Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry

Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023--San Antonio

Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry was long listed for the Booker Prize and named a top book of 2023 by many reviewers.  It is beautifully written.  The format is like a stream of consciousness going through the mind of one man which, with so many details, slowed down my reading speed but allowed me to appreciate the beauty of the writing.  It is the story of a man and his family, all of whom had had sad lives.  He is retired and is the only one still alive. He and his wife grew up without parents present.  There are stories of abuse and neglect.  When they meet, he can't believe such a beauty would be interested in him, but their common backgrounds attract each to the other.  He has become an criminal inspector for the Irish police, and she is working in a cafe.  They have married and have had 2 children.  Slowly, the flowing thoughts going through his mind reveal the secrets of what has happened over the years. Central to the story are two priests, one who has abused young girls for years and one who has abused young boys.  The retired inspector is living in a small apartment attached to a small new castle (from the early 1900s).  It is in a remote seaside area of Ireland.  He has maintained a quiet, private existence in the 9 months since he retired.  But he is contacted by two young policemen whose boss (who was a partner on the force with the retiree decades ago and who has remained friends with him) has recommended they visit him to get information about one of the priests.  Decades ago, the retiree and his partner had investigated the priest, found lots of photos of nude young boys, and had tried to charge the priest with crimes.  However, the higher authorities, all good Catholic Irishmen, had given the evidence to the Cardinal and the priest was allowed to continue his misdeeds.  With the church losing lots of its influence in current times, they were trying to find witnesses who would be willing to testify against the priest.  But there is also a complication due to the fact that the other priest, the one who had molested young girls, had been murdered years ago with no clear proof of who had done it.  The two priests had been close friends, so digging into the case against one led to digging into the other, since there is a chance in modern times that DNA could be found on items of clothing that had been retained in storage.  But the book is mostly a slow reveal of the lives of the retiree, his wife who died just before his retirement, and his two children who both died as young adults.  It's the story of how it is hard to escape the past and its influence on the rest of one's life.  And its the story of a man aging who seems to be having memory lapses and maybe hallucinations.  It's a very good book.  I gave it 5 stars out of 5.

Old Babes in the Woods by Margaret Atwood

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023--San Antonio

Old Babes in the Woods by Margaret Atwood is a collection of short stores which was named a Top Book of the year by the BBC.  Some of the stories are very creative.  Some are hilarious.  Some are interesting, but maybe a bit too mundane (or maybe just a bit too long to maintain interest).  My reactions went up and down over and over.  When I really liked a story, I couldn't wait to get to the next one.  When a story seemed to drag on too long, I would count the pages to see how many more until the end of that one.  Overall, I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Blackouts by Justin Torres

Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023--San Antonio

I finished reading Blackouts by Justin Torres last night.  When I was about 25% of the way through the book, it was named the winner of the National Book Award for this year.  It's not a traditional novel; many reviewers have called it an experimental novel.  It is built around a meeting of two men who originally met when they were both in a psychiatric hospital--when one was a teenager and the other was a middle-aged adult.  The older man is now dying in a facility called The Palace and the younger one, who has now middle aged, has come to say goodbye to his friend.  But both men have a need.  They need to share their lives with each other in an attempt to make sense out of what has happened to the two of them throughout their lives and to other homosexual and bisexual men and women throughout time as a result of society's efforts to justify, classify, and treat the existence of the sexual orientations of non-straight people.  Stories of real persons who were actually part of this history are introduced--ones who strived to prove that sexuality differences are normal and ones who tried to connect them to aberrations.  The use of eugenics is discussed.  Ethnicity differences come into the story.  The title of the book comes from two aspects of the story:  1)  From published books that had most of the print blacked out because of the discussion of non-heterosexuality being considered worth censoring, and 2) From the fact that the younger man, of Puerto Rican descent, was committed to the asylum not because he was gay but because he suffered from blackouts that seemed to be a common form of hysteria for people from Puerto Rico.  It's not a book that is easy to read.  But it is fascinating how the author has brought all of this together in such a complex story.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

 Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023--San Antonio

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld is centered around the life of a writer for a weekly satire comedy show on TV (like Saturday Night Live).  She is a 38-year-old woman who is happy with her life and her professional success in general, but, although having been married once and had a long-time fuck buddy, she has never had a fulfilling love life.  After working for 10 years at the show, there is a guest star for the week, a singer whose music she doesn't particularly like, who is both the guest host and the musical guest.  In her role as a writer, she finds herself writing skits that he will be in and also helping him with a skit he has been working on and wants to submit.  She is feeling something going on between the two of them, but doesn't trust that it is actually happening.  He may be feeling the same way, but is not communicating it well.  The question is whether they were really both interested in each other or not.  It's going to take time and more awkward encounters to find out.  It was fun to read, but is not great literature.  Still, I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

The One by John Marrs

Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023--San Antonio

The One by John Marrs seemed so familiar for the first 3 chapters or so.  Even one of the sentences at the end of one of the chapters made me think I had read it before.  But I searched through my records I keep of books I have read and it wasn't on the list.  And I checked the Netflix filmed version of it to see if I had watched that, but I hadn't.  So I kept reading and it started to seem "fresh."  I'm wondering if I read part of it and quit it sometime in the past.  It is an interesting novel, but I wouldn't call it a very good one.  It is set in the future when a researcher has discovered a mutation in a gene that allows her through gene analysis to match each person in the world with their ideal lover.  People download an app, spit on a swap and spit on it, send that in, and wait for an email to tell them who their perfect match is.  The book followed about 5 couples who have been matched.  It's strange that the "one perfect match" could be anywhere in the world but is often within the same region of a country where they both live, but that would be the only way the stories could be told; otherwise, most people would not have the money to travel travel around the world to meet their true match.  It's an okay book to read with some exciting twists regarding the matched couples.  Then it ends with uncertainty regarding what is going to happen to some of the characters.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5.

The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylvainen

Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023--San Antonio

The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylvainen is a fascinating novel that was a finalist for the National Book Award this year.  It takes place in Lappland and is the story of the end of a lifestyle that had existed for centuries--ended by a combination of factors including governments deciding to close borders that had allowed natural migration for the Sami people and their reindeer, governments deciding to provide settlers with free land within the natural seasonal migration routes of reindeer, and conservative Christian missionaries supported by the government-sanctioned church enforcing lifestyle changes (due to their belief that only their religion was right and that native non-Christian people should be forcefully converted to it while taking advantage of them in very non-Christian ways).  It reminds me a bit of what has happened in so many places such as North and South America, Hawaii, etc.  The book follows the lives of a number of Sami family groups as all of these changes are occurring and also the lives of members of one extended family of religious leaders.  Traditions of the local area are being suppressed while the incoming settlers and ministers are trying to uphold their own long-held traditions in this land where they are the newcomers.  The description of the Sami people's lives is told in such detail that the reader is enlightened while also suffering along with them as the story spirals downward toward tragedy.  It's a sad story, yet so enlightening.  I gave the book 5 stars out of 5.

The Words that Remain by Stênio Gardel

Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023--San Antonio

The Words that Remain by Stenio Gardel has been short-listed for the National Book Award within the category of Translated Novels.  It has a unique format.  And it does an admiral job of trying to address the problem of people not being able to comprehend and empathize with persons who are different from themselves.  In this case, it is with matters of sexuality.  The story is built around the life of Raimundo, an illiterate Brazilian peasant.  As a young man, he has come to realize he is different--that he has no sexual interest in females.  He and his best friend have fallen in love, but they know to be cautious.  When their relationship is discovered by Raimundo's father, there is no tolerance for it.  He is forbidden to see his friend again and is severely beaten on the back nightly with a belt for 16 days because the father says "the only right thing" for a man is to marry a woman and have children which will eventually lead for grandchildren; it is the responsibility of a man to do this rather than to bring shame on himself and his family.  But he learns that he is not the first in his family.  His father had a brother who was gay and the grandfather indirectly killed him by forcing him, as a non-swimmer, to swim into the middle of the river where he drowned.  Raimundo's mother is no help.  Only a sister who does not know the whole story shows concern for what is happening.  When his friend misses an appointment for a secret meeting together at the river where Raimundo has planed to propose running away, Raimundo feels betrayed by the love of his life.  His sister brings a letter home from school that the friend has given her to relay to Raimundo even though Raimundo cannot read.  Instead of allowing his sister to read it to him, he leaves home taking the unread letter with him wondering for years what it has said.  Eventually, when he is in his 50s, he starts going to adult classes to learn to read and write so he can eventually read the letter.  During that time, however, he has tried to hide his sexual orientation from everyone and has mostly worked as a laborer for trucker drivers traveling routes around the country.  But a transsexual prostitute he has encountered outside an adult pornographic cinema won't let him hide.  She publicly calls him out among his friends after, he, too, has shown intolerance and inability to understand why she is the way she is.  It takes decades for him to accept himself without shame.  He eventually leaves the trucking business because the heavy lifting has caused health problems, and he even befriends and becomes the roommate of the transsexual prostitute.  Eventually, he makes the trip back home to find that his parents are deceased and that his sister still cares for him and is glad to see him.  It is revealed at that time point that his young lover has married and had children and grandchildren, but just as Raimundo has never forgotten him nor quit yearning to be with him, the lover also has never forgotten Raimundo or quit yearning for him.  Both have lived lives that were not satisfying because of intolerance, shame, and miscommunication.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.