Tournament of Books discussion
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Tournament of Favorites
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2022 Tournament of Favorites: Semis Part B
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As I was just saying: if I love a book best, it is absolutely, positively GOING DOWN. :-) #ConstellationForever Well - though only one of my favorites made it to the semis, and none will be in the final round, I have two sources of solace: (1) "Constellation ..." made it further in this tournament than "Idaho" did, either in the ToB or in the ToF last year (#IdahoForever); and, (2) this tournament introduced me to some wonderful books that had been too long languishing in my TBR pile.
Thanks to all the judges and my fellow commentariat members. I love you folks!
Three out of four books that I really enjoyed and/or admired. Nice!
Yay! I absolutely agree with everything you’ve said here, Lauren. HoaB just feels like a more important book to me in this time. I’d be happy if it went all the way.
This round! Wow, two deserving books. Both exceptional. I'm very thankful for these two books. Well done, Lauren!
Terrific comparison and well expressed thoughts about the impact of each deserving book. Thanks so much... and I can see why you leaned in the direction you did. Although, like Risa, it was hard to see Constellation go.
Hell of a judgment, Lauren. ;-) I probably would have gone for Constellation, but it would have been a hard choice. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
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Here we have A Constellation of Vital Phenomena vs. Hell of a Book by Lauren!
These two books felt lightyears apart. How could they be written in the same century? They each provided a unique reading experience, but somehow gave me a similar feeling at the end. The pace/mood in Hell of a Book was snappy, biting, and painfully humorous. Like a circus performer flying down the road on a unicycle while juggling machetes. For Constellation, the experience was closer to the somber plodding of horse hooves. I found each to be appropriate for their respective settings and plots.
Both of these books were deeply philosophical and had fantastic sentence-level writing. I was interested in how writers and the writing life showed up in each of these stories. It feels like a trend we’re seeing more of lately, but I could be wrong. Maybe literary fiction that includes writers and the writing process has always been popular. I have a slight bias in that I really enjoy books about writers and/or the publishing industry since I am learning about that as a newer writer. But I do wonder how other readers feel about this topic. Do y’all enjoy books about writers, or only when the rest of the story makes up for it? I now have different feelings about the term “navel gazing” after reading Body Work by Melissa Febos, but I’m wondering if that’s how these books can feel to some readers.
Both of these books’ endings brought me to tears.
To dive into each book on its own, let’s start with Constellation. There were a few things I didn’t quite love. The various point-of-view shifts weren’t always as smooth as I’d have liked. There were a few instances of head-hopping that pulled me out of the story. Sometimes the descriptions were laid on a little too thick. I mentioned the sentence-level writing as a strength, which I stand behind, but occasionally there were excessive descriptions back to back that weren’t effective for me. I felt a little uneasy about the point of Ula’s disabilities, and Akhmed’s repulsion toward her. Of course, it was balanced by his devotion to her, but I’m not sure Ula’s situation was the best way to develop his character.
Here are some of the ideas and passages that resonated:
Trauma and maternity were the only wards remaining at the hospital.
“I think the human mind isn’t built to sustain trauma after trauma.”
“Medical miracles are the only miracles most of us will ever see.”
Khassan disavowed his son for not having the compassion he never taught him.
“If a stranger were to put his ear in the space between them, he would hear the dull roar of that knowledge.” (Wow!)
Overall, the reading experience was fairly depressing since the apocalypse-adjacent reality we’ve been living in the past few years feels like the scenes in war-torn Chechnya could be our future in the US. I appreciate how the book didn’t dip into trauma porn, with too many graphic details of the horrific situations experienced in the story. It was the right amount of detail to convey the seriousness of the situation, but the author didn’t overdo it.
The ending was fairly bleak (with the death of most of the remaining characters) until the last paragraph. That scene with Dokka at the landfill, on the brink of death where he, “found in that name an immense, spinning joy.” Knocked me down. I wasn’t expecting to feel the wave of emotion that image created.
Maybe the story is about finding hope in just the smallest things that turn out okay (like how Havaa surviving was enough for her father to die in peace). Was it worth everyone else’s efforts and risks, or does it make up for all that devastation to know that one person survived and (maybe) thrived? How else could we handle overwhelming suffering?
In another interpretation, I’d say this story might be about how each decision we make affects other people. I always appreciate stories that tackle individualism, so yes. More of that please, and nicely done here.
In Hell of a Book, many passages blew me away. Just stunning, incredible ideas conveyed, and I was moved by something in nearly every chapter (or about every other page, really).
It wasn’t perfect (few books earn that label for me). I didn’t love the second chapter with the naked-running-through-the-hotel scene. It felt a little too over the top and I don’t think it added much to the story. I get how the humorous scenes throughout the story helped balance the tragedy of the rest of it, but I probably would have preferred things to be slightly dialed back on that front. The narrator had a distinct voice, so maybe those aspects were important to make it feel realistic. For the author to be consistently funny while also profound, showed incredible skill. I can see how the levity balancing the deep pain of the subjects made it easier to connect without going down the spiral of depression I felt with Constellation. Was it a bit on the nose with the racism stuff and were the cop characters more caricatures than believable humans? Yes, but I think I’m okay with how it all came together. The cop at the end who was explaining how hard it was after he shot the boy (“Doesn’t the past matter?”) provided some incredible irony.
There were tons of ideas and passages I’ll continue to think about:
A lot of it was connected to Black boys needing to be invisible (for their safety), and growing up too quickly from trauma. :(
It seemed like the whole world was gaslighting the narrator. He was consistently questioning whether he heard things or not. Oof.
There were so many layers, and it felt very meta at times. Why did he keep having to tell the story? Why did he keep having to live things over and over again? Why do Black folks keep having to explain the issues and discrimination they face over and over again?
When every day is some version of the same nightmare how can we ever distinguish between what’s real and imaginary?
There were three passages that I saw as summarizing the story pretty well, and they absolutely tore my heart out:
“Silence has never kept us safe.”
“I’m not asking you to carry it,” The Kid says. “I just want you to see it. I just want you to see it the way it really is. Just stop ignoring it and look at it. Stop pretending I don’t exist. No more jokes. No more looking the other way. No avoidance. See me!”
“Maybe the love story here is more reflective, you know? Like maybe Narcissus had spent his whole life hating himself before that one day when he saw his own beauty, his own worth. Laugh all you want, but I think learning to love yourself in a country where you’re told that you’re a plague on the economy, that you’re nothing but a prisoner in the making, that your life can be taken away from you at any moment and there’s nothing you can do about it–learning to love yourself in the middle of all that? Hell, that’s a goddamn miracle.”
I am destroyed. [insert sob emoji, skull emoji, broken heart emoji, all the emojis]
Both of these books were excellent reads, and I marked (with book darts) more pages than most other books I read.
The stories each dug into devastating injustices, but one of them left me feeling mostly helpless while the other one inspired me to continue taking action and re-commit to the battle against racism in our country. There was an interesting contrast between Constellation showing how we are all connected and Hell of a Book showing the author pushing back on the idea that he needs to say something about every bad thing that happens to Black folks when he’s just trying to sell books and live his own life. Ultimately, Constellation was more discouraging for me, as I felt fairly hopeless throughout the story. I have no idea what can be done about things like war (or Russia attacking places like Chechnya, Ukraine, etc.), but there are 100 things we can all do every day to address racism in the US. And while I don’t read romance, I’m a sucker for a moving love story, and Hell of a Book has to be one of the best damn unconventional truth-bomb love stories I’ve ever read.
Thank you, fellow readers, for voting for these books so I could read Constellation for the first time, and revisit Hell of a Book, which I loved even more on this second read.
Winner: Hell of a Book