Books I Read May 27th, 2024

In the long interval since my last entry I went back to Baltimore to see my folks, which partly explains the sudden spate of history/anthropology readings, a peculiar obsession of mine in my mid 20s and a largely forgotten sedimentary layer to the rapidly moldering boxes of books in my basement (sorry, Mom.) I also celebrating turning 40 by baking 41 pizzas, and even managed to strong arm enough friends to come over and eat them.

Getting old you can't help but count the pieces of yourself you've left along the way. There are a lot of people in the world with a withered fistful of Dan Polansky. If that's you I hope there's still some sweetness to the remains, and also that you're well, and happy, and have traded your years wisely, and grown content with your mistakes.

A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens by Raul Palma – A false spiritualist attempts to exorcise the ghosts of a vulture capitalist in this genre bending literary noir. Well-written, evocative in its depiction of lower class immigrant life in Miami, and there's a whole side plot about Potosi which made me recall my days spent wondering around Bolivia with fondness. The last will probably not relate to you but the first two might.

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson – A clan of abhorrent New England aristocrats await the end of days. Another of Jackson's minor masterpieces – funny, horrifying, and genuinely odd. There is an opaque simplicity to her writing, a sense that while every line is true the overall effect is to lead the reader into some great misdirection. Lots of fun.

Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga – A mocking parable about the spread of Christianity into the author's native Rwanda. Shrewd and funny.

The Fawn by Magda Szabo – Stream of conscience recollections of the miserable childhood and obsessive hatreds of a Hungarian actor. I don't really like Magda Szabo and I can't really say why. There's Miteleuropan obsession with guilt and subterranean instinct (see also: Marai, Sandor, Zweig, Stevie et al) that kind of misses me these days. Obviously that's a very subjective critique.

Wellington's Rifles by Mark Urban – A narrative history of the first rifled units in the English army and their various battles against Napoleon. In retrospect I recognize my erstwhile passion for military history as a late adolescent attempt to confirm a masculinity in which I so obviously lacked confidence (this was also why I liked Norman Mailer), and digging through boxes earlier this month I was kind of going 'another book about the Boer war, Danny? Really?' But this one is actually a lot of fun, engaging popular history which I cribbed from for my first trilogy.

The World of Odysseus by M.I. Finlay – This is remains an attempt to glean the world of pre-literate Greece from its most famous literary product. I can't say I found all of this persuasive on a re-read.

The Great Cat Massacre by Robert Darnton – An attempt to reconstruct the mindset of the various classes of pre-Revolutionary France from a variety of historical sources. Worth the re-read just to be reminded that all of the modern interpretations of fairy tales are basically bogus.

Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas – A wide-spanning exploration of the societal function behind the human obsession with physical and spiritual impurity. I kind of feel towards anthropology the same way I do analysis, as being a serious of fascinating but largely unprovable hypotheses that shed light on the human condition without ever actually approaching the realm of scientific thought. Good thing I'm not an academic!

My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura – Existentialist Japanese psychological horror.

Songs of Kabir by Kabir – Ecstatic syncretic poetry from the Indian sub-continent. Alas that we are particles spinning in space, our existence devoid not only of a creator but of any meaning or purpose beyond what we manage to inflict on it through sheer, miserable effort.