Reading Well: Cecilia Valdés by Cirilo Villaverde

Posted on February 27, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Hailed as perhaps the first great Cuba novel, Cecilia Valdés was first published in full 1882, when Cirilo Villaverde (then living in exile in New York City) returned to a story he had begun some forty years prior.

There is much to recommend here, most notably insight into the rich and complex interactions of race and class in late 19th century Cuba, where skin color is insufficient to identify someone as “white” (that is, Spanish), “black” (a slave or a newly freed peasant), or “mulatto” (everyone else). This alone makes it an interesting read, especially if you pay close attention to whose voices are believed and whose are ignored throughout the work.

It is also, and explicitly, a novel of its time: while the complexity of the social mileau is well-drawn, the comparative worth of its denizens is thickly racist and uncontested, by either the characters or the narrator’s voice.

There are significant holes in the plot–the largest being a case of mistaken lineage that is only unseen by key characters by their being completely blind to the obvious. But this is not terribly unusual in novels of the time, and if you enjoy those, you would probably enjoy Cecilia Valdés, especially if the history of the Caribbean, and Cuba in particular, holds interest.

#What I Wish I Could Do

Return to a novel started many years earlier, complete it, and see it receive decent acclaim despite its obvious flaws.

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Reading Well: The River by Peter Heller

Posted on February 15, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Reading Well’s very first entry was Peter Heller‘s The Painter. Four and a half years and many write-ups later, we find Heller’s The River (2019).

The novel traces two college friends as they kayak and camp along a river in Canada. They are both able outdoorsmen, but the voyage holds two dangers. First, there is a massive fire tearing through the wilderness and gaining on them; second, there are other people on the water, of unknown and perhaps sinister intent.

There are two deep strengths to the book; the first is the relationship between the young men, which is deep and palpable, managing to shed insight into each of them without sliding into cliche. The second is the setting itself: Heller has a true gift for describing the natural world, and the river–and most spectacularly a scene where the fire leaps from one bank to the other–is a powerful and central force in the narrative.

While not reaching the heights of The Painter, The River is a deeply satisfying read, with at least a few scenes that will stay with the reader for quite some time. Highly recommended.

#What I Wish I Could Do

The way Heller brings the environment to life is spectacular. It adds so, so much to the depth of the world when the natural surroundings are so vividly portrayed, and that’s a really worthwhile goal for my own writing, which often is a bit light on the specifics of flora and fauna, which can be a little overwhelming to invent.

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Reading Well: Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I thoroughly loved Marlon James‘ A Brief History of Seven Killings, and when Black Leopard Red Wolf (2019) began generating next-Game-of-Thrones type buzz, I became quite intrigued.

Luckily, the buzz is both justified and not. Or, more accurately, the buzz is justified, but the GoT comparisons are only partially so.

Black Leopard Red Wolf is most definitely a sprawling, epic fantasy novel embedded in a setting and history deep and rich enough to hold many more stories. And it follows the fantasy genre most closely in the way the adventure moves from setting to setting, each with its own cultural context providing challenges to a core group of characters. But that’s about as far as the novel’s fidelity to traditional swords & sorcery goes.

For example, this is as much a horror novel as a fantasy one, which surprised me. I was not expecting the level of visceral terror that a few scenes generated, but that reveals more about James’ skill than anything else. Also, importantly, this is–or at least is striving to be–an African novel.

That’s a problematic label, for sure, and I don’t mean to either reduce or essentialize the book. But the scenery and tropes and cultural inspirations of the setting and the characters and the ethos and the magic of the book are clear. They are also very well done, and very striking.

Add in James’ weaving of homoeroticism and a deeply conflicted and ambiguous protagonist, and it’s all a very compelling stew. If you are up for a sprinkling of deeply disturbing scenes, I highly recommend it.

#WhatIWishICouldDo

You know … all of it. The sprawl, the courage, the diving into a world and just totally inhabitating it. One detail: as in A Brief History of Seven Killings, James loves diving into patois, and he does so well spectacularly, never crossing the line into something that reduces the insights/intelligence of the characters.

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Reading Well: The Importance of Being Iceland by Eileen Myles

Posted on January 21, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

A loosely structured collection of essays, The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art (2009) by Eileen Myles offers a small window into a particular moment; specifically the New York art scene of the 1990s and early 2000s.

In that community, Myles was well known: a poet of some note, and an out lesbian in a time that was both more rare and more risky than it is currently. The essays are most interesting when they offer insight into her aesthetic or her often striking observations on travel and its relationship to the creative process.

There is much here that, if you are not deeply conversant with Myles and her peers in the New York scene, is somewhat impenetrable: anecdotes of lunches and visits and gallery openings that bear interest in direct proportion to your knowledge of the involved parties.

There is also some insight into her run for President: in 1990, she campaigned as a write-in candidate, an effort that drew national attention (in today’s parlance, it went viral–to the point where she had airtime on MTV, which was a much bigger deal then than now). Her candidacy serves as a reminder that a totally unqualified candidacy was once an act of performance art (it should be noted that Myles’ platform was admirable: an early attempt to call attention to issues of race, class, and gender in national politics).

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Reading Graphically: Two by Tillie Walden

Posted on January 9, 2020 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I mentioned two short works by Tillie Walden in a Reading Graphically post. Her two longer graphic novels deserve some attention, too.

First, there is Spinning (2017), which tells of her time as a competitive youth figure skater, first in New Jersey, and then in Austin, Texas. Then, there is On A Sunbeam (2018), a space opera of sorts, complete with spaceships that look for all the world like Siamese fighting fish.

Both books, at their core, focus on two themes: first, a deeply human look at young women coming out as lesbians and, second, the importance of finding a community to belong to.

I find Walden’s work incredibly direct emotionally: it never fails to move me, whether it is looking at the highly mundane moments associated with ice skating (waking up early, going to practice, never getting enough sleep, the long boredom of meets, etc) or a galaxy-spanning yarn focused on a group of intergalactic building renovators doing what they can to keep the crew together.

Seriously.

If you enjoy graphic novels that are aimed at human relations and emotional directness, these are for you. And Walden remains one of the brightest young lights in the field.

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Reading Well: Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee

Posted on December 30, 2019 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I usually really react well to J.M. Coetzee’s work (see Disgrace). Elizabeth Costello (2003) is a very strange novel.

There are two dominant modes in the book: one is a series of lectures given by the eponymous lead character; the other is more traditionally fictive, covering her travels and reflections towards the end of her life.

The fictional Costello wrote a single great work, a retelling of Ulysses from the perspective of Molly Bloom, and the core of the novel are her attempts to come to grips with the gap between that single achievement and the rest of her intellectual life (which is much deeper and wide-ranging). It closes with two reconciliations: one with a sister she has not seen in decades; the other with a jury to whom Costello must prove her worthiness of passing through “the gate.”

Neither goes quite as hoped. The former provides the most striking moments in the writing; the latter is an intellectual exploration of the nature of truth and change, and whether either is actually required or possible.

It is an interesting book, but a minor one, more slow and thought-provoking than gripping or deeply engaging.

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Reading Graphically: 5 Graphic Novels

Posted on December 23, 2019 by Daniel (@MKNN)

{so, yeah … many months have passed. We’ll be catching up over the next few weeks.}

Another interlude …

Pierre Paquet and Tony Sandoval‘s A Glance Backward (2015) is a translation of Paquet’s original work in French, telling a fantastical story of a young boy’s journey through grief. It’s not terribly original material in this format, but the artwork is surreal and endearing, and there are some truly creative and touching moments.

Roz Chast‘s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant (2014) is a brutally honest telling of the final decades of her parents’ lives. Chast is an experienced and established artist, and her skill never wavers here, including a level of critical self-presentation that is striking. At the same time, there is such a level of emotional incompetence in her family that the story serves best as a dramatic and forceful warning: if you have parents and you haven’t begun to talk with them about death and end of life care and how all that should happen, you need to do so. Now. No matter how difficult those conversations are.

Gale Bertrand‘s A Land Called Tarot (2017) is gorgeous and wordless, which really is a sub-genre of graphic novels all its own. It rewards a slow consumption due to the quality of the art, and the narrative that emerges maintains its own coherence, even without language.

Blutch has been producing cartoons for jazz magazines (predominantly in Europe) for decades; Total Jazz (2017) collects a series of these. The more of an aficionado of the music you are, the more amusing the pages will be, as they both pay tribute to artists and the art form and effectively skewer some of the cliches of the relationships between audience and artist.

My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies (2018) by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips is a great one-shot: a tightly paced noir tale with enough of a twist to make the payoff worthwhile. As you may guess from the title, it’s not the most optimistic and happy of tales, but still excellent.

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Reading Well: My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Posted on August 30, 2019 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Oyinkan Braithwaite‘s debut novel, My Sister, The Serial Killer (2018) is a rollicking ride, the arc of which is described quite well by its title. Set in contemporary Lagos, the strength of the novel is the relationship between the two sisters in question.

One–the protagonist–is intelligent, practical, and professionally accomplished; the other is gorgeous, flighty, and, yes, a serial killer. Both sisters, but especially the protagonist, are well drawn and will remain with the reader well past the end of the book.

The success of the novel is in their relationship, and specifically in how it navigates the question of just how much thicker blood is than … well, blood. It’s not just the two sisters, though: their father looms over the book like a dark shadow, and there is a central love interest that–at least at first–is a sympathetic, compelling character. The way a reader responds to the choices made by that character will dictate a lot of how the book ultimately lands for the reader.

For me, the novel ends up being simultaneously heartfelt (how far would you go for a sibling?) and ridiculous (like any non-horror story involving serial killers), a mixture that keeps the pages turning to the very end.

#WhatIWishICouldDo

Braithwaite does a marvelous job of writing about family loyalty in an oblique way that provides a constant backdrop to the plot. It’s very technical and very subtle, and it makes the book far better that it otherwise could be.

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Reading Well: The Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

Posted on August 12, 2019 by Daniel (@MKNN)

This massive collection encompasses The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010), The Broken Kingdom (2011), and The Kingdom of Gods (2014). A shorter novella, The Awakened Kingdom (2014) is tossed in for good effect. Having been really pleasantly surprised by N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy, I went into this with fairly high expectations.

It delivered nicely.

This is fantasy writing, an escape and a page-turner, as opposed to some of the other things I’ve read more recently. But it’s creative fantasy, and the world-building is thick and compelling.

I started The Broken Kingdom–the second book–assuming it would proceed with some of the characters from The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Instead, each book focuses on a deity. This creative approach frees Jemisin in some ways, allowing each book to contain a mixture of human agents and supernatural concerns, all set against a tapestry exploring the changes occurring to a society over several thousand years of different kinds of upheaval, some of human origin and some of divine.

There are at least a few characters in each book that will stick with you, and the portrayal of the interactions between the divine and the human are nicely nuanced, without losing sight of their core incompatibilities. It’s engrossing at times, compelling at others, and continually engaging.

Jemisin has moved into the category of authors where I will give anything she writes a chance, hoping it provides as solid and enjoyable an escape as this.

#WhatIWishICouldDo

There is a tightness of structure to this trilogy that is quite enviable. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms focuses on the creation of a new God; The Broken Kingdom on the punishment of an old; and The Kingdom of Gods on the transition of a deity into something else entirely. Each book manages to feel consistent, yet each mines different territory.

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WWC2019: The Final

Posted on July 6, 2019 by Daniel (@MKNN)

I’ve been oddly reticent about writing up a preview of this one.

I suspect it’s because I will be rooting for the Orange, without thinking they have much of a chance at all against the USA.

Soccer analytics still feels like they are in their infancy–what should be counted, how it should be counted, basic things like that are still being worked out. But there are some useful notions that are emerging that may help in watching the final tomorrow. One of which is paying attention to passes that start outside the 18 yard box and are successfully completed inside of it.

For the Netherlands to have much of a chance, they need to be able to successfully string together passes like that with Vivianne Miedema on the end of them. Miedema is unlikely to beat the American back line for pace, but she is a terror with the ball at her feet, and if she can receive the ball in deep positions, if she can receive it while moving towards goal, then maybe, just maybe, she can slip in a goal or 2.

The problem is it’s not likely to be enough: I have been impressed by the Dutch defense, but they’ve not faced an attack like the American front line. Even if Megan Rapinoe continues to be sidelined, the ability of the Americans to attack in waves remains spectacularly impressive. Tobin Heath driving to the endline, the other forwards flowing in behind them, with Alex Morgan still being incredibly dangerous if she finds space, and a trio of midfielders arriving at the edge of the box in support … it’s a lot, and no matter how good Sari van Veenendaal has looked in a few games here, she’s unlikely to keep them at bay for 90 minutes. Or even 45.

The X-Factor, if there is one, is the Dutch attack on the right. Both Lineth Beerensteyn and Shanice van de Sanden have the ability to get behind any back line in the world. But they also have a tendency to lose the ball with hard first touches, and both Crystal Dunn and Kelley O’Hara have the speed to contain them and the quickness to pounce on the missed touches.

Alright, this is quite a reach, but here’s the true wildcard: it is possible that Dutch head coach Sarina Wiegman comes up with a tactical surprise against the USA. An overloaded midfield, playing 3 at the back, sliding Lieke Martens up to a false 9. Something that would require Jill Ellis to respond. She’s not terribly at responding to tactical surprises, but the team has such depth and talent, it can usually cover for her. And, or course, anything Wiegman does will also expose a weak spot the Americans could take advantage of, regardless of what Ellis does or doesn’t do.

So, yeah. That’s not much.

Now, from the other perspective, it’s just a triumphant confirmation. And it’s true: the USA remains the best team in the world, and the game tomorrow should put an exclamation point on this generation of players.

And I’m happy for them: Alex Morgan was devastating for many, many years; Megan Rapinoe and Tobin Heath are nearly unique players in the American game; and Becky Sauerbrunn may be the most underrated player with 150+ caps.

It is, though, unlikely to be this easy in 4 years time. We should all hope that is the case, by the way: the best thing possible for the game is for the gap between the champions and the rest to narrow.

USA, 3-1.

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