I took a little break from embroidery over the last couple of weeks, which freed up some time for reading – hurray! And I read some fantastic books, which is always the best kind of refuge and solace when I’m starting to feel burned out.
- Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. So, so, so good! Of course, I am late to the party so I cannot add more superlatives than have already been (rightfully) bestowed on the novel and its author. The story of Ifemelu and Obinze is engrossing in its own right, before even delving into the other layers of the book. I have a lot of thoughts on all of it, but I feel like I need to sit with them for a while before I try to write them down. Also, honestly? I don’t know if I have really anything more useful or interesting to say than to recommend that you read Americanah if you haven’t.
- Hangman’s Holiday and Lord Peter Views The Body, Dorothy L. Sayers. More short stories from the Golden Age of mystery. These made me appreciate Sayers’ writing more than her novels; they’re well-written and clever, and no longer than they need to be. Sometimes, mystery novels are too padded for their own good.
- The Blood of an Englishman, MC Beaton. I’ve been reading Beaton on and off for years and year, and I’m still not sure if I truly enjoy her writing. It’s very … abrupt and unemotional, may be the best way I can describe it. The Agatha Raisin stories in particular (of which this is the 25th) always leave me questioning whether the author likes her creation, or women in general; though, to be honest, she’s usually pretty brutal on her male protagonists as well. Anyway, for all that, I keep reading her novels, and I always pick them up when I find them at the thrift store. I think it’s because I’ve been reading them for so long, that there is something oddly comforting about them. Kinda like reading the Murder, She Wrote novelizations.
- Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh. I came across this book by chance on Amazon, was intrigued by the description, and bought it. Although it could not be more different from Americanah, I found it equally compelling. The plot itself is kinda meh, to be honest. But as a character study, it’s phenomenal. It’s rare to find a book which allows its heroine – and Eileen is the book’s almost sole focus, since every other character is almost irrelevant (and that includes Rebecca) — to be so hard to like. Unreliable female narrators are popular nowadays; unlikable ones, not so much. What I may have loved the most is that the older Eileen, narrating her younger self’s actions, does not try to excuse them or to make herself more palatable to the reader. If anything, the opposite; she goes out of her way to point out things that others might leave unsaid. In a way, the character reminded me of something that Samantha Irby wrote in her book, We Are Never Meeting In Real Life: we are all gross, and we make a lot of effort to hide that grossness from others (especially those whose love or admiration we desire). Eileen is the opposite of that; I wouldn’t say that she celebrates the kind of grossness that women are not usually permitted (by social conventions) to acknowledge, but she puts it forward as a matter of fact, and defies the reader to look away. Anyway, this is probably not a book for everyone, but if you want to meet a character you won’t soon forget, give Eileen a try.