What I'm Reading, Pt. 3

I recently finished my 20th book of the year. As 20 is a nice round number, I decided I would share the books I've read thus far. I always love to know what people are reading (when someone is reading on the metro, I make a thinly-disguised effort to identify what book they're reading), and I figure other people feel the same way. So why not return the favor. 

(Note: I present the book descriptions in italics -- I did not write these; the descriptions were usually taken off the back of the book.)

(Note: Books are listed in the order I read them.)

11. Great House by Nicole Krauss. (Fiction)

For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pincohet's secret police; one day a girl claiming to be the poet's daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer's life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father's study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944. Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared. 

I love these novels told through the perspective of various different characters, and the characters are all connected in a way. I have read quite a bit of these books lately, and I can't seem to get enough of them. Sometimes the book is told through first person narration and it really is the characters' direct points-of-view (e.g., Great House, Let the Great World Spin, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Help). Other times, you get an account of multiple characters' perspectives (and their thoughts and emotions), but it's told in the third-person by an all-knowing narrator (e.g., Freedom, A Visit From the Goon Squad, The Finkler Question, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The Devil in the White City, The Lonely Polygamist, Sunset Park). I feel like I read more books told through the perspective of various characters than I do books with a single protagonist. I don't necessarily pick books for that reason, but it seems like a lot of the books I'm interested in tend to be laid out that way. It seems like I rarely read a fiction book now told simply from the perspective of one character, and all other characters are viewed only through the lens of the one protagonist.

I enjoy books with multiple perspectives because I like when we get to hear how different characters experience the same event. One character's perception of the same event can be entirely different from another's. Having multiple points of view sheds more light on the characters and the events in the book. I also like multiple protagonists because it feels like you get three (or four, or five, etc) books for the price of one. Each character's story could be a book on its own. I like having multiple stories within the same overall story. Plus, I like the diversity; maybe the multiple perspectives is good for my attention span.

Sometimes with these multiple-protagonists books we know how the characters are connected from the outset (for instance, when the different perspectives come from different family members, like in Freedom and The Lonely Polygamist); other times it's a mystery at first how these characters connect and how their paths will cross, but we eventually learn (even if the characters don't. Oh the advantages of being an omnipresent, omniscient reader). Great House is one of those books where the characters are initially strangers to each other and you don't know at first how the characters connect. I enjoy these books because the suspense adds something extra to an already good story. You're constantly wondering when and how these characters' paths will cross. 

12. Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart. (Fiction)

Meet Misha Vainberg, aka Snack Dady, a 325-pound disaster of a human being, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, proud holder of a degree in multicultural studies from Accidental College, USA (don't even ask), and patriot of no country save the great City of New York. Poor Misha just wants to live in the South Bronx with his hot Latina girlfriend, but after his gangster father murders an Oklahoma businessman in Russia, all hopes of a U.S. visa are lost. Salvation lies in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Absuridstan, where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as minister of multicultural affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century. 

This book is funny, satirical, original, and totally insane. But that's Shteyngart's M.O., right? Absurd and humorous.  

13. And The Heart Says Whatever by Emily Gould. (Non-Fiction)

Emily Gould tells the truth about becoming an adult in New York City in the first decade of the twenty-first century, alongside bartenders, bounty hunters, bloggers, bohemian, socialites, and bankers. These are essays about failing at pet parenthood, suspending lust during the long moment in which a dude selects the perfect soundtrack from his iTunes library, and leaving one life behind to begin a new one. For everyone who has ever had a job she wishes she didn't, felt inchoate, ambition sour into resentment, ended a relationship, regretted a decision, or told a secret to exactly the wrong person, these stories will be achingly familiar.

I thought these essays were going to have more of a humorous slant to them -- the Sedaris/Crosley/Burroughs style of personal essay/memoir. Instead, it was more just 'dishy' stories of her life -- breakups, bad jobs, life in New York, etc. (but not as dishy as some of those crazy celebrity memoirs). There was some humor, but not much. And while I like being a voyeur as much as the next person, eavesdropping on people's personal lives, I kept feeling like the humor was missing (based on my own biases of what these books should read like). So it never quite felt complete to me. Maybe it's unfair of me to want humor, but without the humor it just comes off as stories about this person that I don't really know. Humor can be a universal connector -- making a stranger's stories interesting to other people. Or, if the stories aren't humorous, they need to be really entertaining or crazy or fascinating. But these weren't exceptionally entertaining stories. The book wasn't terrible (there were decent stories), I think I just came into the book with different expectations and so it fell short for me.   

14. A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. (Fiction)

Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page. A Visit from the Goon Squad is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption.

It's impressive how many characters are in this book. Pretty much every chapter is the point of a view of a new character. But I didn't become overwhelmed at all with all the characters. Egan presents the characters in a way that you quickly understand where they fit in the story. The introduction of each new character further enriches the story and the other characters in the book. It's impressive how this short book covers so many characters and decades of time (including the future! dun dun dun!). I was initially surprised when I heard this book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction -- not because it didn't deserve it (it did deserve it), but because I figured it was too 'hip' for the Pulitzer. 

15. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. (Non-Fiction)

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells -- taken without her knowledge in 1951 -- became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. Henrietta's cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can't afford health insurance. This book tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. 

Amazing book. For those of you that aren't big fans of science, don't let the scientific and medical subject matter scare you away. These parts are discussed in a very interesting and accessible away (it's incredibly impressive what HeLa cells have done). Plus, the book isn't just about the cells. A lot of the book is about Henrietta's life and family. It's a very fascinating story. Rebecca Skloot did an amazing job putting a name (and a life, and a family history) to these often-considered-anonymous cells. The discussions of race and medical ethics throughout the book are also really fascinating.