well and spends most of the novel seeking to make absolutely everyone's life a living hell as a result.

There were times in the novel when characters, particularly Heathcliff, felt unbelievably extreme. I found myself wondering if someone could really be so vicious and vindictive and, well, evil. However, I am satisfied with the way Brontë's ending and the implications it brought about addressed these concerns. I'll go into no further detail because spoilers.

I also found it hard to get past some elements of the frame narrative. Probably more than three quarters of the book is related to the actual narrator by Nellie Dean, a servant who works at various points in both households. While I love Nellie as a character, her storytelling is insanely, implausibly elegant and elaborate. No one in real life tells a story and sounds like a novelist, even amidst the romantic heaths (and cliffs?) of Yorkshire.

But these issues did not significantly mar my enjoyment of the novel's heart-wrenching romance nor of its chilling gothic horror. It was a great read. If you're into revenge or love or the morbid or issues of class and gender or questions of spirituality and the role of religion, put WH on your list.



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Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I'm going to be honest: it took me a long time to get into this book. Every twenty or so pages, Gyasi's framework bulldozes the normal momentum a reader builds up as attachment to characters grows. However, once I realized this phenomenon and its effect on me were among the most important elements of the whole work, I developed an immense respect, an awe even, for Gyasi as a writer and for Homegoing as a novel.

Said framework consists of perpetually changing protagonists, each chapter taking its own, always alternating between the descendants of one 18th-century Ghanaian woman, one of whose daughters, Effia, is married off to an English colonialist and thus deeply and disturbingly implicated in the immorality of African imperialism and another, Esi, who is sold across the sea into American slavery by the husband of her very own (unwitting) sister. Thus, the first chapter focuses on Effia, the next on Esi, the following one on Effia's son, the one after that on Esi's daughter, and so on and so forth all the way to the present day.

While this scope is brilliant and breathtaking in and of itself, it is nevertheless frustrating to lose character after character just as you've grown attached. As I said before, this is of course a huge part of the point and the power of this novel, for whatever frustration I as reader felt at these losses is but the palest fraction of a sliver of a morsel of the emotions felt by the millions of Africans and Black Americans as they lost spouses, children, parents, friends, themselves, all as a result of the horrors of colonialism and slavery.

Once I grew used to this, I began to enjoy the book much more, coming to view it more as a collection of deeply linked short stories, sort of akin to The Things They Carried (which, coincidentally, I was rereading at the same time). Also like that book, Homegoing supplants the author's actual relevant experiences with fictional ones in an attempt to convey a deeper sense of traumatic yet essential truth.

In the end, Gyasi is heartbreakingly successful in this endeavor, likely far more successful than I realize. Hers is the sort of book (again, like TTTC) that I knew as I neared the end I would need to flip right back over and reread immediately to recognize its full power. Many chapters, in particular those about Kojo, Abena, H, and Yaw, struck me with their brutal beauty in and of themselves, but others, which felt less compelling in the moment, I now recognize are undergirded with motifs and imagery and syntax that would allow them (as well as those I already favored) to shine if I experienced them again with the full scope of the work fresh in my mind.

Over the past year, as I have struggled to make up for my immense ignorance about the realities of race in America and elsewhere, few truths have struck me more powerfully than the interconnectedness between our current deeply flawed time and those far more brutal eras that came before. We have not left the horrors of slavery and colonialism behind. Their tendrils remain deeply interlaced with the fabric of our present reality, as hard as this may be to recognize from a position of privilege. It's so tragically tough for my mind to appreciate this fact as the sort of visceral truth I need it to be in order to benefit from it -- to utilize it to do what little I can to move us toward a better future. Perhaps better than any other novel I've read, Homegoing achieves this end.



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Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As I have worked over the past year to develop my understanding of the history and role of race in our country, one of the greatest sources of astonishment for me has been frequent revelations concerning just how close we still are to the Jim Crow era and even to slavery. Yes, more than 150 years have passed since the end of the Civil War, but most of us can still count on one hand the number of generations separating us from a time when people were property in this country. A failure to recognize these enduring tethers amounts to a failure to reckon honestly with the continuing legacy of these abhorrent institutions.

In Kindred, Octavia Butler takes these real but intangible links and solidifies them. Dana, the narrator and protagonist, is a Black author living a middle class life with her White husband in 1970s Los Angeles when suddenly and inexplicably she begins getting sucked back to antebellum Maryland, to the very plantation where her great-grandparents met and conceived her grandmother. With great horror, she soon realizes that these great-grandparents were a slaveowner and a woman he has enslaved, and Dana finds herself confronted with a series of choices between playing matchmaker to an unforgivably shameful and violent union and preventing it at the potential expense of her very existence. It's... a lot.

Which, as a story about one of the most unforgivably shameful and violent periods in human history, is exactly what it needs to be. And yet, despite this intensity, Kindred could be said to have something for everyone. Sci-fi and fantasy? Check. Tender and heartfelt romance (between Dana and her husband)? You got it. Historical period drama? Of course. There's even a touch of humor, although it's generally of a sardonic and cynical variety. If anything, this is where I feel the narrative lacks a bit. There are missed opportunities to draw further parallels with modern America, to hold some of our complacent notions of racial progress up to a much needed critical mirror.

But I admit it's presumptuous of me to expect more here. Overall, I am extremely grateful to Butler for this powerful story and for the questions it poses to each of us about how much of our humanity we can truly take credit for and how much is a matter of our good fortune at having been born into more humane times.



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The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I think the best novels are at once inevitable and unexpected. If they fail to feel inevitable, what truths they may contain lose their luster. And if they fail to surprise you, well... that's just boring. I don't know that I've ever read a book that balances these opposing forces as flawlessly as does The Remains of the Day.

Ishiguro's story is, on its surface, painfully dry. Stevens, an elderly butler whose best days are behind him, goes on a road trip, ostensibly to try and re-enlist the support of his former coworker Miss Kenton to help him run the hall more smoothly (he's been slipping up). Perhaps making the story seem so boring on the surface is the first and even the most fundamental ruse Ishiguro employs. Where better to hide so many surprises?

The novel of course proves to be about much, much more: the death of the old ways in England, the decay of the British Empire, the rise of Nazi Germany, duty, loyalty, dignity, love. Stevens as a narrator glides between these topics in a manner I found completely engrossing, and yet this narration never feels contrived. Rather, it serves continuously to build Stevens into a startlingly authentic character.

There's not a whole lot of action, so if you're usually in need of that, this may not be your favorite. But if you thrive on wit and wistfulness and psychology and sadness, you may wind up adoring this as much as I did.



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