What Are We Reading?

August 2006

Check out the July-August issue of Utne Reader for a couple of impressively cogent (and timely) articles on trauma and its effects on body and mind. The first piece by Joseph Hart quotes retired neurologist Robert Scaer, who has written books about the connection between trauma and chronic illness. "We're a frozen culture," he says, referring to our times post 9/11. "The country is traumatized and dissociated." He points out that most of us are trained to keep our fears, anxieties and sadnesses bottled up: "We don't throw ourselves on the coffin of our loved one or tear our clothes or wail, or really do anything to discharge our losses. So they stay in our unconscious and our bodies." The hope here is that the treatment of trauma or, if you will, the discharge of old hurt, could be the key to unfreezing our minds and bodies and lead to genuine cultural transformation.

Here are some other recent reads I thought worth passing on:

Broken for You (Grove Press) by Stephanie Kallos-Terrific characters and satisfying narrative drive. A contemporary novel you can really dig into. Those irritated by magical realism should probably avoid it.

Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence (North Point Press) by Geoff Dyer-I love this book and just finished a second rereading. Lawrence is the jumping-off point for a wonderful, labyrinthine and extremely peculiar essay/memoir on life and art, as well as on being a writer and a passionate reader. Check out the rave that begins on p. 100, imbedded in which are these sentences: "That is the hallmark of academic criticism: it kills everything it touches. Walk around a university campus and there is an almost palpable smell of death about the place because hundreds of academics are busy killing everything they touch." Of course, it is all better in context.

Specimen Days (Picador) by Michael Cunningham - It's out in paperback now and in spite of the mixed reviews it received in 2005, I predict this book will be held in more esteem 20 years from now. Sure, the first of the three entwined but wildly different novellas is a slog-it is a sad and difficult story-but the second two read like page turners. The effect is cumulative, the message about human life both dark and curiously hopeful. The writing itself is a revelation.

Saturday (Anchor) by Ian McEwan-I waited until everyone else had already read this book. Mostly I hate reading things that everyone tells me I have to read. And yes, it is very good: acute in every observation, with only a tedious and interminable squash game in the middle to mar a book that is essentially brilliant.

An Assembly Such as This: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman (Touchstone) by Pamela Aidan-Perhaps this book only seems good by comparison. Most of the attempts either to continue the story of Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet past Austen's ending or to tell it from another character's point of view have been crap. I'm embarrassed to report that I've tried to read enough of these efforts to know this. At any rate, Aidan's retelling of the story from Darcy's point of view is well researched and quite readable. It ends shortly after the disastrous ball at Netherfield. Two sequels to follow.