All the books I read in August and what I thought of them

This month I read 8 books. I did not have a pleasant August, but I am not a woman in translation, so not everything is about me. But I did, as you see, read Ion in Greek, so, on that level, I guess I am a woman in translation and everything is about me, actually. 

I had a conversation once with one of my erstwhile friends about how the emotional distance between two people is that, when you have a subjective experience, you have to translate your feeling into language and tell it to someone else who then has to translate language into a feeling, and this is why no one can ever understand each other. So I guess, in a way, all of us are women in translation. Except for those of us who are men. I would like to extend my condolences to all men. 

I read one book by a man writing in English, one book by a woman writing in English, five books by women writing in foreign languages, and one book by a man in ancient Greek (you can please feel free to send me flowers to commemorate my accomplishment). The book by a man in English was Lolita because, as everything for Russians is somehow about Pushkin, everything for me is somehow about Vladimir Nabokov (such as Hartford, Americana as a concept, my job, my friends' potential love interest, and butterflies (obviously)). I also read Book Lovers by Emily Henry, and I liked that the protagonists were both kind of mean, but I didn't like that they did not officially get together until the end of the book. I think they should have gotten together at the beginning of the book. I was chuffed that the female protagonist and her sister were both vegetarians, and then I was not chuffed when they stopped being vegetarians for no apparent reason. I don't care whether fictional character eat meat but I think it should be consistent throughout the book or else the author is just taunting me. "These characters have a similar niche and occasionally alienating lifestyle choice as you! Never mind haha!!" Just say you hate me Emily!!

I read Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise by Lin Yi-Han, and I thought it was generally very well-written (although someone perhaps should have taken away the author's simile privileges). It was incredibly infuriating and on the nose, but I guess that's kind of the point, because the author was abused in the same ways as the protagonist and there is just no subtlety at all in this book (this is understandable). It was my feeling that the protagonist is not able to process her emotions in a logical or constructive way, and neither is the author. So I think it makes sense that the book has no subtlety because this is the reality of traumatic experiences for many people. 

Then I read Mister N by Najwa Barakat and Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen (this blog post is actually not in order, but I don't know what difference it makes for the reader). I have the same complaint about both books. I did not realize before I read them how completely unfun they were going to be. The main character in Mister N is a crazy person who also has all of the problems that Beirut has. I think the author did a good job with the unreliable narrator and the doubtful nature of reality. I think she writes with a lot of conviction. I also think the author of Waking Lions is engaging and good at her job. The protagonist of this book is vaguely racist, and he also runs someone over with his car, and he sure experiences consequences. It was so anxiety-inducing. I just don't like thrillers. So, these are good books, but I did not like reading them very much. 

Then I read The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. The way she writes the atmosphere sort of reminds me of Haruki Murakami (big news for people who love dreaming and hate misogyny) (I'm not in this group). I didn't understand the metaphor. Maybe it isn't a metaphor, I just didn't understand it. I enjoyed how accepting all of the characters were of a situation that sure felt like the end of the world. I think, for a large part of the book, it started to be winter, and then it didn't stop being winter. But the author did not effectively remind the reader that it was still winter. Incidentally, there is almost the same problem in the book Snow by Orhan Pamuk. It is snowing for the entire book (shocker), or almost the entire book, and literally the author just writes a sentence every ~50 pages "it was still snowing" to remind us. I can't imagine there's any better way to really make the reader internalize that winter weather is occurring because these authors have won every major Japanese literary award (as several websites tell me) and the Nobel Prize respectively. This is a great book. It didn't make me feel like anything was wrong; I guess I might have missed the point. 

Then I read Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga. The characters in this book are schoolgirls who get up to various mischief, supernatural exploits, etc., and then some really shocking ethnic violence occurs. I think this author also sort of writes like Haruki Murakami, especially the dialogue. I like how she describes things. Her self-insert character is named Virginia. Interestingly, there is also a character named Skolastika, but Skolastika isn't the self-insert. My job does safaris in Africa, and they give the customers book recommendations as part of the informational materials. You would not believe how few African authors are on these reading lists. Part of this is I think my boss has a novel allergy, and maybe it is harder to find nonfiction books about Africa by African authors (I wouldn't know; I have a nonfiction allergy). Anyway, it seems like an oversight to me, and I am going to singlehandedly look into African novelists to put on the reading list. I say things like this on the blog, which is why I can't publicize the blog to the nice people at work. I LIKE AND RESPECT EVERYONE AT MY JOB. This is a disclaimer in case they find the blog (it is true). 

Finally I read (this is, again, not in order) Ion in Greek. I claimed to have read it earlier this year for my thesis, but this was, strictly speaking, not true. I read the half that I thought was important. I don't think anyone noticed. Now I have also read the unimportant half; I even read the lame song at the beginning where Ion yells at birds and threatens violence against birds. This is a great play!! There is a lot of female solidarity. I think the chorus would be unambiguously a lot of fun if they spoke in Attic Greek or any dialect that did not have confusing vowels (I can't stand the chorus dialect). One of the best things about Greek compared to Latin is that there are almost no ambiguous case endings (except obviously when the chorus is speaking). I have already written at length about this play, and I don't feel inclined to say anything further. 

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (rerereread) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ion by Euripides⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Book Lovers by Emily Henry ⭐⭐⭐

Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise by Lin Yi-Han ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Mister N by Najwa Barakat ⭐⭐⭐

Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen ⭐⭐⭐