Top 10 books I read in 2012: Evidence of Things Unseen (#7)

Evidence of Things Unseen

MARIANNE WIGGINS
Simon & Schuster, 2003; 400 pages.

This novel was a SHOCK to me. A shock because I had never heard a word about it and frankly didn’t expect it to be very good. I have a bad habit that way, maintaining low expectations for novels that I haven’t heard about. Evidence of Things Unseen is an excellent reminder to myself to not be so pre-judgmental about unknown books. Because this book was amazing.

I wouldn’t have changed a single character, a single line in this entire novel. The writing is exquisitely beautiful and simple and the story is unlike anything that I have read this past year. Marianne Wiggins tells us the story of Fos, recently returned to Tennessee from the trenches of France. Fos is fascinated with X-rays, electricity, and bioluminescence. On a trip to the North Carolina coast to study a meteor shower, he meets and falls in love with Opal. Their romance and the trajectory of their life together form the structure of this gorgeous, poetic novel.

I could tell you all of the details of the story, the small flights of the plot, but such a recounting would cheapen the beauty of this book. At its heart, Evidence of Things Unseen is a love story: love between a man and a woman, between people and scientific “progress,” between parents and their child. I just don’t even know what to say about it, except that it is beautifully and perfectly written and I am grateful for it.

Top 10 books I read in 2012: A Mercy (#10)

A Mercy

TONI MORRISON
Knopf, 2008; 167 pages.

I have read a lot of Toni Morrison, I suppose, and I rank Beloved high among my all-time favorite novels. When I heard about A Mercy, though, I wasn’t planning on reading it. A novel set in the 1680s about slavery? Doesn’t really sound like a good time.

But I was really just experiencing a form of literary amnesia, because, come on. This is Toni Morrison. She knows what is UP.

Against my expectations, I was riveted from the first page and I think I read the whole novel in a night (at a mere 167 pages, this is an easy thing to do. The font size is also huge, at least in the paperback edition I read).

I think this book is fundamental Morrison, if I can say that–Morrison at her most Faulknerian, most bare, most essential. I wonder if I feel this way about the novel because of its historical setting. Here we are at the very beginning of America, in which it is still a nameless, lawless wilderness, where human nature exists at its most raw and unfiltered. In this way, Morrison’s language mimics the newness and rawness of the newborn American landscape and its hardy inhabitants. It is beautiful, spare prose and every line reads like a dream.

Accordingly, these characters are also beautiful and complex, layered in that kind of unfathomable way that Morrison is known for. She renders these early settlers, slave owners and slaves, husbands and wives, orphans and children, with a startling grace and honesty.

The slim novel is told in various short chapters, each one narrated by a different character. All of these people–Jacob, Florens, Lina, Sorrow, Rebekka–have distinctive voices. What I particularly loved is that there is no clear protagonist and no clear villain. Each character has his or her virtues and vices, just like us flesh-and-blood humans; no one stands out as purely good or purely evil. Everyone exists in darkness and light.

In short: A Mercy is brief and perfect, everything Morrison has ever promised us with her prose.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

11. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
12. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
13. Home, Marilynne Robinson
14. Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
15. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
16. The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
17. Faces in the Water, Janet Frame
18. American Primitive, Mary Oliver
19. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney
20. Sophie’s Choice, William Styron
21. The Black Sheep, Honoré de Balzac
22. Jazz, Toni Morrison

Top 10 Books I Read in 2011: Freedom (#4)

Freedom.

#4: FREEDOM, Jonathan Franzen.

Continuing my annual tradition of ranking the best books I read this past year, I am writing a series of posts about these 10 great novels. You can find the 2011 list and previous lists here.

I’m perpetually astonished when people say they don’t like Jonathan Franzen. Or say that he’s overrated. Or that they find his books boring. It floors me every time. Because I am so in love with Jonathan Franzen. I think he is doing for the modern American novel what Tolstoy did for the modern Western novel. Freedom is a good example of why I think that.

This much-anticipated and much-hyped book came out in summer of 2010, but I wasn’t able to get it at the library until early 2011. Everyone was reading it. And for good reason. As the New York Times called it in a judicious review, it’s simply “a masterpiece of American fiction.” That’s a fair assessment. Not many American novels published since Freedom can match its scope, insight, and ambition.

Franzen writes primarily about families and about the terrible, domestic things they can do to each other, often in subtle and unintentional ways. Freedom tells the story of the failing marriage of Walter and Patty Berglund. The arrival of Walter’s long-time best friend, jaded, old rockstar Richard Katz, and the introduction of Walter’s pretty, idealistic assistant, Lalitha, further complicate the Berglund’s already complicated relationship. In their estrangement from one another, Patty seeks therapy and a deeper relationship with Richard Katz, while Walter becomes even more extreme about his environmental activism and edges closer to an affair with Lalitha. But, amid all of this unraveling, Franzen permits us to care deeply about Patty and Walter and hope for some form of reconciliation.

As part of Patty’s therapy, her counselor asks her to write her autobiography. We are privileged to read chapters of Patty’s autobiography in the novel, and I would claim that her parts are some of the best in the entire book. Patty Berglund is an incredible character and she is the main reason why anyone should read Freedom. I don’t think I’ve met a character this past year who was so living and tangible. Her voice is sympathetic, honest, and believable, and in the hands of a gifted, precise Franzen, she becomes the simultaneously compassionate and pitiful protagonist. We are cheering for Patty throughout the novel; we desperately want her to get her happy ending, a slice of the American Dream.

On the whole, I think The Corrections (which was ranked my no. 1 novel I read last year) may be his better work. But this is wholeheartedly worth every second of your time. It was the Great Novel of 2010 and it stands to be reckoned with for many years after that.

Jonathan Franzen has his finger solidly on the pulse of American life and Freedom is proof of his accuracy and attention to our modernized and isolated existences. The grace and mercy he extends his characters is breathtaking. His novels, in a strange and perhaps unintentional way, make us ache for Someone to extend the same kind of grace and mercy over our own isolated lives.

(P.S. The only thing I didn’t like about Freedom was its cover. What is that dumb blue bird doing there? Why is he way out of proportion? What does he want??)

Monday Snax

Small group dinner at our house!

A wonderful weekend of gatherings and dinners! On Friday, my small group + husbands came to our house for a potluck dinner after we returned from the Compline service at the monastery in Crozet. On Saturday, I went for a run with Liz K. and Bo, and then we had lunch and went to Mallory‘s for a holiday-themed domestic afternoon of baking and nail polishing with the set of super-beautiful and funny Trinity ladies. Then that night, Dave and Kirby had a bunch of us over for an incredible lasagna dinner. Sunday, we finished almost all of our Christmas shopping, which was an incredible feeling. When we got home, I started wrapping them all like a fool. I realized that I really love wrapping presents, even though I am objectively terrible at it. I am way too impatient with ribbons and paper. But I love it just the same. Even if my presents turn out looking like a four-year-old boy wrapped them.

I don’t really feel like snaxing today. Ho-hum. Back to work. But here are a few things:

Americans Are 20 Pounds Heavier Than They Were Just 20 Years Ago. Way to go, America. I think you’re winning this one! While we were at the mall yesterday, Guion commented that they would soon have to widen the lanes to accommodate shoppers. It’s only a matter of time, apparently. (The Atlantic)

Pretty Books Redesigned: Virginia Woolf. I approve! I think Woolf and her sister and creative director, Vanessa Bell, would have approved, too. (Black Eiffel)

Uptown. Just looking at this arrangement makes me feel calmer, happier. (An Apple a Day)

Um, yep. That’s all. It’s been a busy week! More important things to do!

Monday Snax

Well, I don’t have any pictures from this weekend because I’m stupid.

Here’s the story. We went down to Winston-Salem for Allan and Abby’s beautiful wedding this weekend. On the way down, we stopped at Subway just outside of Lynchburg for lunch. I proceeded to leave my purse (containing my wallet, keys, cell phone, camera, and a library book) at said Subway — and did not realize I had done so until we were 2.5 hours away. Commence many tears, panicky declarations, frantic calls, et hoc genus omne.

All this to say: I have the good employees of the Rustburg, Virginia, Subway and my brother-in-law to thank. Win, who has a heart of gold, woke up at 7 on Sunday morning and drove 1.5 hours to this hole-in-the-wall spot to retrieve my purse and take it back home for me. He definitely receives the Best Brother-in-Law of the Year Award and I am forever indebted to him. I think I owe him my first child or something like that.

ANYWAY. Aside from me being totally stupid, we had a nice weekend. It was great to see old friends from UNC and get to party with them at this lovely wedding. Whew. I still feel exhausted from the whole weekend right now; we got in last night around midnight. It may take me a while to function like a human again.

A few Snax with a lot of caffeine:

How Much Do Interns Earn? Having worked as an unpaid publications intern before, all I can add is a hearty AMEN to this article. It’s a crime. (Full Stop)

Beauty, Islamic Feminism, and Choice. I really appreciated reading this post, especially after having read Half the Sky, which does not paint a pretty picture of the way women are treated in Islamic countries. The author, a self-described “Muslim feminist,” writes about what it means to have choice and be an empowered, beautiful woman in Islamic culture. (The Beheld)

Lauren Lancaster’s United Arab Emirates. A haunting and fascinating collection of photographs of the UAE from New Yorker photographer Lauren Lancaster. (Photo Booth, the New Yorker)

“Where the Children Sleep:” A Round-the-World Tour of Children’s Bedrooms. I feel like I’ve seen this photo project before, but I don’t really care, because it’s always extremely fascinating. The disparities are numbing. (The Atlantic)

Language Mystery: When Did Americans Stop Sounding This Way? We watched a lot of films on Turner Classic Movies growing up, and I’ve always wanted to know the answer to this question. Why did American actors in the 1930s and 1940s speak in that stilted, quasi-British way? The Atlantic has the answer. (The Atlantic Monthly)

Paintings by Morgan Allender. Dark, lush, floral. I like. (ii ne, kore)

A Heart So White. I’m still six years old at heart: I will always be enchanted by photographs of white horses. (Eye Poetry)

Wales, Circa 1880, in Color. I wonder if Wales still looks this magical today. (How to Be a Retronaut)

Keep It In Your Pants: Smartphone Etiquette at Every Age. A guide on how to not be a total jerk with your iPhone, Crackberry, etc. (Also, is “smartphone” one word now? I hate that.) (Good)

Monday Snax

This weekend has been a whirlwind, as we are house/dog-sitting for friends, and because we bought this:

Our new car

So. Yes. It is a lot of fun. Driving to work this morning was actually very exciting. Lots happening! Guion also got the part-time job he wanted at the Wine Guild, so we are thrilled about that. I’m still feeling a bit blurry and hazy from the weekend, so here are some Snax with a lot of caffeine:

A Night with Nettles. Grace took some photos of Nettles‘ recent concert at the Tea Bazaar. A very good show. (Grace’s other photos from the family trip to town can be seen here. For all the Baby Charlie fans out there, there are some amazing shots of him.) If you’re in town, come see Nettles on Friday night at JohnSarahJohn. They’ll be performing for an art opening by Matt Kleberg. (Como Say What?)

Yet More Charts That Should Go with Debt Discussions. Yes, the economy is tanking again, but we should cut down on the griping. See exhibit 1: Americans pay some of the lowest taxes of any developed country. (The Atlantic Monthly)

God’s Blog. God wrote a blog post and is subsequently subjected to all of the crazies on the Interwebs. Not even God can catch a break from those virulent commenters… (The New Yorker)

Wellness Wednesday: Yoga and Why It’s OK to Suck at It. Nina, who is so sweet, makes me feel better about being terrible at yoga. I should start practicing again. (Naturally Nina)

Mariachi Band Serenades a Beluga Whale. This is all over the Cool Lady blogosphere, but I will join them in adding my delight over this clip. It will make you happy. I promise. (Door Sixteen)

Felix’s Felicis. Natalie got a bunny, named him Felix, and broke my heart. I want a bunny! Not as much as I want a dog, but almost! I think Felix and Frances should meet and fall desperately in love. (Peregrinations of NJM)

The Last Thylacine. This is one of the strangest-looking animals I’ve ever seen. It’s a marsupial, but it looks so much like a proto-canid. Those stripes! Sad that it’s extinct. (How to Be a Retronaut)

How to Achieve Uncluttered Without Going Bare, Cold, or Minimal. Such clear and salient advice for people like me, who will be living in small spaces for a while longer. Highly recommended for renters like us who don’t want to live in a place that still looks like your college dorm. (The Small Notebook)

The Filming of Breathless. Guion is a huge Godard fan and this is one of the first of his films that I saw. It’s magnificent and these behind-the-scenes photos are really enchanting. (A Cup of Jo)

Document: Woolf’s Letter to a Young Poet. Virginia Woolf writes a brief review and encouragement to her nephew on his poetry. (The Paris Review)

In Which Vladimir Nabokov Navigates Hell for Lolita. Yes, the protagonist is very icky, but I think it’s one of the greatest novels of all time. Even Nabokov had a hard time convincing people of this, though, as you can see from his letters about the book, compiled here. (This Recording)

To Go-To Snacks of Literary Greats. A series of cute illustrations of what the big writers liked to eat while writing. I don’t think Michael Pollan can be called “a literary great,” but it is interesting that he likes to drink his tea in a glass. I remember seeing that on Food, Inc. and wondering about it. (Mod Cloth blog)

Good News for Wombs: U.S. Paves Way for Free Birth Control Everywhere. All I can say is: It’s about damn time. Look at you, America. Finally catching up with the rest of the developed world! (Good)

My list of bad words

Words and phrases that make me feel sick, that make my eyes roll up into my head with contempt:

• Alright
• Authored
• Effortlessly chic
• Fab
• Foodie
• Go green
• Home decor
• Hubby
• I don’t do [noun]…
• Impacted
• Impactful
• Masterful
• Penned
• Pregnancy brain
• Queried
• Read [as a noun, "it's a great read"]
• Slut
• Tablescape
• Vintage [noun, junk you're trying to sell]

I think “impactful” is the absolute worst. I want to choke people who use that word. I can barely type it without wanting to scream.

How about you? Any commonly used phrases that get your blood boiling? Oh, and happy Independence Day weekend! Use your freedom as an American to respect the English language.