Books We Read: 11 Readers on Reading in 2016 —Kemi Falodun

Kemi Falodun

Books serve as a bridge between ourselves and other people. With them, we do not only have the option of living our own life, but we can also observe, empathise, and be a part of other people’s lives.

My main focus this year was on contemporary Western authors—fiction and nonfiction mostly. Although, I read some books by writers in other parts of the world. In making this list, the major criterion was how much I was able to connect with the story and characters. Stories spring from the hope of communicating with others. And these books gave me that.

Notable Reads

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

After reading a few pages, I knew it was going to be a remarkable book. The powerful voice of the protagonist, Lucy Barton, as she tries to make sense of her life and experiences, draws me to her in a way that I cannot resist. Not only is it a story of intimacy—or lack of it—between a woman and her daughter, it is about longing, and acceptance. As Lucy and her mother bond over stories of people they knew in their past, Strout reveals to us how important familial relationships are in influencing children’s view of the world. Her vivid writing of childhood emotional and psychological deprivation, and her elegant portrayal of loneliness, make her stand out as a true storyteller.

“Loneliness was the first flavour I had tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden in the crevices of my mouth, reminding me.”

Some passages read like compilation of notes. A couple of short paragraphs that may appear independent on the first read but are sure to further the story. Everything is intertwined. Being on the longlist for the 2016 Man Booker Prize is no surprise. The story is compelling, and sad and beautiful. I like how she takes her characters through seemingly unimportant activities and conversations but with strong meanings and lasting impact on their lives. A book I read this year with similar themes is Rachel Cusk’s Outline. Not only are the narrators writers with reflective voices, the mood and rhythm of both books are even all through. Strout and Cusk share in their ability to capture the mundane and the complexities of relationships.

Strout’s depiction of the unreliability of memory is also worthy of note. The novel is narrated in hindsight and the protagonist has vague remembrance of some events, just as it is with humans.

“I still am not sure it is a true memory, except I do know it, I think. I mean: It is true. Ask anyone who knew us”

There are few books I have been able to connect with on this level. Reading it was a rollercoaster of emotions, and this explains why it is the only book I read more than once this year, and I know I will read several times.

Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier

This novel is unlike anything I’ve ever read. A Swiss Classics instructor, Raimund Gregorious, gives in to an impulse to abandon his life in search for the unknown. The story recounts his journeys as he delves into the life of a dead Portuguese poet and medical doctor, Amadeu de Prado. He is the hero we encounter through the stories and perspectives of other characters. Through Prado’s notes and conversations with people that knew him when he was alive, Gregorious discovers him to be a deeply intelligent man who was burdened with cares. His relationships, despair, and inner conflict on subjects of love, politics, religion, philosophy, are explored throughout the book.

“Human beings can’t bear silence; it would mean that they would bear themselves”

It is a thought-provoking, philosophical novel that I’ll describe as ‘meaty.’ You can literally highlight almost every sentence, but at some point, the essence of it seems forced because of Prado’s overly melancholic outlook on life. It was a slow read, but that was okay. There are lots of passages worth rereading and even memorizing. If you’re looking for an interesting, fast-paced book, this is a poor choice. I know this book will not leave you the same way you were when you started reading it.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

It is a series of letters written in form of essays to his son, telling him what it is like to be Black in America. He emphasizes that violence and infliction of pain on the Black body has become American legacy. He does this by writing personal experiences and stories of real life incidents to buttress the narrative of racial discrimination.

A book with the same theme that is called to mind is The Fire This Time, a radical collection of essays and poems that also capture racism in America. Written in homage to James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, it chronicles daily injustices and tragedies Blacks are subjected to. The contributing writers expressed their anger, frustration, the horror being played out in the country, fear for their lives, and the right steps to take in preparing their kids for the world of discrimination ahead. To teach them what to do, how to behave, and how to respond. Although Coates’ book does not reflect my own experiences as I live in a country where my rights have never been trampled upon because of my skin colour, reading this book was a privilege as it shows how other humans deal with fear daily and how race is an omnipresent cause for worry in America. As the fight against racism is a journey that may never end, Coates did not write this book to provide a resolve to violence against Blacks, they are words of a caring father to his son about what has been, what is being, what may always be, and how he should navigate through. As for the Whites that don’t live in the reality portrayed by Coates, reading the book will probably lead to some form of emotional discomfort, enlightenment and empathy on their part.

Between the World and Me was a great read. Coates’ voice has become an unequivocal protest against injustice in America.

The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath edited by Ted Hughes

Reading Plath was quite difficult in the beginning, but there was something about her soul that I found myself clinging on to. Her words feel like a voyage of discovery and insight. To call her poems just “confessional” would be to underestimate her works. Plath loves to push to the extreme--humour, irony, pain. Her fluidity of language, use of metaphors and intensity are three very notable elements in her works.

She often employs descriptive words and metaphors to create the world she wants to take her readers. The imageries are astounding. Her sarcasm, humour, wit, gut, can be seen all through the pages. Some lines of her poems now reside in my head:

   “Always in the middle of a kiss

   Came the profane stimulus to cough

   Always from the pulpit during service

   Leaned the devil prompting you to laugh”

I observed some transitions in her works:

•        There were some villanelles in earlier poems but I did not see any in her later works

•        Her allusion to natural elements like the universe, sun, moon, was more apparent in her earlier works compared to the poems she wrote between 1956 and 1963.

•        Her later works mirrored more candour and intensity

•        Use of rhymes in her later works compared to earlier ones was also evident

She has become one of my favourite poets. On some days, I run to her words. Her poems amplify our sameness and differences. This collection of 274 poems communicate her pain, loss, joys. The part I enjoyed reading most is the section, “Juvenilia.”

Also, she has an indirect and direct way of alluding to things, incidents, encounters and experiences. In Stillborn, she metaphorically describes her dissatisfaction with her poems:

   “These poems do not live: it is a sad diagnosis.

   They grew their toes and fingers well enough,

   Their little foreheads bulged with concentration.

   If they missed out on walking about like people

   It wasn’t for any lack of mother-love.”

I find it unsettling that many people view her poems through the lens of her mental illness and suicide. She writes with both cheerfulness and gloom about a range of topics: love, marriage, literature, depression, suicide, nature, feminism. Her words are raw. It is as though she speaks from a place of isolation, like a voice calling out in the wilderness. I also observed the use of two particular words in several poems: “great” and “clock.” Plath was one of a kind and this is a collection I know I will keep returning to.

What Was She Thinking?: Notes on Scandal by Zoe Heller

It is about a school teacher who has an affair with an underage male student, and everything that transpired before and during the affair. The big scandal is revealed a few pages into the book; no suspense. It is the telling of the story from the perspective of the teacher’s friend, Barbara, that makes it a fascinating read. Her desperation for connection pushes her to take several rash actions. In writing about her friend’s illicit relationship, she ends up revealing more about her crushing loneliness and hypocritical personality, giving the readers a better understanding of her inner motives. This book is funny and engaging. The rhythm is sometimes accelerated and other times slowed. With well-strung sentences, fluid transitioning, wicked wit, and humour, Heller makes it a page-turner.

“Lonely people are terrible snobs about one another, I’ve found. They’re afraid that consorting with their own kind will compound their freakishness. The time that Jennifer and I went to Paris together, we saw an airline employee at Heathrow ask two very fat people in the check-in line where they were both off to. The fat people were not a couple as it happened, and the suggestion that they were panicked them. Leaping apart, they both shouted in unison, “We’re not together!”

Heller writes with such cleverness that makes her characters compete for the “most annoying” title; you find yourself wondering who to root for. There’s also a level of emotional involvement and introspection the book gives you.

“There are people in whom you can detect the seeds of madness – seeds that have remained dormant only because the people in question have lived relatively comfortable, middleclass lives… but you can imagine, given a nasty parent, or a prolonged bout of unemployment, how their potential for craziness might have been realised”

I haven’t seen the movie adaptation, but with actresses like Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, one cannot expect anything short of an excellent performance.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li

In this collection of ten short stories, Li portrays the strange, dark, and unusual aspects of her characters, mostly Chinese. Li’s confidence and wisdom reflect in her writing. It is as though she has fully-formed worlds for her characters and she is not afraid to invite her readers. For someone whose native language isn’t English, she deserves credit for writing such elegant prose. Jhumpa Lahiri, an Indian American writer who also writes beautifully in English language, is readily called to mind.

This Chinese American writer fuses culture, myths, history and personal experiences in such a way that makes her stories delectable. In the title story, she reveals the importance of language in relating and communicating with other people. Here, in a dialogue between Mr Shi, the disillusioned protagonist, and her daughter:

“Baba, if you grew up in a language that you never used to express your feelings, it would be easier to take up another language and talk more in the new language. It makes you a new person.”

Li has an old soul. In this ambitious book, she probes into the depth of the human condition. Most of her characters have secrets, or a part of themselves they are not comfortable with. In all, she has an impressive ability to write about people trying to find their way, and the ones that are totally lost and in denial of it. With other contributions in literature, Li has proven herself to be one of the finest writers of her time.

The Best American Essays (2014) edited by John Jeremiah Sullivan

For someone who just got introduced to nonfiction, reading this anthology felt like being presented a goldmine. I came across some wonderful writers here and went ahead to read some of their other published works. This collection of 21 essays was compiled by John Jeremiah Sullivan and Robert Atwan. Reading it ushered me into a new world of essay writing and made me attempt writing them––something I thought I did terribly at the beginning of this year. The contributors like Wendy Brenner, James Wood, Zadie Smith, Timothy Aubry, amongst others, wrote on several topics. There’s so much to say about it, but all I can write is that I’m grateful for this collection.

Here Is Where We Meet by John Berger

Having read Ways of Seeing, a book on art criticism in which he was one of the contributors, of course I realised he is not one of those writers you read once and forget about them. Berger writes with clarity. A few months ago, I read an interview in which Teju Cole, a writer I adore very much, was asked for the book that has had the most influence on his work. Here Is Where We Meet, he said. And I knew I was going to read it. In this book, Berger writes about memory, grief, death with such sublimity. It is about the people the narrator has met at different times in his life. It begins with a meeting with his mother who has been long dead. These meetings and conversations take him to different places. One needs to read closely to follow the transition of scenes. The pages are sprinkled with poetic lines.

“Women always wonder about other lives, most men are too ambitious to understand this. Other lives, other lives which you have lived before, or which you could have lived. And your books, I hoped, were about another life which I only wanted to imagine, not live, imagine by myself on my own, without any words. So it was better I didn’t read them.”

Reading him felt like communing with an extraterrestrial being.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

In this book, Duhigg uses research to explain how habits are formed and how they can be broken or changed. He used Rosa Parks’ story, for example, to explain the importance of social ties. She was quite influential in her community, hence the massive support and outcry after her arrest. I found most of the stories fascinating. From a variety of case studies, he shows how routines are developed. If you are familiar with Malcolm Gladwell’s works, then you will have an idea of what Duhigg did in this book. I applied some of his practical strategies and found them quite helpful. Although there are instances he started a story and jumped off to another one, and later came back to the first one. It appeared stylistic at some point, and totally unnecessary in some places. But in all, it was a fantastic read.

Zinky Boys by Svetlana Alexievich

Zinky boys is the name given to people who died in war and shipped down in zinc coffins. This book is a product of personal interviews the writer conducted with the surviving Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan war and the relatives of the dead. In 2015, Alexievich won the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.” Told in several voices, the book chronicles the lives of war victims. Some were told they would be taken to other destinations, only to find themselves in Afghanistan when the plane landed. Some civilians, of their own volition, joined with the intention of serving and providing succour to the soldiers, but their well-meaning intention soon became a nightmare as some ended up badly injured, sexually assaulted, or dead.

“Mum, buy me a puppy and call it Sergeant so I can kill it when I get home”

The pages bleed truth, revealing the upsetting realities of war. Writing this review brings back the memories of the anguish I felt while reading it.

“We don’t need anything. Just listen to us and try to understand. Society is good at doing things, ‘giving’ medical help, pensions, flats. But all this so-called giving has been paid for in very expensive currency. Our blood.”

Antifragile: The Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

It is a sort of follow-up to his 2007 book, The Black Swan. He tells us antifragile––which isn’t a word that exists in the English dictionary––should not be confused with resilience. To be resilient is to return to the former shape after external pressure, but to be antifragile is to become even better, having benefitted from chaos, stress, and errors. For example, the mythological Hydra—a serpent-like creature with numerous heads—grew two heads each time one was cut off. He argues that the social policies, political systems and even our private activities should not be overprotected from randomness.

"Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility…"

The book started off pretty well, but soon became repetitious. Finishing it was an obligation for me, but I did not waste my time reading it. He illustrates several instances of antifragility, but did not suggest steps to take to become antifragile. Although his ideas are scattered all over the book, with close attention, a reader will be able to pick the important points. With a mixture of confidence and boastfulness, Taleb proffers his theory on how to live in an uncertain society.

Looking Forward to Read in 2017

Dear Friend, From My Life, I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li

My first encounter with Yiyun Li was in the anthology, The Best American Essays (2014). Reading her essay, “Dear Friend, From My Life, I Write to You in Your Life”, was cathartic for me. In it, she attempts to assay time and memories. Her words reflect honesty and vulnerability. It is my favourite essay and the most read in the collection. Li is a brilliant writer and I just can’t wait to read her memoir.

Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo

Adebayo is someone I admire up close, and at a distance. Everyone I know who has ever read her is awaiting her debut. First story of hers I read was “A Kind of Happiness,” published in Ilanot Review. She writes about struggles, especially between couples, with such beauty and grace. Several magazines have listed Stay with Me, as one of the most anticipated books in 2017. Adebayo has the ability to make her readers see themselves in her characters. And I have no doubt that she has come to stay.

Kemi Falodun loves words and fine sentences. She writes short stories, essays, and occasionally, book reviews.

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This is the fifth of eleven pieces on Readers on Reading in 2016.