GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER by Bernandine Evaristo

"Girl, Woman, Other" by British author Bernadine Evaristo received the 2019 Booker Prize in Literature.  Evaristo's novel is a menage of no less than a dozen women characters whose lives intertwine and ebb & flow from one life to the next.  Three central characters for whom you might connect the unending individual threads are Amma, Dominique and Yaz, Amma's daughter.  The plundering plot germinates from Amma & Dominque rebellious youths.  They considered themselves radical, anti-establishment, thespian lesbians.  Traversing decades, continents & multitudinous lovers, these black, bohemian, bumptious women discover themselves in their 50s now ensconced within the establishment.   Evaristo brokers a writing style that steps outside the constrictors of linear timelines, plot development or literary format. The writing is at times poetic & philosophical; free-flowing leading into unpredictable trajectories.  The punctuation is notably absent but the politicizing of feminism, sexism, racism, racial & cultural identities prevails amongst the numerous relationships, friendships & familial bonds.  It's fair to conclude friendships are the omnipotent connections that holds the human family together.  The convoluted, deconstructed storylines meander into various characters that are all so well construed we're willing sojourners in their lives.  Men are sublimated to the sidelines but not altogether dismissed. Men are also perceived as scapegoats.  Patriarchy is condemned as a system that oppresses all women.  There's a prevailing envy & awareness of living in a male dominanted society.  Only men are freely condoned to be polygamous. There's a cadre of those oppressed: women, black men & women, and the LGBTQ communities for starters.  Truth be told, hierarchies of power & privilege will never disappear. Evaristo foresees a future a world where restrictions of a gender-binary will dissolve.  Women will stop defining themselves by having a male partner and view dependance on a man a sign of weakness.  There are cunning observations on religion & evolution. "Christmas should be called Greedymas a time when people over-eat and over indulge in the name of Jesus Christ." It's worth noting despite outward appearances, mankind shares 99.9% identical genetic makeup.   GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER is a unique, imaginative, mind-blowing creation to marvel.
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Ted Chiang's EXHALATION -SciFi Metacognition

EXHALATION is a spectacular collection of sci-fi short fiction that covers.  Ted Chiang's clever & thought provoking stories encompassing theology, sociology, physiology, archeology, humanities and eons of possibilities.   Chiang's captures the reader's imagination & stimulates metacognition.  Chiang's stories gives us cause to marvel at human evolution.  He cracks open our craniums to ponder  the origins of thought and consider the omnipotence & onus of human decision making.  In the titled story "Exhalation" a scientist explores inside his own brain and found it tore "an engine undergoing continuous transformation, indeed modifying itself as a part or its operation."  We're made mindful of the miracle of free will and clarity of thought.  The clever writing leaves us with conflicting views allowing us to derive our own judgements.  Betwixt are some bemusing opines. "The Church as an institution has always been able to derive strength from the evidence when it's useful and ignore it when it's not."  The stories mirror our own tendencies to process in this fashion.  It's suggested there's merit in withholding information as well as disclosing it.  Some stories take opposing views.  The sci-fi intrigue of time traveling is broached in intriguing ways with emphasis on the possibility of changing our past and thus our future.  The cryptic consideration of the past and the future being the same or malleable are profound.  "The future and the past are the same.  We cannot change either, but we can know both more fully."   Repentance and atonement's power to erase the past are shrouded in doubt.  Chiang employs lyricism with wisdom. "Four things that do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity."  Serious & humorous considerations are given with the ability for technology to enable us to revisit our pasts.  Spouses used this technology to prove their points in arguments.  But then what is the point?  And grieving individuals are enabled to revisit loved ones or examine the trajectories their lives might have taken had they chosen the road not taken. These are very thought provoking conceptions.  Artificial intelligence (AI) is another anomaly the collection contemplates philosophically.  EXHALATION also examines the incredulous developments of man's abilities to read, write and process thought.  EXHALATION is a no brainer - it's a masterpiece of creative genius.  

The ILLNESS LESSON - Lecherous Treatments of Young Girls in the 1870 by

Just post Civil War in MA, a renown essayist Samuel Hood, decides to open a school for young girls to broaden their critical thinking & awakenings outside of merely marriage and motherhood.  It was the norm for matrimony & motherhood to suffice & tether women in society.  All Samuel's well intent does not end well.  This is on the heels of his dismal failure of a social experiment constructing a utopian paradigm.  Pearson, a famous writer of this time is highly critical of Samuel's proclamations.  Suffice to say Pearson's daughter, Eliza, joins the 'Trilling Heart School' in its nascent formation.  Eliza is an extraordinary girl and a natural leader of the others.  Clare Beams' novel had the materials to construct an intriguing novel: an interesting epoch, maverick young women and a lovely setting nestled in the New England countryside.  However, the novel crumbles with torrid adulterous affairs taken off the pages of Harlequin romances. There are red herring references to Hitchcock's haunting film THE BIRDS. And, even more egregious is the lecherous examinations Samuel permits Dr. Hawkens to perform on these young girls; not unlike Larry Nassar & the USA gymnastic team.  The ILLNESS LESSON is ill advised to perpetuate the myth that vibrators or clitoral stimulation were accepted treatments for females during the late 18th & early 19th C.  Furthermore, mistreatment of the women is made more heinous with the submissiveness of adult witnesses for whom their care was entrusted.  Samuel, in his most profound argument to enlighten the  presumed vapidness of young women said, "I would argue that it is always right to think."  What's missing was the formidable ability to question and for the adults to sensibly listen to the girls.  "The girls had adapted quickly to their new right to speak, think, question-as if all of it had been ready inside them and waiting only for someone to ask to hear."

Colum McCann's APEIROGON - A Poetic Paradigm for Peace from Pain

Apeirogon: a shape with a countably infinite numbers of sides.  Colum McCann's (b Ireland 19650 elegiac novel is based on the lives Rami, an Israeli and Bassam a Palestinian born as sworn mortal enemies.  Their unlikely friendship grew from a shared grief for their young daughters, both casualties of war.  Rami asks "What could cause someone to be that angry, that mad, that desperate, that hopeless, that stupid, that pathetic, that he is willing to blow himself up alongside a girl, not even 14 years old?"  Together, Rami & Bassam wield their pain as a weapon to diffuse conflict.  Language is the sharpest weapon.  Sadly, words alone do not suffice.  It's disastrous to discover the humanity of your enemy, his nobility, because then he isn't your enemy anymore, he just can't be.  Do not disavow the possibility of living alongside each.  Allow the opportunities to get along.  There is no such thing as a humane occupation.  Everything is built on fear. It requires strength to suppress humanity's most aggressive tendencies.  Violence is weak hatred is weak. The first, easiest and worst response is revenge.  Tolerance, inclusivity, moderation, composure, understanding to end the endless cycle of sorrow takes courage.  Rami & Bassam understand the insanity of both Israelis and Palestinians wanting the same thing - to kill each other in order to attain peace & security.  Is there ever a moral war?  A solution for ending retribution?  A justification for oppression?  Is it possible to understand the history of another people?  McCann's lyrical & profound writing poses a unifying theory allowing rational & irrational reasoning to balance each other into harmonious discord. The helix of history, one moment bound to the next where the past intersects with the future.  Death is a circle with. life cut through it. There is much to admire, learn and mull over in this narrative of sorrow, history, justice & artistry.  Both Bassam & Rami believe anything is possible, even the seemingly impossible.  To shift just one mind would never be enough, but it's worth it anyway.  APEIROGON should receive the Pulitizer and Nobel Prize for literature.

Ann Patchett's "The Dutch House" Not Much Happening Inside

Ann Patchett's "The Dutch House" has an enticing framework that pulls you into the novel. Although, once inside, "The Dutch House" is a hallow shell that leaves the reader unmoored & unmoved.  Danny & Maeve Conroy are extremely close siblings.  Maeve is the older, saintly and stalwart big sister. They grow-up for the most part in a Gatsby like mansion in Philadelphia with a lots of glitz, shimmering glass and sparkle.  Unfortunately, their childhoods are shattered when their mother abandons them. Their father's new wife Andrea is a stand-in for the wicked step-mother in Cinderella.  Andrea moves in with her 2 daughters and quickly moves Maeve to the attic so her daughter can have  the better room.  Danny wants to follow in the footsteps of his father Cyril into owning & managing rental properties.  When their beloved father dies unexpectedly Andrea sends them packing leaving them homeless & penniless.  Within the home there was warmth & kindness coming from the two sisters who worked tirelessly caring for Maeve & Danny & the house.  Maeve takes Danny under her wing.  Maeve's ambitions are set aside to work and ensure Danny's educational expenses are met; the only thing left in trust from their Dad.  Danny submits to sis' insistence to go to med school despite his reluctance to practice medicine.  The years draw on as Maeve's life seems frozen.  Danny completes med school, marries, has a son & daughter and turns to a vocation in NYC real estate.  Danny & Maeve are continually drawn back to the Dutch House.  They stall their car outside, smoking & holding back from putting their lives in drive.  Danny reflects later, "We had made a fetish out of misfortune, fallen in love with it.  I was sickened to realize we'd kept it going for so long."  "The Dutch House" is an adult fairytale that double downs on Hansel & Gretel, Cinderella and A Little Princess.  The novel constructs a facade of interest based on a strong foundation between siblings.  But after completion, the magic dissipates like smoke.