Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024--San Antonio

Orbital by Samantha Harvey is a short novel which won the Booker Prize this year.  It is a novel without a plot.  Instead, it covers one 24-hour day in the lives of the 6 crew (4 astronauts and 2 cosmonauts) on the International Space Station--from when they awaken one day to when they awaken the next.  We learn about each person including their backgrounds.  We learn what is happening on earth during that day.  We learn about a crew of 4 astronauts headed to the moon that same day--the first men to head to the moon in 50 years.  We learn about the daily routine of the lives of the astronauts--their exercise routine, their meals, their experiments, their special assignments sent from command for the day, their space walks, the effects of weightlessness on their bodies.  We learn about the disorienting factors of being on the space station--the constant noise, the minor cracks on the outer layer that are expanding, the mental disorientation caused by the 16 loops around the world it covers each 24 hours creating a repeating day-night/day-night situation every 90 minutes.  We learn about the geography of the earth and the views of it from low orbit as the station follows what appears to be a curving trail up and down and up and down with each rotation of the earth it makes (caused by the slant of earth on its axis because the space station itself is going in a straight circular line) with a slight change in position each round because of the slow turning of the earth on its axis.  The reader will come away from this book with a good understanding of what it is like to be in space on the station.  And a thinking reader should come away from it appreciating earth for the ease it is for us to live on it compared to how limited our lives would be if we had to live in space or on the moon or mars in artificial pods.  Once we destroy the earth to the point that people cannot live on it, the alternatives are not going to be very good--even for those billionaires with the money to make the move!  (Personally, I expect that we will just cause our own distinction since building an alternative place to live and work will be too expensive with too little too offer.  In fact, I now wonder why we are even thinking of spending money to send people to Mars.) I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Gretel and the Great War by Adam Ehrlich Sachs

Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024--San Antonio

Gretel and the Great War by Adam Ehrlich Sachs has received notable recognition from major publications for its unique format, but it is not an easy book to understand.  It consists of a series of short stories.  Set in Vienna when the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing just after WWI, a young girl is found wandering the streets.  Since she does not speak, it is determined that she has never developed any language skills.  But after an article is written about her, a man writes from a sanatorium stating that he is her father and that she has had a rich language background because of books that have been read to her.  He sends the series of short stories to be read to her.  They each tell a story of someone having problems in life.  Because there is chaos following the collapse of the empire, many characters in the stories find themselves eventually sent to the same sanatorium.  To truly understand the book, the reader must have a rather extensive background of knowledge related to what was happening in Austria at this time--a country where psychiatry was developing as a legitimate medical problem that is treatable, where conservatives such as Hitler were rising up, where Zionism was a topic being controversially discussed, etc.  The stories provide a picture of the atmosphere in the country at the time.  The stories were interesting, but like many other readers, I had difficulty understanding what they were truly about and how they were all linked.   I gave the book 3 stars out of 5.  

James by Percival Everett

Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024--San Antonio

James by Percival Everett is one of the top books of 2024.  It won the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize, plus it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.  It is the retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the slave.  It is well written.  One of the features of the book is an emphasis on how the slaves had to constantly be acting--speaking the way they were expected to speak (even though they knew how to speak English and did so among themselves), walking the way they were expected to walk, etc., and the burden and stress this created in their lives beyond the hard work they were expected to do and the maltreatment they received.  I never read the Mark Twain novel when I was young, but I knew the general aspects of the story from short sections that were read in English class and articles and discussions about it.  Therefore, I don't know if someone already familiar with the story from Huck's perspective would get as much pleasure from reading this book as I did, since most of the details of the story were new for me.  But I thoroughly enjoyed it and appreciated the concept of the book.  I gave it 5 stars out of 5.

Playground by Richard Powers

Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024--San Antonio

Playground by Richard Powers was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and was longlisted for the Booker Prize.  It is a story spanning many years.  Two of the main characters meet and become best friends in an elite high school for gifted students--a Black young man from a separated family of limited means and a white young man whose family is wealthy.  They remain close friends as they continue their education at university where a third character is introduced--a young woman with Pacific Island heritage who both young men love.  In a second character stream is the story of a young woman whose father helped developed the aqualung--the first device to allow deep exploration of the oceans.  She fell in love with the ocean while young and started taking notes of what she observed.  Eventually, she majored in oceanography, although it wasn't easy for her to get admitted into the program.  And finally, she becomes famous from her films and books communicating what she has learned about the variety of life in the sea.  Over time, the two best friends have a falling out.  Both have shared a love of complex games such as chess and Go.  But during university, they both are attracted to the Pacific Islander which starts the conflict.  But the wealthy one also wants to become famous and make a fortune creating gaming programs while the other is more altruistic--concerned about the environment and global warming.  It's a bitter separation once it happens, and they do not communicate for decades.  In the meantime, the altruistic young man and the Pacific Islander have married and adopted two children and are living a quiet, peaceful life on a small island in the Southern Pacific.  It's an island that has been damaged in the past by colonial powers mining phosphate and leaving a long scar along most of the upper altitudes of the island.  Also living there is the famous oceanographer who is now retired along with about 80 other people.  Suddenly, a corporation is interested in investing in a project on the island--the highest in the Pacific and, therefore, the least likely to become completely submerged as water levels rise from global warming.  The citizens are told by the government that they have a right to decide whether the development will be allowed or not.  The plan is for a corporation to build modules to piece together to make floating islands for wealthy people wanting to escape both high taxes they pay by living where they currently do by living offshore and to escape the problems caused on land by rising seas.  For the island, it will mean the population growing back into a few thousand people as it was in the mining days and people on the island having good jobs.  But it will also mean that the simple, slow lifestyle they have enjoyed since the mines closed will come to an end.  Who is behind this venture?  How will the people living on the island vote?  What lies ahead for everyone either way?  It's a thoroughly enjoyable book although I became a bit confused toward the end.  Maybe reading that portion again would have made things more clear, but I didn't make the effort.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Tenth of December by George Saunders

Friday, Nov. 29, 2024--San Antonio

I apparently read Tenth of December by George Saunders previously.  When I checked it out on my Kindle, it opened to the last page and included a rating I had given the book.  However, I cannot find that I ever wrote about it here.  I read the book again.  It consists mainly of science fiction short stories.  The best one in my opinion is "The Simplica Girl Diaries" told through the diaries of a father of a family struggling financially while living in a rather wealthy community.  He wants to please a daughter whose birthday is coming up.  The girl, because there has never been good communication within the family, has never explained and taught their children why they cannot live like everyone else they know.  When asked what the daughter wants as a birthday gift, she immediately asks for 3 figurines that would cost $1000!  Instead of using that as a teachable moment, the father hopes to give her what she wants.  Tied into the story is a subtopic--that one of the "keep up with the Joneses" trends within this futuristic story is contracting for foreign women to be placed on poles in the front yard wearing white garments that flow with the wind.  The company providing this scheme signs the women to leave their homes for a contracted period of time to provide this service; in return, the women's families will receive sorely needed money in their home countries.  Participating women are "wired" together by a strand going through their brains so that they cannot be separated from each other except surgically.  Homeowners can order 2, 3, 4, etc., up to as many as they want to be put in their yards--the more the better for showing off how rich they are.  When temporary good fortune comes along, the father splurges, but, as anyone knows, the opposite of good fortune can also come along.  I didn't even read the last story which is the title story.  It was just too confusing for me to really be interested in continuing to try to figure out what was going on.  The rest of the stories were fine.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

 Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024--San Antonio

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange is the story of several generations of a Native American family.  Broadly, it represents the disruption to the lives of these and other NA families that the policies of the U.S. government has caused along with racism, discrimination, etc., that came with the beliefs and attitudes of the European American settlers who claimed their lands, fought wars against them, and actively worked to whitewash their history.  This one family became so disjointed for various reasons (their village being attacked with their parents being killed, running away because fear of being charged with a justifiable crime, children being taken away to schools designed to erase their culture and teach them how to live like a White person, etc.) that by the last generation, two boys become close friends while attending the same school without ever knowing or learning that they are very closely related to each other.  It's left to the readers, with the help of a family tree at the beginning of the book and the repeated use of certain names, to figure out who is related to previous characters and how.  The last characters included in the book actually know very little about their family history beyond what has happened within their own lives.  The reader, of course, can see connections going far back.  For the reader, the book is really like a collection of stories--changing from the character/characters of one generation to those of another and another.  The first 25% was may favorite part.  The personality of the main character was interesting and the words he put together to express what was happening to him were delightfully charming:  I fell, and the world went sideways.  The next 40% of the book was less interesting.  It provides the information about what is happening to various members of the family as it continues and branches--tying the character in the beginning with the characters that will be in the final part of the book.  The final portion was a bit sad.  The characters are doing their best to live their lives while feeling they are hidden in plain sight among the non-Native American population.  They are trying to live normal, stable lives--holding jobs, going to school, reading books, listening to NPR, getting exercise--while living with very little knowledge of their family history, having one character injured by an unpunished shooter who apparently resented that they are attending a Pow Wow, dealing the the drug and alcohol dependency that has negatively affected so many Native Americans, and being a mostly "chosen" family due to circumstances that have separated them from their most direct relatives yet have brought them together as a family.  It's a sad story.  The first part was worth 4 1/2 stars out of 5 and the last part was worth 3 1/2 to 4 stars out of 5, but so much wandering detail in the middle part with characters who did not get much development there, I decided that 3 stars out of 5 was the best rating for the book as a whole.

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024--San Antonio

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney has received great reviews which refer to it as an almost perfect novel and has been listed by many sources as a top book of 2024.  I had to wait weeks to get it online via the Libby app.  The story, set in Dublin and surrounding communities in modern times, centers around two young brothers--one 32 and the other 22--and those adjacent to them.  It is built around the push of society to make everyone conform to conventions.  The father and the mother of both boys separated when eldest was a teenager and the other was quite young.  The mother left the boys with the father.  Because of that, the elder son felt as if he was mostly responsible for his young brother.  Neither liked spending much time with their mother because she was raising step-kids in her new marriage who were favored over her own kids.  Peter is the elder son.  He is a lawyer who also teaches law at the university.  He is considered to be charming and outgoing by most people.  He was in a very serious relationship with Sylvia in his college days to the point that she came to be accepted as a member of the family--loved by all.  But Sylvia was in a very bad accident which resulted in injuries, never detailed, that made it impossible for her to have penetrative sex.  Although they loved each other, she ended the the old relationship with Peter.  However, it has continued as a very close friendship in which they love each other.  Peter has never been able to mentally accept the loss of the old relationship with Sylvia who remains the love of his life.  He has moved on to have sexual relationships with others and has developed a continuing one recently with Naomi, a 22-year-old student who lives as a squatter with other students in an abandoned building and has a side gig of having sex for money with others--both online via a website such as Only Fans and in person.  Peter has become a long-time partner (but not exclusively), and he also "pays" her by giving her money to buy things she desires or when she comes up short (which is frequently) in terms of being able to pay her bills.  Peter has kept Naomi a secret from his family and friends.  The younger brother Ivan is a chess prodigy and somewhat of the stereotypical classic nerd--wanting to meet girls and have sex, but always being awkward in doing so to the point that he has not yet had a relationship at 22.  The father has died just before the time of opening of the story, and both sons are finding it difficult to handle life.  Their age difference keeps them from being close and causes them to have conflicts.  Ivan has been floundering and dropping in his ranking as a chess player.  He doesn't have a full-time job and has no interest in one.  Instead, he uses his IT educational background and innate ability to analyze that has made him a chess prodigy to do short-term contracting jobs analyzing the data collected by IT companies to make sense to their administrators of what data patterns exist and what they mean.  He is happy to wear only second-hand clothing and work only to pay his month-to-month expenses (which are few).  In the beginning of the story, he has gone to a regional cultural center to make money by playing all the members of the local chess club--10-12 games going on at once.  Margaret, the 35-year-old director of the center who has booked this event for center and is married but separated from her alcoholic husband, is scheduled to give him a ride to his hotel after the evening event.  Ivan is lonely and desperate for company and somehow manages to ask if she wants to come up to his room.  That sets up the last conflict with societal expectations.  The mother has abandoned her family leaving the boys with their father.  Peter is still in love with Syliva and sees her regularly while maintaining a daily affair with a woman who is essentially a part-time prostitute and much younger than he is.  Ivan finally has a girlfriend, but she is 13 years older than he is, is still married but separated from her husband who everyone in their town likes, and Margaret and Peter (who is the only one who knows about Margaret and reacted badly when he heard) are both concerned about the age difference between Ivan and Margaret.  No one seems to show much concern about the similar age difference between Peter and Noami.  Both relationships are secret--one because of the age difference and the other because of the side work done by the young female.  All of this creates tensions, causes fights, and requires that the characters make decisions regarding their lives.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.