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Dec. 27th, 2022 11:30 am
Some Books I Liked This Year
The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow. When I was in college I had friends who would listen to an album called “Everything You Know Is Wrong,” by the Firesign Theater. I thought of this phrase a lot while I read this book, which has new and startling ideas on nearly every page. Most anthropologists think that humanity started as migrating hunter-gatherers and then learned basic agriculture and settled in towns, and that the towns brought problems we’re still familiar with: war, armies, taxes, rulers, and oppression. The authors show that prehistory was far more diverse than that, that communities could be a mix of hunter-gatherers and farmers, and that towns didn’t necessarily mean hierarchies. Historians have started giving credit to the Haudenosaunee confederation for contributions to the U.S. Constitution, but Graeber and Wengrow go way beyond that, saying that it was Native Americans who inspired the Enlightenment, that books about these new civilizations (new to the Old World, anyway) flooded Europe in the 1600s and caused Rousseau and others to think in different ways about liberty and the organization of societies. One group of indigenous people, the Creek, even got together in what looked like coffee houses, with tobacco and a stimulating beverage called the “black drink.” The colder temperatures in Europe in the 1500s might have been a result of genocide in the New World: the deaths of around 90% of the people meant that forests took over cultivated areas, which meant more carbon uptake. The ideas here about hierarchy and mutual aid, about all the different ways societies have been organized over thousands of years, give hope in a pretty despairing time.
Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver. People keep opining on the Great American Novel, which in their judgment usually turns out to be a book about some guy going off to war or murdering some animal. It’s a stupid idea anyway, because the country is so vast and so diverse that no one book can really sum it up, but I always thought that if anyone asked me my opinion I’d say Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible. It’s about a missionary family living in Africa and barely takes place in the U.S. at all, but the perspective gained by their move shows the country they left in a new light. (My other choice would be Toni Morrison’s Beloved, but that’s a whole other argument.)
Anyway, you could make a good case for Demon Copperhead as well. The title hints at a connection with Dickens’s David Copperfield, but you don’t need to have read that book to enjoy this one. A young boy in southern Appalachia goes through many of the scourges of the twenty-first century: growing up with a single mother, experiencing poverty and hunger and insecurity, let down by the adults who are supposed to help him. He gains some fame as a football hero in high school but then becomes injured, just in time for the opioid epidemic.
I know this sounds a bit cliched, maybe even like a Young Adult Problem novel. All I can say is that it isn’t. The characters are well rounded, sometimes extraordinary, their twists and turns surprising. The writing, as in all of Kingsolver’s novels, is perfect, and she seems to know everything about her world, from the various ways to score and use opioids to how to harvest tobacco.
It’s obvious she loves this part of the country, despite all its flaws. She argues against the stereotype of Southerners as backwards and ignorant rednecks, showing us a varied and complex region and some enlightened characters. (Also, there’s a great explanation of the term “redneck.”) And it is true that a lot of Northerners look down on the South: a friend of mine from North Carolina told me that when she went to college people laughed at her accent, and she had to get some tapes and do speech exercises to sound like everyone else. On the other hand, why does the South keep electing idiots? Some of the reason for that is racism, but Kingsolver downplays its existence. (And I have to say quickly: Not all Southerners are racists. Not all racists are Southerners. I hope that covers everybody.)
Speaking of Harpo, Susan Fleming Marx. I wrote about this here. It was terrific to read another book about Harpo Marx after all this time, especially one from his wife of thirty years, someone who probably knew him better than anyone. She gives a slightly different perspective than Harpo himself did in Harpo Speaks; she tells some new and delightful stories; and she shows us a loving marriage that lasted until Harpo’s death in 1964.
Nona the Ninth, Tamsin Muir. I wrote about this here. We find out a bit more about John Gaius, the Emperor or God who learned necromancy and gained the ability to kill and resurrect whole planets. The story isn’t about him, though, and it isn’t even about Gideon from the first book or Harrow from the second one. Instead it features whole new characters, Palamedes and Camilla Hect, the necromancer and cavalier of the Sixth House; Pyrrha Dve, the Emperor’s lover; and Nona, who seems to have been created about six months ago. But who is Nona? And is she really a new character?
Nona the Ninth solves some mysteries, but it also raises new ones. The more I read these books the more intricate they turn out to be, each one opening out into a wider and more complex world than the last. They repay careful reading.
Also, I’m just glad that someone who started an intriguing series is continuing it, and in a timely fashion. Believe me, it’s appreciated.
Fevered Star, Rebecca Roanhorse. Another compelling series, and another author who doesn’t let her readers wait too long between books. In Fevered Star we learn more about the main characters from Black Sun: Serapio, a man who changed the world, and himself, on the winter solstice, Xiala, the ship’s captain who transported him to the holy city of Tova and is now searching for him, and Narampa, a sun priestess who lost a game of power and is trying to survive. And we learn more about Roanhorse’s captivating world, which is based on myths from Mesoamerica.
The Road to Unfreedom, Timothy Snyder. I wrote about this here. The Road to Unfreedom was written before Russia invaded Ukraine, but it’s prescient in explaining how that war came to be. Putin thinks that the Soviet Union lost the respect of the world after the fall of Communism and wants a return to the status of world power, with the old borders and old prestige restored to what they were. But in his vision Russia is an autocracy, and to this end he keeps his people locked in an eternal present, with no history to learn from and no future to look forward to, flooded with a combination of truth and lies until the two blur together and the difference between them becomes irrelevant. Even more frightening, Snyder shows how easily the U.S. can follow the same path.
The Past Is Red, Catherynne Valente. The world has been nearly destroyed by untethered consumerism, leaving only rising seas and garbage. But humans still survive, and some of them, like the main character Tetley, even thrive. This is despite the fact that she did something (no spoilers) that caused everyone in her home town of Candle Hole to hate her.
The garbage has been sorted into piles, so as Tetley goes questing through her world she comes to places like Pill Hill, Teagate, and Electric City. It gives the landscape a surreal aspect, and this, along with Tetley’s unflagging good cheer, turns what could be just another climate change novel into something bright and strange and wonderful. But Valente never lets us forget the mistakes of previous generations, here called Fuckwits, and how they (we) literally trashed the planet.
Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver. People keep opining on the Great American Novel, which in their judgment usually turns out to be a book about some guy going off to war or murdering some animal. It’s a stupid idea anyway, because the country is so vast and so diverse that no one book can really sum it up, but I always thought that if anyone asked me my opinion I’d say Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible. It’s about a missionary family living in Africa and barely takes place in the U.S. at all, but the perspective gained by their move shows the country they left in a new light. (My other choice would be Toni Morrison’s Beloved, but that’s a whole other argument.)
Anyway, you could make a good case for Demon Copperhead as well. The title hints at a connection with Dickens’s David Copperfield, but you don’t need to have read that book to enjoy this one. A young boy in southern Appalachia goes through many of the scourges of the twenty-first century: growing up with a single mother, experiencing poverty and hunger and insecurity, let down by the adults who are supposed to help him. He gains some fame as a football hero in high school but then becomes injured, just in time for the opioid epidemic.
I know this sounds a bit cliched, maybe even like a Young Adult Problem novel. All I can say is that it isn’t. The characters are well rounded, sometimes extraordinary, their twists and turns surprising. The writing, as in all of Kingsolver’s novels, is perfect, and she seems to know everything about her world, from the various ways to score and use opioids to how to harvest tobacco.
It’s obvious she loves this part of the country, despite all its flaws. She argues against the stereotype of Southerners as backwards and ignorant rednecks, showing us a varied and complex region and some enlightened characters. (Also, there’s a great explanation of the term “redneck.”) And it is true that a lot of Northerners look down on the South: a friend of mine from North Carolina told me that when she went to college people laughed at her accent, and she had to get some tapes and do speech exercises to sound like everyone else. On the other hand, why does the South keep electing idiots? Some of the reason for that is racism, but Kingsolver downplays its existence. (And I have to say quickly: Not all Southerners are racists. Not all racists are Southerners. I hope that covers everybody.)
Speaking of Harpo, Susan Fleming Marx. I wrote about this here. It was terrific to read another book about Harpo Marx after all this time, especially one from his wife of thirty years, someone who probably knew him better than anyone. She gives a slightly different perspective than Harpo himself did in Harpo Speaks; she tells some new and delightful stories; and she shows us a loving marriage that lasted until Harpo’s death in 1964.
Nona the Ninth, Tamsin Muir. I wrote about this here. We find out a bit more about John Gaius, the Emperor or God who learned necromancy and gained the ability to kill and resurrect whole planets. The story isn’t about him, though, and it isn’t even about Gideon from the first book or Harrow from the second one. Instead it features whole new characters, Palamedes and Camilla Hect, the necromancer and cavalier of the Sixth House; Pyrrha Dve, the Emperor’s lover; and Nona, who seems to have been created about six months ago. But who is Nona? And is she really a new character?
Nona the Ninth solves some mysteries, but it also raises new ones. The more I read these books the more intricate they turn out to be, each one opening out into a wider and more complex world than the last. They repay careful reading.
Also, I’m just glad that someone who started an intriguing series is continuing it, and in a timely fashion. Believe me, it’s appreciated.
Fevered Star, Rebecca Roanhorse. Another compelling series, and another author who doesn’t let her readers wait too long between books. In Fevered Star we learn more about the main characters from Black Sun: Serapio, a man who changed the world, and himself, on the winter solstice, Xiala, the ship’s captain who transported him to the holy city of Tova and is now searching for him, and Narampa, a sun priestess who lost a game of power and is trying to survive. And we learn more about Roanhorse’s captivating world, which is based on myths from Mesoamerica.
The Road to Unfreedom, Timothy Snyder. I wrote about this here. The Road to Unfreedom was written before Russia invaded Ukraine, but it’s prescient in explaining how that war came to be. Putin thinks that the Soviet Union lost the respect of the world after the fall of Communism and wants a return to the status of world power, with the old borders and old prestige restored to what they were. But in his vision Russia is an autocracy, and to this end he keeps his people locked in an eternal present, with no history to learn from and no future to look forward to, flooded with a combination of truth and lies until the two blur together and the difference between them becomes irrelevant. Even more frightening, Snyder shows how easily the U.S. can follow the same path.
The Past Is Red, Catherynne Valente. The world has been nearly destroyed by untethered consumerism, leaving only rising seas and garbage. But humans still survive, and some of them, like the main character Tetley, even thrive. This is despite the fact that she did something (no spoilers) that caused everyone in her home town of Candle Hole to hate her.
The garbage has been sorted into piles, so as Tetley goes questing through her world she comes to places like Pill Hill, Teagate, and Electric City. It gives the landscape a surreal aspect, and this, along with Tetley’s unflagging good cheer, turns what could be just another climate change novel into something bright and strange and wonderful. But Valente never lets us forget the mistakes of previous generations, here called Fuckwits, and how they (we) literally trashed the planet.
