The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

Title: The Things We Never Say
Author: Elizabeth Strout
Publisher: Penguin Viking
ISBN: 9780241814307
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 201
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

There are some writers who just write about anything, and chances are you will read all of it. Take it all in, make their words a part of you, and for me Strout is one such writer. Whatever she writes, it seems so casual at first glance, at first reading, till you go back to it, and let the words sink in.

As one of the characters in her latest, “The Things We Never Say” says to her father-in-law about the music she plays, “I’m just trying to get inside the music” – we as readers feel exactly the same about Strout’s writing – we want to get inside it, soak it all in, and she ensures that we do that.

With Artie Dam, she has given us yet again a character who we love, sometimes get mad at (rarely), adore, admire, and love the simplicity (deceptive sometimes) with which he maneuvers life. Artie is a schoolteacher who is worried about the world – the state his country America is in, with someone becoming The President. He worries about life, ponders over the past, has a secret (which sometimes he wants to share and sometimes he doesn’t), and then eventually perhaps realizes how much we do not share, how much we do not say what we want to, and what we take to our graves.

“The Things We Never Say” is a quiet book – there is anger at Trump, there is despair at the state of the world, and in all this there is hope as well. Strout creates characters that are so real, so conflicted, so flawed in tiny ways, and some in big ways – and yet there is no judgement at all – neither from her and nor from her characters toward one another.

Strout with her very sublime writing makes the reader go through so much – American and World politics, free will, friendship, alienation, friends and what becomes of friendships when politics is involved, of how much grace and kindness we are capable of showing and how much we actually show, but above all this book is also about slowness. It is about the multitudes within us and how we can never be one-dimensional. No human being can.

Strout’s writing if you are familiar with, is like a cozy blanket on days when the world is too much to bear. “The Things We Never Say” for me felt like the perfect homecoming – the softness, the tenderness, the tumultuous nature as well of her writing – of how love is so complex, and relationships more so. I thought when I started that maybe this time it wasn’t for me, given the reviews I was reading elsewhere, but I am so glad I was proved wrong.

Light and Thread by Han Kang. Translated by Maya West, e. yaewon, and Paige Aniyah Morris

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It is fascinating to read of an author’s mind at work. How they write, what they think, what they feel about their work, their surroundings, their emotions, and how it feels when the work has ended, and a new book is about to begin.

Han Kang’s latest offering, “Light and Thread”, her first since she won The Nobel Prize in Literature is an intimate book of thoughts, of how life works, of how we are as humans (to some extent), and in all of this, the role nature plays, and the thread that connects us all, even if we choose to ignore it: “the gold thread that connects our hearts” – what an eight-year old Han Kang wrote in her diary: Love.

She speaks of her books, of “Human Acts”, “Greek Lessons”, “The Vegetarian”, and “We Do Not Part” – the ones we have enjoyed, been tortured about, and felt so strongly about – she speaks of her state of mind and heart while writing them. Of how violence has seeped in our lives, and yet there is so much hope left in humans, in love, in holding on to it, and spreading that love.

She speaks of her little north-facing courtyard garden in her home that she tends to with mirrors for sunlight and water and deep love, and how things grow, and how people have the same capability in them.

I read this book at a time when I needed it the most. To believe in kindness and goodness and love, despite the violence in the world, despite the hate in people’s hearts, in spite it being there like a large, dark shadow.

Han Kang’s writing is simple, it is simple so we understand, so we feel, so we know that flowers will bloom no matter what. We need to just understand how it all works – how love and kindness works – and how we then survive in a world like this.

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder by Nina McConigley

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Title: How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder
Author: Nina McConigley
Publisher: Pantheon Books
ISBN: 9780593702246
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 224
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

I wanted to love this book the minute I heard its title: it’s just the kind of weird, genre-defying novel that makes me gasp, laugh, and think. At its heart, it’s a tale told from the perspective of Georgie Ayyar, one of two mixed-heritage pre-teen sisters living in rural Wyoming in 1986, who confesses to the reader that she and her sister killed their uncle, and then goes on to explain exactly how and why that occurred. It’s a brave move: none of this is particularly polite.

What impressed me most was the way that McConigley has managed to make the book feel like a friend talking: direct, quirky, sometimes playful, even when it’s talking about the pain. The book shifts from boy-girl magazine quizzes to 80s pop culture to thoughtful asides about colonisation and identity to the creeping horror of abuse. The employment of these seemingly random elements: quizzes, lists, and nostalgic references—isn’t just a stylistic choice. It is Georgie trying to make sense of a world that has dislocated her: culturally, racially, and emotionally. It is through these that we come to understand the sisters, Georgie and Agatha. This book is also about what it means to be of mixed heritage in a land that doesn’t belong to you, and yet it does. The Americanness of the 80s was a totally different affair than what it is now, or maybe not.

McConigley tries to uncover so much on every page – well almost, and that works most of the time. It is also sometimes a touch and go situation on page – paragraphs jump at you, incidents appear suddenly, and it all works best for the reading.

As a queer person who lives identity on every page of my life, it sometimes felt like it was trying to do a little too much. And yet: that chaotic layering is what the messy, fractured way we actually remember our own lives looks like. McConigley isn’t giving you clean answers or easy solace, she’s giving you texture. The laughter that bubbles up alongside the sorrow, the comic relief that sits right alongside the trauma, the inexplicable draw of belonging and not belonging at the same time.

There’s been some mention of the novel’s loose structure, and I understand that. It meanders, it digresses, it’s an experiment. But for me, that’s what living as a marginalized person sometimes looks like: taking meaning from the scraps.

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is a taut, funny, tragic and fresh approach to how lives are lead – the messiness of it all, how families are all over the world, the guilt we live with, the redemption we seek, the wounds we hide, and how we ultimately heal. A great read! Highly recommend it.

The Silver Book by Olivia Laing

In Limbo: A Graphic Memoir by Deb JJ Lee

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Of Books and Reading

Hmmm so I am the Hungry Reader. The one who reads. The one who is constantly reading or wanting to read constantly. This blog is all about the books I have read, the ones that I am reading and gems that I plan to read in the future or whenever it arrives.