It’s cold. Still. A lot of ice has disappeared but to walk the dog continues to mean going from sidewalk to street and back again.
We headed down Jackson Street today so that I could add a novel (a DNF) to the curbside library kiosk. The Kitchen House.
In case you don’t know “DNF,” is lingo for Did Not Finish.
I read less than ten pages before getting intense Gone with the Wind vibes. “Nope! No more!” After metaphorically flinging the book onto the floor, I consulted a dozen or so one star ⭐️ reviews on Amazon (yes, I do this on occasion). Bingo! Impression confirmed.
Somebody will grab The Kitchen House and probably enjoy it too. It’s one of those titles that’s a perennial favorite among readers of historic fiction.
Another recent DNF was a little more problematic because it’s literary fiction by an author I admire: Let Us Descend, by Jesmyn Ward. In a nutshell it’s about an enslaved character being sold down the river. The epically awful journey down to New Orleans is described in gruesome detail, but that’s not why I stopped.
I stopped because I don’t love magic realism. It’s a preference thing, like not liking horror or sci-fi. I can deal with a little — like the amount in Ta Nahesi Coates’s novel, The Water Dancer, for example. In another Ward novel Sing Unburied Sing, there are visitations from the dead — appearing as dreams to one character and as a ghost to another. They never interfere with the pacing of the story, however.
But in Let Us Descend, a baffling spirit shows every other minute.
Is the entity benevolent or malignant? A weather pattern or ancestral energy? Initially, I was interested, particularly in the descriptions of the thing, but fairly quickly got annoyed.
Why? Because the exchanges between spirit and protagonist, while exalted and poetic were also opaque and therefore eventually meaningless. Or maybe it’s just that they didn’t move the story along at all. To use John Gardner’s phrase, “they interrupted the dream.” I started skipping their interactions and then just said, “Nope! Done.”
I have one more DNF to report (boy! I’m on a run!) — one by the recent recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Han Kang.
Scene: couple quietly reading. Wife reads book husband recently finished.
Wife: She goes on about snow, doesn’t she?
Husband: Yeah, there’s a lot about snow.
Silence. More reading. Then wife encounters another description of snow, this time three pages long.
Another metaphorical flinging away.
Wife: You can return it to Libby early.
Is this what being 68 feels like? Being past caring what other people think? Having the freedom to disregard stupid, self-imposed rules like: you must finish every book you begin? Maybe it’s also the freedom of being an author who is not now and never will be famous, so I get to express my cavalier critiques.
(However! Would never opine thusly on Instagram, Amazon, or Goodreads, so maybe I care a little about what others think? Or more specifically, after getting a three star review this week (just stars, no words), maybe it’s that I don’t want any author to read my negative takes on their work).
The Wedding People is fun. I will definitely be finishing this one. See it there below in the photo? With mine nearby? (Yes, Dee. You’ve only posted the pic six times). It’s living up to the hype.
Blurb: a newly divorced, depressed woman goes to a fancy hotel in Newport, Rhode Island with the intention of killing herself. Instead she ends up interacting with the people gathered there to attend a wedding. Things ensue. Lots of great observations about marriage, academia, wealth, grief, and family.
Isn’t that your book is right next Louise Erdrich? I think you might have cabin fever, darlin! Or maybe it’s just time to write the next book you want to read?
xo
Maybe : cabin fever. We had to skip our walks a couple times recently due to slush and ice.
Just got back from a freezing dusk lighted snowy dog walk. We nearly got hit by a car at one intersection. The car was grayish brown, blending right into road, just impossible to see in the snow coming down. I was wearing my construction orange wool hat and the dog was wearing a safety vest. They were practically on top of us before I saw it was a car. They didn’t have their head lights on. I waved my arms and yelled TURN YOUR LIGHTS ON, but of course, no response, they didn’t even slow down.
Nothing feels quite right.
And, I forgot to mention much I like that collage reflecting so well this Northeastern winter day.
Yikes that sounds truly scary. I’m glad you’re okay
Dee~ Happy Birthday again!! I hope it was a good one! 🙂
Your collage is a beautiful representation of Winter. I’m wondering how all of those snow scenes would read if you read the book in the heat of summer? ha
My most remembered DNF was The Homesman, which was later made into a movie. The descriptive scene when a young mother drops her baby into the privy did it for me. I actually threw it away. Now, reviewing it online today…I wonder if I could handle it any better now, as an older person? I could probably handle the movie, especially as it stars Tommy Lee Jones and I really like him.
Nancy
Ugh. What a scene! Thanks for the bday wishes. I’m taking my time over on your blog with the Wordle stories. They are so much fun!
A belated happy birthday! Life is too short – and keeps getting shorter – to finish books that cease to be appealing. Occasionally I come back to a book sometime later and discover I liked it after all. Timing and mood are not insignificant. I don’t care much for magical realism either.
You’re right about time and mood mattering.
Slipped right by me that you had a birthday so belated Happy Birthday Dee. Hope you had something luscious to enjoy, like a dark chocolate cake with 2 inches of cream cheese frosting dotted with copped walnuts or a triple layer coconut cake. or my go to birthday treat, lemon meringue pie.
Since I grew up on stories of brujas and curanderas and diablos and fantasmas and since I am a huge fan of Rudolfo Anaya, Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marques, Laura Esquiel, etc. I read a lot of magical realism. My parents would always tell cuentos, as did many of their friend, that included these elements so I am a huge fan of magical realism.
I had a delicious store bought ice cream cake. It lasted for DAYS!
correction of spelling: should be Laura Esquivel, who wrote the wonderful Like Water for Chocolate.
There’s a certain relief in the freedom of being just who you are at this age.
I’m currently reading “wedding people” too
I used to think I had to finish every book I started .. so happy I got over that. For Valentines I bought myself The Heart Of Winter by Jonathan Edison sure hope it’s as good as it sounds. I think I saw it recommended by AARP. But first I have to finish reading The Reckoning by John Grisham which is an old book but so far has been a good read. I can’t imagine my life without my books and quilting ohhh and I do like cooking … it’s cleaning that I constantly put off doing.
Ha. There are a lot of them!!