READ ALL ABOUT IT
Since 2012, I’ve been writing about books. And the act of reading. And the importance of story and narrative. But, mostly, the underlying theme of all I write is how taking a moment to stop and digest some longform text — instead of scrolling, instead of watching a video, instead of multitasking — can be one of the most grounding things we can do for ourselves. Here’s the one-stop online home for all this writing.
You can read more about me and my work by moseying over here. Want to peruse periodic “essay drops” — excerpts from my work-in-progress essay collection about Homesickness? Here ya go.
I Have Some Questions for You
The second season of The White Lotus created so much buzz late last year, yet nothing I read seemed to point to how the entire show was underpinned by themes of “gaslighting” — how others convince us something is true and maybe more importantly, how we convince ourselves that something is true. (Maybe this analysis is out there and I missed it?) Characters continually wonder: Is my partner having an affair? Is this person attracted to me? And — zinger — is this cabal of “high-class gays” (to borrow Tanya’s phrasing) trying to kill me? Or…does the “evidence” just overwhelmingly tell me so, ergo it’s true? I thought this last season was brilliant.
This is Happiness
“It seems to me the quality that makes any book, music, painting worthwhile is life, just that…”
My Name is Leon
Since college (or earlier?), I’ve pondered the theory that there are a finite number of story structures (ie “overcoming the monster,” “tragedy,” etc.)
The Idiot
How in the world had I never read this book before now?!?!
Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain by Vesna Goldsworthy is like holding up a funhouse mirror to different cultures — in this case, an unnamed Soviet Bloc country and England. (But like the novel Beyond Babylon by Igiaba Scego, Goldsworthy in Iron Curtain occasionally inserts little factoids and artifacts from other countries, underpinning the fact that even down to the most basic of things — let’s throw out food shopping as an example — everywhere has its own “way.”) Everything looks worse — or a little crazy — when viewed from a different vantage point.
Remote Control
I’ve been thinking about “active” reading, not just a let-the-story-wash-over-me thing. It’s on my mind because, lucky me, I got some (v minor) insights into student life recently.
The Past
“She’d picked up this book about a doll’s house from the shelf in her room quite casually and fondly, remembering how she had liked it in her childhood, not at all expecting to be ambushed with overwhelming emotion. Every so often she looked up from the page and stared around her as if she hardly knew where she was — but she was at Kington, which was the beloved scene of her past anyway. So her glance through the panes of the old glass in the arched window, to the yellowing rough grass in the garden and the alders which grew along the stream, didn’t restore any equilibrium. It wasn’t only the recollection attached to the words she was reading — a memory of other readings — which moved her. The story itself, in its own words, tapped into deep reservoirs of feeling. The writer’s touch was very sure and true, unsentimental — one of the doll’s-house dolls died, burned up in a fire. The book seemed to open up for Alice a wholesome and simplifying way of seeing things which she had long ago lost or forgotten, and hadn’t hoped to find again.”
A Small Place
My brother recently sent me an article that Noam Chomsky contributed to regarding ChatGPT. Chomsky is technically a professor of linguistics, but really, he’s a “public intellectual” or “social critic.” It landed in my inbox around the same time I was organizing my old grad school materials. I re-discovered the book Is There a Text in this Class? by Stanley Fish, who was influential in the rise of reader-response criticism. (Something interesting that I’ll explore another day!) Anyway, all this sudden immersion in the idea of “criticism” is very appropriate given that I’d been reading A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid for #ReadingJamaicaKincaid w @ifthisisparadise
I Finally Read American Dirt
From Newsletter Issue No. 13:
Remember when a little novel called American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins was published in 2020? It was a much-anticipated work of fiction that was meant to shed light on and give voice to people who found themselves in the crosshairs of the migration crisis happening at the border between the United States and Mexico. Oprah selected it for her book club. Stephen King provided a blurb and called American Dirt “Extraordinary.” Sandra Cisneros (family roots in Mexico) and Julia Alvarez (family roots in the Dominican Republic) both praised the book.
Annie John
When you’re a child, “school” and “family” are the countries you travel between, each offering up a seemingly impenetrable border. I attended four different schools for K-12 (if you count a trimester I spent at a “sister school” across the country), and because none of them were a part of a natural progression (i.e. the elementary that feeds into the middle, etc.), each transfer felt like an initiation into a new nation where the students — even if residents of the same region — were different. Adults don’t necessarily notice these nuances, but kids sure do. School is their LIFE. I’ll always laugh at the line “She doesn’t even go here!” from Mean Girls because it totally encapsulates the “in” or “out” situation of being a part of an institution. (And also because if you ever met someone in a different context, you automatically knew what they meant when they asked, “Where do you go?” No need to finish that prepositional phrase.)
Growing Up Rich
“But isn’t all art derivative?” = a short topic of discussion this weekend with a friend.
The Marriage Portrait
I was an English major in college, but I have not read a text with the same intense scrutiny as I did then since…then. (That would be 1998 for purposes of tabulation and judgement.) Well, maybe I did back in 2019 when I (haphazardly?) decided to read one Shakespeare play per month. I mean, I do think I read carefully and with a critical eye and all that jazz, but it’s still different. Who has time to consider and then write 10-page papers about the meanings and various uses of “the”? (Just to exaggerate a tiny bit…)
My Phantoms
I like reading about visual artists and their work and how capturing those elusive things like “light” and “shade” might be what makes a work…work. And how the work of a truly skilled person differs so greatly from the caricature-ish work of, well, me — or a child who reaches for a crayon to draw a house with a pitched roof, four windows, and curlicued smoke coming out of the chimney. What the non-artists among us put to paper might be how we see and interpret an object, but when set against the actual setting, the disconnect is clear.
Now is Not the Time to Panic
My friend Ashley sent me this article about a woman who, oopsies, knocked over a Jeff Koons sculpture that then shattered into “at least 100 pieces.” This story conjures a lot of responses, which I will first summarize via emoji: 😱😂🧐 They are: 1) second-hand shame and embarrassment (because who else has “what if this happened” thoughts in museums and galleries?); 2) genuine laughs at its ridiculousness, esp since it’s love-him-or-hate-him Jeff Koons; 3) (this is the best one) intrigue about how “the meaning of art” perpetuates itself in unexpected ways. (See to see an excerpt of the part of the story wherein people wondered if this was Banksy-esque performance art and someone wanted to purchase the shattered pieces.)
Lessons in Chemistry and Easy Beauty
Everyone loves Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. What’s not to like? It’s entertaining, it’s charming with brisk storytelling, it addresses important topics. It’s pretty heavy-handed in that regard, but I wonder if that’s partly Garmus’ point since the characters’ one-dimensionality must be intentional. (I really do believe this has to be a stylistic choice on the author’s part.) I decided to read it sort of like a fable. Like how I think La La Land is a fable. (I am a huge La La Land fan! I wrote about it together with Milkman by Anna Burns back in 2019.)
Let’s BeReal
From Newsletter Issue No. 12:
Sometime this autumn, I became a BeReal-er. (I just made up that term. We have TikTokers, so what shall we call people who use the app BeReal?) If you’re not familiar, BeReal sends a notification at a different (i.e. unexpected) time each day to all users with the cue, “It’s time to BeReal!” Users then take a photo of whatever they’re doing, wherever they are at the moment — simultaneously, the app takes a quick snapshot of your face. Here's a rundown of the app from the New York Times Magazine back in August.
Surrender
“A story line is everything.” – Bono, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.
The School for Good Mothers
This book made me so tense, which doesn’t happen often. (While reading a book, I mean…)
Unaccompanied
Last month I was trying to read a memoir called Solito by Javier Zamora. It’s about the author’s solo journey as a child from El Salvador to the United States, where both of his parents were living.
Happy All the Time
Like a classic New Yorker cartoon. Or an older Woody Allen film, à la Hannah and Her Sisters or Annie Hall. Throw a Wendy Wasserstein play in there too. If that's your thing!
