reading log
Recently I was talking a friend about what we were reading. She observed that she was having a hard time figuring out what contemporary fiction was worthwhile these days, in part because a) there’s so little literary criticism being published anymore and also b) what does get published is rarely, actually, you know. Critical.
My friend said her theory was that too many critics were also authors; that no one is willing to burn a bridge to say what they really think anymore. I said that was true,* but also that, in my experience, the lack of space for reviews makes it extra-hard to justify pitching a pan. Why go to all the trouble of securing an editor, writing and editing drafts, and then invoicing for and inevitably having to chase down $300 or $400 just to publish something that will hurt someone’s feelings? If I have the time and energy to write a review, I’d rather promote what I’m excited about than pick apart something that didn’t work for me.
But since the LA Times laid off its books editor last year, I barely even do that anymore. Which means often I am reading something I think is interesting, and I kind of want to talk about it, but I don’t quite have the right outlet. So I was thinking I might start writing about what I’m reading— and what I’m thinking about it— here.
*Not any of my friends’ books, sorry, I love you guys but let’s leave that can of worms unopened!
So for instance, I recently finished Kristin Arnett’s latest, STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE. It’s about a heartbroken dirtbag lesbian clown— like, a professional clown— in central Florida. I loved Arnett’s first book, MOSTLY DEAD THINGS, but couldn’t get into her follow-up, WITH TEETH. Her writing tends to be darkly funny, and the part of me that is a freak 4 LA deeply respects the way she is a freak 4 her home state.
My thing about this book is that it has a lot of great observations about clowning and art and sadness and being unable to be anyone except the deeply flawed person that you are. But it doesn’t totally have a plot for the first 2/3rds. I mean, things happen, but you’d be hard pressed to identify an inciting incident that causes them to happen or like, strings them together into a dramatic arc. They just kind of happen during the timeframe of the book.
Which means that in the last third, when things do start happening in an orderly fashion, it feels like you can hear the wheels of the plot machinery turning as you read. Not even necessarily in a bad way, it’s just distracting? Like the early parts of the book are weird and messy and expansive, and then it’s like, welp, time to land this plane, and you can hear the landing gear grinding into place to do its thing.
I don’t mind the plane coming down in the usual way, exactly. I’m a typical Western reader; I like to see progress. Some kind of a happy ending. But I also wondered if Arnett could have found a less traditional, more interesting way to think about plot for this one. Some kind of structure that wouldn’t have betrayed her premise by ending with the protagonist literally getting a promotion at her job.
STOP ME did get reviews— Arnett is a pretty buzzy author, generally— and The New York Times’ notes that “Part of the book’s social commentary is a rejection of success as framed narrowly by capitalism, which also means dispensing with traditional narrative expectations of what the “hero prevailing” might look like.”
Which I agree is what Arnett is trying to do. I’m just not sure she’s succeeding. But to be fair, I’m not sure how anyone can successfully write a truly anti-capitalist novel that also feels like, you know. A novel. I think those two things are a contradiction in terms, especially when you’re writing contemporary realism, which inevitably involves the character kind of reintegrating themselves into Our Capitalist Society at the end. Hence the promotion.
I have spent the last five years trying and failing to write an anti-capitalist novel, so believe me when I say, this is a question I consider a lot, and I have a lot of respect for everyone who is trying to do it, even if we’re all failing together.
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I’m not being cute when I say that at this point in my life, I kind of have no idea what it means for a book to be “good.” But how I judge what I read, generally, is to ask a few questions. First of all, simple: did I enjoy reading it?
Then: did it make me think about anything? And, for how long did it make me think? Were those questions lasting, tangled, interesting enough to stick, or were they sort of aesthetic and ultimately easily dismissed?
What I can say about STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE is that I think it frustrated me in a productive way. It gave me something to talk and think about; it gave me fodder for my own work. It felt like a piece of a conversation I want to keep having.
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Some other recent reads:
Moderation, by Elaine Castillo, out 8/5. Also an anti-capitalist novel that succeeds in being immersive but ultimately doesn’t quite know what to do about the anti-capitalism of it all.
Joel Dane’s The Ragpicker, a beautiful post-apocalyptic journey story. Kind of reminds me of The Last of Us, except with 100% less gratuitous child death, and more thoughtful about what being inundated with information does to our sanity. This was a rec came from Kerstin Hall, whose Asunder has been my go-to rec for readers who can tolerate speculative fiction recently.
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And of course my next book, SQUARE WAVES, is out 6/24. We will be celebrating it on both coasts; news about those parties coming soon.