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The world is on the brink of nuclear warfare and The Mole (or Pig, Captain) is prepared. He lives in an abandoned mine that’s been converted into a doomsday shelter he refers to as “the Ark.” He’s accumulated provisions and set up some of the systems for keeping the Ark going (electricity and air purification a bit unclear). However, he needs a crew to make final preparations and be in the Ark when the bomb is dropped. 

The Mole is socially inept and unobservant. At a flea market, he allows shills to lure him into buying a (likely fake) mounted insect that slowly walks in circles eating its own feces. He gives the insect vendor a ticket to the Ark and then accidentally gives tickets to the Shills. Back in the Ark they jockey for power until they realize that other people have been in the mines without Mole knowing. They rapidly end up embroiled in a turf war between rival gangs (one normal, the other composed of retired men who are clandestine sanitation workers). 

Written a few years after China’s nuclear test, the fear of nuclear warfare doesn’t quite hold but the feeling of wanting to escape a chaotic world is clear. Mole’s life was stagnant but this allowed him to maintain a sense of control. However, troubles in the past and the need for connection can’t be ignored forever. The passengers on the Ark and the intruders set of a string of events that bring Mole back into the world, if only that could solve more problems than it creates 

The final part of an unconventional trilogy, Cusk writes a ~2 chapter novel about an author traveling to  Portugal (?) for a literary festival. Like “Outline” and “Transit,” the novel almost entirely focuses on conversations between Faye and others. 

In the first and second parts, the focus was generally on finding oneself after a marital separation. Here the focus is on occupying the “in-between.” The narrator sits on the edge of popular and literary fiction where she is invited to literary festivals without seeming to get much attention from the highbrows and to interviews where she is seemingly the highbrow exception. Many of the characters are in the in-between as well mainly in their marriages (or lack of divorces) and careers (either successful without satisfaction or unable to launch). No one here is fully comfortable with a situation that was never what they had in mind and yet they carry on in their routines and endure some usual level or hardship and a few moments of joy. 

Maybe Cusk’s greatest strength is that unbearable conversations feel unbearable, the oppressive heat feels oppressive, and the most plain people usually have the best stories to tell. 

“Outline” is a breath of freedom (with all of its disappointments) after a difficult episode, “Transit” is the realization that life (with all its difficulties) goes continues on after situations change, and “Kudos” is the acceptance that we settle into roles that are somehow conventional and yet blur the lines of what is well defined. 

If everything becomes automated what else is there to do? Vonnegut’s first novel ponders a world where wartime efficiency has led to the automation of the entire economy such that only engineers and a few others in leadership positions become necessary while work is made up for the rest. 

This novel follows Paul Proteus, son of one of the heroes of automation, who manages an automated production plant in Illium, New York while vying for a similar role in Pittsburgh. While he experiences depressive episodes, the return of his old friend Ed Finnerty from DC catalyzes a change in Paul’s view of their automated world. Ed leads Paul on some drinking expeditions on the other side of the river where his interactions with the people left behind from automation solidify his view that automation has prevented most people from finding meaningful work. This pulls Paul into a complicated deal of being asked by the higher-ups to infiltrate the resistance while he’s on the fence about his own career. 

This novel reads like a first novel where the author has a lot to say and it often gets in the way. There isn’t the creative diversion found in “Slaughterhouse Five” or “Cat’s Cradle” or the sentimental humor of “Bluebeard” but there are many somewhat preachy monologues from Paul likely reflecting the author’s view of the increasing automation seen after WWII. For that it’s more of an interesting dystopian novel than a totally great one (still better than Fahrenheit 451). Perhaps there is some meaning to be found in inefficient work done by real humans (see his envelope story) at the expense of pure economic productivity. Player Piano is a sadly pertinent, if imperfect novel. 

Not to be confused with “The Book of Common Prayer”from the Anglican Church, one of Didion’s few fiction works follows two happenings on the fictional South American nation(state?) of Boca Grande. First is the appearance of a strange American woman with seemingly no connections to the island and nothing to do but wait around and be mildly inconvenient. The second being the political uprising happening within the controlling family which the narrator belongs to. 

The novel slowly unfolds as if told much later in the future (or after blocking out some of the memories) by the main heiress of the Boca Grande and step-sister to the main political leaders. We learn that the American, Charlotte, is traveling while her daughter is wanted for a left-wing terrorist attack and seems to expect that she’ll show up on the island. There’s an obvious contrast here between the American leftist and the situation in an apparently communist country. As the political situation unfolds we see how the convergence of her (difficult) husband and (more difficult) ex-husband led her to escape. Throughout these events, the narrator tries to break through the conception of her daughter as an innocent child. 

I still think that Joan Didion never put out a bad work but this one felt a little contrived. For example, there’s a whole introduction about the narrator being an amateur biochemist which only results in occasionally bad metaphors or Didion making both sides of the political divisions seem a little ridiculous. Some of the Cold War politics don’t really age well. The terrorist daughter is a bit of a caricature of an educated “champagne socialist” gone extreme without really adding much to the conversation. But the novel still holds together and unfolds wells. The character study of Charlotte and the narrator are both good as expected for a Didion critique of the California hippie type. This is a novel about the rich being out of touch both at home and abroad. 

Two novels of unrequited love and obsession (yearning?): one recently trendy, the other recently reprinted. 

Ali’s novel follows a Turkish man, Raif, who moves to Berlin after the WWII to learn about industrial soap production before he takes over his family’s soap factories. Raif is feckless and wastes most of his time until he stumbles upon a self-portrait in a modern art exhibition and proceeds to stare at it every day. Eventually he meets the woman in the portrait and falls in love despite her wish to keep distant. Their…situation continues but can’t end happily. If this sounds very similar to “White Nights” that would be accurate. 

I think I found this a little disappointing because of the amount of hype that it got 1-2 years ago. This feels like a variation on Dostoyevsky’s work altered to put the protagonist in a foreign country, it’s a little less existential and more emotional. I didn’t especially like “White Nights” 

“A Domestic Animal” was republished this year by McNally editions and follows Dick Thompson, a middle-aged gay man, who falls in love with his lodger Antonio, an Italian philosopher. Antonio is intelligent and charming which allows him to win over most people despite his poor manners. He grows dependent on Dick while keeping him at arms reach and never quite clarifying his orientation. He eventually takes up with a young woman who lacks the taste and relative wealth of Dick (or any features of his wife in Italy). While it’s clear that the situation can’t end happily for Dick he remains unable to break free. 

This novel mostly follows Dick’s internal monologue as his obsession grows. It serves as a psychological portrait of obsession as Dick bounces between infatuation, jealously, and misery. It’s not a happy book but it’s shockingly honest and realistic. Francis King is a very skilled writer and it’s a shame that his (many) novels have mostly fallen out of print.  

Maybe there isn’t much left to say about this nostalgic novel about the changes in British class and Protestant/Catholic conflict in Britain leading up to WWII. 

Charles Ryder is an Oxford student who becomes infatuated with a child-like, effeminate drunkard of a student named Sebastian. He spends some holidays with Sebastian’s family at the Brideshead estate. Charles meets Sebastian’s family, particularly his sister Julia and, eventually, his father who is living outside of his marriage in Italy. As Sebastian’s drinking becomes a problem tensions arise between the family and Charles. 

Charles, now married, becomes a painter and eventually falls in love with Julia, also now married, as his career is beginning to take root. Their relationship, and the downfall of their marriages, encompass the final part of the novel. 

“Brideshead Revisited” is a reflective novel full of nostalgia where everything seems to be painted in a warm light despite the general lack of almost anything positive happening without a lot of strings attached. None of the characters or their relationships seem happy and most of the character development is negative. This is perhaps most accurately considered as a warning about the dangers of nostalgia for the glory days (here the English nobility and their fancy estates) that no longer exist and were never quite what they seem to us now. The War seems to be both a jolt awake from the general unreality of this belief and also a reason to cling to some sort of world that we understand.  

A short novel centering around the 2021 English Channel disaster, Delecroix takes the recorded conversations between a sinking boat of asylum seekers and a French Naval traffic control operator who answered the distress calls but failed to take action. 

Delecroix writes with a distant, objective voice allowing the operator to argue with an investigator who is inquiring about the incident after the recordings were made public. The operator shows little remorse and maintains that she did her job in fielding a large number of distress calls but that she can’t be blamed for problems arising on an overcrowded dinghy with a bad motor experiencing difficulties in the Strait of Dover. 

Many of the operators comments (some taken from transcripts) are callous or cruel, indifferent or ignorant to the reason the migrants would be putting their lives in danger. She maintains that she’s a good mother and visits her parents regularly though she is going through some struggles as a recent divorcee. Throughout the novel she undergoes somewhat of a personal crisis in realizing that she is being criticized for failing to help refugees while no one is helping her. The central question being how much should a fairly average person have empathy for and assist in aiding those fleeing difficult situations in other countries? 

Delecroix, a Kierkegaardian French philosopher, provides no easy answers. He doesn’t espouse the “Works of Love” or bring religion into the situation. In fact he balances the public outrage with empathy for the operator whose role in the Navy unexpectedly ended up on the front lines of the extended migrant crisis in Europe. Delecroix provides reminders that we usually ignore more immediate crises to focus on the sensational and try to put blame on individual actions to avoid any personal discomfort. 

This novel, and situation overall raises questions: could the situation be avoided if the French had been more welcoming? Could the situation have been avoided if the British asylum program didn’t require application from within the country? Could the countries have collaborated on a solution to a dangerous crossing made by more than ten thousand people annually? Could international aid efforts have prevented large scale migration? Could the media have focused on the situation and humanity of the refugees rather than the difficulties of handling large movements of people? Could the Navy have provided more support for the sea traffic controllers who had to deal with panicked calls on every calm night? Could France be doing more for the people of northern France to ease the backlash among people who generally are less economically comfortable? Could people acknowledge and help those in need in their own communities? 

In ~100 pages, Delecroix asks the major questions of what one should do when confronted with injustice whether personal or global. This made me think about the Haitian immigrant situation in Ohio which I heard about from people in the area while hearing about the situation in Haiti from a missionary. 

Perhaps deserving of the Goncourt and/or International Booker. 

As I’m making my way through Olga Tokarczuk’s translated works I had assumes that BoJ would be the last considering that it falls close to 1,000 pages. But the mood struck in early May and I spent the past month reading this giant historical novel. 

Books of Jacob centers around the Frankist movement following the 18th-century Polish messiah-claimant. While Jacob is the central figure, he remains distant in the novel which is told from the perspective of those around him–including followers, supporters, adversaries, and those occasionally overlapping with one or two of the previous groups. 

We witness Jacob as a young scholar advocating for the use of the Zohar and against the Torah while gaining the support of a couple wealthy merchant families. He flees to the Ottoman empire due to clashes with the majority of the Jewish community. In exile, the followers begin practicing strange rituals and 1700’s polyamory (coordinated by Jacob).  

Later, a plan is developed to have his entire movement baptized which gains him patronage and the possibility of return to Poland. The plans starts to unfold until Jacob is betrayed by one of his closest follows and becomes imprisoned (although bribes make this tolerable). When the monastery where he is held becomes captured, Jacob is released and moves to Offenbach where a supporter allows him use of a castle. As he grows into old age, he continues his teachings but raises a militia and lives extravagantly at the expense of his supporters. The movement begins to shrink at this stage and barely continues after Jacob’s death, but threads of the movement were dispersed through high spheres across Europe. 

Like most of Tokarczuk’s writing, there are many plot lines occurring simultaneously which never fully come together (many being related only in location and not in time), time is somewhat warped, there are slightly misfit mystics, there is obsession, people maybe have too much time on their hands. This style makes for a challenging read at this scale and I’m not sure that I found it as engaging as her shorter works. A lot of time is spent hovering and in 3rd person to limited 1st person but things are relatively stagnant most of the time as the followers wait for the next step in their journey. There is a fable-like feel across the novel that, while appropriate, maintains some distance. 

This might be one that I respect for its ambition and research more than I enjoyed 

A 50% whole wheat loaf for this cool weekend.

After getting the urge to bend some strings again I sampled some Revstars and HSS Strats/strat-style guitars (the best of which was a high-spec Pacifica, surprisingly) but ended up liking this (discontinued) Meteora. It’s fun to be able to mess around with tones and effects and to have easily bendable strings.