It has been a long time since I added a book to my "Best Books of All Time" list, but The 1619 Project clearly belongs there. Nearly everyone has at lIt has been a long time since I added a book to my "Best Books of All Time" list, but The 1619 Project clearly belongs there. Nearly everyone has at least heard of this amazing book, originally a series of articles in the New York Times, heavily edited and expanded for this publication.
1619 was the year the first slaves landed in the American colonies. Hannah-Jones makes the compelling (and, to my mind, irrefutable) claim that the entire history of what would become the United States has derived from that moment and the ensuing 250 years of slavery, as well as the 150 years of oppression that have followed. Economically, politically, environmentally—in every aspect of American life, the violent racism of the way in which Black people were exploited, first as slaves and then subsequently as an oppressed minority, makes clear that, without the unpaid then grossly underpaid underclass, our country could not have become the power that it is in the world.
Hannah-Jones and the other authors of these essays also make the essential point that Black people are the ultimate patriots, that to remain loyal to and fight for a country which has never fulfilled any of its promises to you and has, in fact, done everything in its power to oppress, kill, and maim you, is an act of love so profound as to be nearly unfathomable. And to believe for a moment that these racist currents of white supremacy are of the past is to be willfully ignorant. This is particularly true in these latter days of the rise of authoritarianism and white denial, but has never not been true in this country.
In case you have any doubt that The 1619 Project is a profoundly important work, you have only to look at the fact that 30 states controlled by white supremacists have proposed or passed legislation outlawing the teaching of this work in public school. When I heard Hannah-Jones speak in person recently (yes, she is every bit as dynamic as you would expect), she said that, aside from the Pulitzer, these bans are her greatest honor.
It may well be that people of color in this country have always been at war with the ruling elite, but all signs point to the fact that the autocrats are coming for all of our rights, that the battle Black people have fought for centuries is coming home to roost in the home of everyone who is not a white, straight, cisgendered, conservative, Christian male. If ever we needed a battle cry, this is that time. The 1619 Project is a clear, focused, forceful, angry rebuttal to the ever more prominent invocation of a white ethnostate emerging in the United States. It is a call to arms we cannot afford to ignore....more
I may need a bit more time to ponder it before I can fully support the following statement, but at the moment it seems to me that this is a work of geI may need a bit more time to ponder it before I can fully support the following statement, but at the moment it seems to me that this is a work of genius. Genius, to me, finds a way to tell a story in an entirely different way, but one that is not merely some sort of self-consciously unique structure. In this way of defining genius, the new method must also elucidate and amplify the subject matter while pulling us into its emotional orbit. A tall order, but Lincoln in the Bardo does all this and more.
The plot here is a simple one, at least in its outlines. Abraham and Mary Lincoln's son Willie died of a fever (most likely typhoid) in February, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War. Lincoln was by all reports devastated by the death and found it hard to carry this burden along with that of the destruction scarring his beloved country. In this telling, Lincoln spends the night of Willie's funeral in the graveyard where he is buried, grieving and contemplating the war, his life, and the future.
The magic, however, is contained in the fully-realised and very vocal shades who populate the cemetery. These benighted ones have convinced themselves that they are not actually dead, just ill and resting. They call their coffins "sick boxes" and refuse to countenance any suggestion that they might actually be...you know...D. E. A. D. Many have been here in this state for decades, though every now and then one of them will pass over to the other side, acknowledging their true state. The souls remaining behind see this as mere defeatism and worthy only of contempt.
Now Willie is among them, and they take a liking to him and the spindly living man who visits him there. The problem is that to be a child and hang on to the ethereal between-world of the Bardo comes with rather more serious consequences than for an adult spirit. They wish with all their hearts to prevent this for the pleasant little boy.
Of course, no plot outline can sufficiently capture the wonder of this book, for that is contained in both the words and overall structure, which provide an emotional immediacy that defies description. Saunders has always been a master of the English language, but has never put it to such effective and affecting use before this. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough; please read it. Your world view and vision of your life will change for the better....more
The Arrival is one of the closest things I have read recently that approaches a work of genius. This is a book without words, skillfully illustrating The Arrival is one of the closest things I have read recently that approaches a work of genius. This is a book without words, skillfully illustrating the immigrant experience with grace, humor, and compassion. Perhaps the most affecting thing about this book is the choice Tan made to set this tale in a world so very foreign to our eyes, with fanciful animals and oddly shaped and decorated buildings, so that our sense of dislocation might recapitulate in miniature what it must feel like to come to a world that is almost entirely unrecognizable as a place to live and thrive. His protagonist struggles with language, with wayfinding, with finding work and lodging—everything, one would imagine, any immigrant would face.
But this is not the half of the magic of The Arrival, for the drawings—lavish, lovingly-drawn, careful, kind, and evocative—are as breathtaking in their emotional content as in their sheer technical skill. Tan makes clear in an afterward that many, many years were spent studying the immigrant experience and interviewing many people, including members of his family, to derive a clear understanding of it. But to be able to translate those inferences to something as coherent and heartfelt as this feels a bit like a miracle.
If you have not yet, you really ought to give this beautiful book a look. But take your time. Study the lovely drawings and all their details. Repeated viewings pay richly. ...more
I am very reluctant to throw around words like genius and transcendent and perfect, but if any book in recent memory deserves these labels, it is "GilI am very reluctant to throw around words like genius and transcendent and perfect, but if any book in recent memory deserves these labels, it is "Gilead". The premise here is none too promising, I must admit: an old man near death is writing a long letter to his young son. In this letter he expounds on the joys of Christianity and the possibility of redemption, sin and salvation, forgiveness and the reluctance to forgive. At best, one might think, this is a genre piece, appealing to a very narrow audience that believes as the character does.
But nothing could be further from the truth, which is where the word "transcendent" comes into my description of this wonderful novel. Because what the preacher John Ames is really writing about is joy, the joy of living, of faith, of friendship and marriage and children, of devotion to town, religion, and people. Yes, his joy is frustrated (not least because, due to his late marriage, he will die long before his son reaches maturity) and he must reflect on how pinched and crabbed our hearts can sometimes be toward those who do wrong, and what pleasure there is when the forgiveness flows anyway. As Ames writes, "It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health".
Ames is a wise old man, rich in experience. One of my favorite tropes is this:
You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.... In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us.... Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable.
Marilynne Robinson has brought forth here the sublimity of hope, of how that hope for redemption in the world transcends the bounds of faith or belief, and how very vital to our survival it is for us to invest ourselves in that hope, and to the best of our mortal abilities act from it in everything we do.
Please read this book. It may not change your life, but it will certainly make you appreciate the one you've got. Cherish it....more
This book is passionate, heartfelt, poetic, gentle, witty, imaginative, clever, lyrical, wild, homespun, comfortable, generous, odd, sad, cheerful, peThis book is passionate, heartfelt, poetic, gentle, witty, imaginative, clever, lyrical, wild, homespun, comfortable, generous, odd, sad, cheerful, personal, universal, philosophic, wacky, beautiful, funny, perverse, well-written, engaging, weird, magical, genuine, sweet, silly, salty, sexy, tragic, hopeful, merciful, loving, lovable, balanced, fair-minded, essential, inclusive, respectful, rude, outrageous, friendly, mercurial, peaceful, contented, anxious, afraid, courageous, juicy, and damn near perfect. My recommendation? Drop whatever you are reading and pick up a copy of Mink River. You won't be sorry....more
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