This year I’ve been reading more non-fiction than usual. It’s not that I’ve been trying, it’s only that I’ve allowed my curiosity to access my holds queue. When I have questions after I’ve finished a novel, I’ve allowed myself to wander more than usual. It’s created an interesting rhythm in my reading log for 2021.
For sure, every year I choose to read eight books about writing (at least). A recent favourite, on a favourite topic, is Lisa Zeidner’s Who Says? Mastering Point of View in Fiction. From a writer’s perspective, her concept of four sliding scales is useful: Closeness to Distance, Empathy to Judgment, Internal to External and Subjectivity to Objectivity. From a reader’s perspective, if you love this device, prepare to add immeasurably to your TBR.
One remarkable book to illustrate this technique is Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings, which I read at the end of last year. It was in my stack for months—a tough read. And I spent most of the time bowled over by the shenanigans, the political undercurrents, and the chemical haze of it all. But I kept returning to marvel at how deliberately he inhabited each voice. In the end, I was a little stunned. And I realized that I didn’t know what I didn’t know about Jamaica.
So, I put myself on a hold list for Orlando Patterson’s The Confounding Island: Jamaica and the Postcolonial Predicament. When it finally arrived, I was more confounded than before. Even though it opens with epigraphs by Derek Walcott and Claude McKay, this volume is intended for more scholarly readers. (To this end, I’ve added his collection of short stories to my TBR: The Children of Sisyphus.) But I did enjoy the chapter which compares Jamaica to Barbados, because I had recently read Andrea Stuart’s memoir, which traces her family’s history to that island.
Andrea Stuart’s Sugar in the Bloodis immensely readable—an account of settlement and heritage. Readers are rooted by the occasional date and statistic but, for the most part, benefit from her ability to summarize history. Some of this material felt familiar: the talk of uprisings reminded me of Dionne Brand’s beautiful novel At the Full and Change of the Moon (which is actually Trinidadian), and the varied experiences of the enslaved reminded me of Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black (which is a Barbadian story). But the discussion of how whiteness as a concept was developed on this island more so than any other, and historical context, like why some planters ultimately chose to leave for the Carolinas, captivated my attention.
One of these historical American plantations in the Carolinas serves as the off-stage backdrop to Gloria Wesley’s novel Chasing Freedom, whose characters leave it behind for more opportunity in Scotia. Wesley has been described as the first Black Canadian to be published in Nova Scotia, her first poetry collection having appeared in 1975: To My Someday Child. There are some beautiful poetic sentences in this novel too, praised by George Elliott Clarke. [Whose George and Rue is a favourite of mine.]. Though an instructive element occasionally outweighs the plot, this is only the second book I’ve read about Birchtown (the other being Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes) and this is a significant part of Canadian history—just how hard it was in Canada for the “freed” slaves who came here from the United States, trading enslavement for indentured servitude, prejudice and violence.
Although there’s a lot of sorrow and strife in Wesley’s novel, it ends with a marriage—jumping the broom—conducted by a Methodist reverend, which took me to Henry Louis Gates Jr’s The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song. He writes about its cultural importance, a “reprieve from the racist world”. I not only read about conversion, abolition, and civil rights, but I learned about the practicing Muslims from Senegambia who were shipped to Georgia (about 20% of the stolen were Muslims, Gates estimates). Traces of Islam remain in Sapelo Island, home of the Gullah Geechee people, and Gates describes how Islam creolized Black Christianity. This fit brilliantly with my reading of Ayesha S. Chaudhry’s The Colour of God, a contemporary memoir that embraces the complexity of growing up in a fundamentalist Muslim household.
One element of Alex Haley’s Roots (1976), which I read with Liz and Bill, that surprised me was that it was probably my first introduction to the Islamic faith (at least, the little that I would have seen before falling asleep on the couch, watching the mini-series as a girl). References to Christianity were commonplace—even if the Lord’s Prayer was the only one I knew by memory (recited in classrooms daily)—but this would have been new to me. It’s just one of many elements of Kunta Kinte’s daily life that is wrested from his grasp, when he is kidnapped and enslaved to toil in America.
Even though I have always viewed Roots as a novel, it’s technically a biography; Haley, however, having researched the story from genealogical and historical perspectives, used the techniques of fiction to engage readers in his narrative. Another aspect of the story that I found surprising was just now distinct and problematic Kunta’s African-ness was for some, not only the whites at the top of the hierarchy, but most of the other Black people who were further removed from their roots (and those who recognized and internalized white folks’ fear of these different cultures).
These big ideas also surface in quite a different book: Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s Rooted (2021). She writes: “Rooted ways embolden us to remember that with our complex minds we can feel—and live—more than one thing simultaneously. Anxiety, difficulty, fear, despair. Yes. Beauty. Possibility. Connectedness. Love. Yes.” As a longtime fan of her books (beginning with Crow Planet), I was thrilled to read her latest.
When I discovered this passage in it, I was also reading Nadia Owusu’s memoir Aftershocks, also freshly published. Owusu writes: “The idea of roots setting a person free is counterintuitive, but deracination from the past, from land, from family, from mother, makes for an unstable present. We must have, or we will always search for, a place to bury our bones.”
One element of her memoir that I really enjoyed was its bookishness. When she goes off to college, she packs a copy of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (but I don’t think she actually reads it at college) and that spoke to me because it was a formative read for me when I was a student.
Other admirers of Toni Morrison’s debut novel appeared in The Other Black Girl by Zakia Dalila Harris and Dawnie Walton’s The Final Revival of Opal & Nev too. Oh my, how I ADORED Dawnie Walton’s novel.
It wasn’t a subject I particularly thought I’d enjoy (the music industry, collaborations, and marketing) and the characters weren’t easy to hang with (egos and stresses), but sheesh, she swept me away. If it had been a thousand pages long, I’d’ve kept reading. But it wasn’t. Because she’s got composition skills. Fine skills indeed.
In just a line or two of Roger Robinson’s collection of poetry, A Portable Paradise, you recognize his skillz. But I couldn’t remember why (other than his renown) it was on my TBR. With references to the Windrush generation’s threats of deportation and the “Slavery Limerick”, I thought it must have been a recommendation via one of the authors I’ve read on that subject this year. Then, near the end of the volume: “Grace.” A poem that I heard him read on a Guardian Books’ podcast (which I miss!), which was every bit as moving on the page. So heart-ful.
A lighter poem of Robinson’s, about what lurks in the shadows, begins: “In our family we were not allowed to whistle at night.” Which nestled in with this passage in the opening chapter of Anuk Arudpragasam’s The Story of a Brief Marriage, in which Dinesh, one of Sri Lanka’s Tamil citizens, is alone in the dark: “There was, always, before the shelling, for the slenderest moment before the earth began shaking, a faraway whispering, as of air hurtling at high speed through a thin tube, a whooshing, which turned, indiscernibly, into a whistling.”
It also recalled this bit from The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, in which ‘the call of the Katysha rockets” is remembered as “hissing in the distance like librarians demanding silence”.
And, here, while it’s quiet, I’ll take a breath, because there are just as many connections in Part Two of this post. Meanwhile, the librarians are shushing.
Have there been connections between your fiction and non-fiction reading this year? Either purposeful or accidental?
Are you reading more of one than the other lately, or are your habits in 2021 consistent with other reading years?
I appreciated not only the titles, but the way you travel from one to the other. It seems odd that I never read Sugar in the Blood and I’ll have to rectify that. I was the moderator for a discussion w/ Andrea Stuart at a conference. Your highlighting Roger Robinson is great timing as it seems a Portable Paradise is one not to miss. At the moment I’m reading Corinne Fowler’s Green Unpleasant Land. A vital setting straight of some worryingly nationalistic records, it has links with your other books here. Thank you!
That must have been a great panel. Her work feels so naturally engaging that she must devote many hours to making it seem so effortless. Green Unpleasant Land is definitely one that I’d be interested in reading and the library has copies on order already: thanks for mentioning it. Peepal Press has so many wonderful books in their catalogue.
It’s nice to see that you read Chasing Freedom. Are you going to read If This Is Freedom (the sequel)? It takes place almost entirely in Birchtown, which I loved!
Rooted sounds good… I’ve never read Haupt.
When I started, I didn’t realize it had a sequel, but I have a soft spot for Birchtown stories, so I just might.
Haupt would be a great match for you. If Laila or Rebecca is reading this, they might suggest another starting point, but I started with Crow Planet and just loved it.
I really enjoyed this post, your links were so interesting. I’ve also had A Brief History of Seven Killings in the TBR for ages, I keep putting it off as it seems quite intimidating. It sounds wonderful though – I must get to it.
The very element that makes it intimidating is also an avenue into the story: there are SO many chapters, SO many voices, SO many perspectives. I’m sure it would be very good to read in a more concentrated fashion, but I found it worked great to read a chapter or two each day. Either way, some of the intricacies of Jamaican politics would have been lost on me and this allowed me to appreciate his character work even more.
The Lisa Zeidner does sound like a useful way to break things down & I see TPL has it. (You must have returned it…)
I think I also read about a quarter, maybe up to a third non-fiction, mostly literary-related: lit crit or author biographies. Creative essay. Some history & the very occasional popular economics.
Love the line about librarians from The Sympathizer.
Hahah, yes I did. Replaced it with a few others, including the new Alice McDermott on writing.
About the same for prior years, with very occasional ecological replacing your economics selections (but, this year I had a lot of eco-reading).
The Sympathizer is such a great read, even beyond the librarians; I was expecting it to be the kind of book I would approach like a text, but it was a pleasure to read (for an anti-war story).
I am currently reading Haupt’s The Urban Bestiary (I read Crow Planet earlier this year) and I am enjoying the heck out if it.
A Brief History of Seven Killings is one of my favorite books. I was gobsmacked by how skillfully James wrote all the voices so distinctly. I want to read it again – perhaps a reading goal for next year? (When I know I said “No reading goals for next year!” Ha ha.)
I have felt more drawn to nonfiction this year than usual – still a smaller number than fiction for me but it will be interesting to see the final numbers for the year!
Yay, I felt so sure that you would love those two. (They remain my favourites. I’d find it hard to choose between them though.)
YAS! It is simply amazing. There were so many evenings when I settled down with the book, thinking I’d read for a couple hours, then I’d read just one of those super short chapters, and stop, and flip back, and stare, at all those pages with different voices and marvel at it all. It would definitely reward rereading.
Hahaha I have no idea what to do about 2022. My reading for this year has been overwhelming and exhausting and (due to a cacophony of duedates) stressful at times. So I want next year to be totally different. And I’ve read so many amazing books that I want it to be exactly the same too. What WILL we do?! #niceproblemtohave
What a coincidence! I was just speaking with someone today and swapping stories about what we were currently reading, and they said they were reading the Marlon James Seven Killings too. I recall him saying they found it a very odd book, but he was really enjoying it all the same. The way he described it, it sounded sort of…sci fi? I don’t tend to read a lot of Marlon James myself but I know everyone thinks he’s fantastic!
Is it possible that he was talking about Colson Whitehead while discussing Marlon James as well? They frequently are discussed together and I’m struggling to figure out the kinda-sci-fi would fit with James (and I also don’t want to say what book of Whitehead’s would fit with that, cuz it’s a spoiler, even though the other title might help resolve the question).
Both of them were at IOFA/TIFA over the years, which is probably what landed Whitehead on my stack, but I’d been hearing about James’ The Book of Night Women since its release (a critical darling!) and just never got to him until I bought this one at the festival bookshop. You know how it is, once a book is no longer ‘new’, it can be hard to squeeze it back into the stacks.
Oh gosh yah, I know exactly what you mean!
I love all your connections! I’ve had some inadvertent ones between fiction, nonfiction, and online articles and news but I haven’t kept track of them beyond the initial frisson of recognition. I’ve always read a lot of nonfiction but fiction has always been the majority. Over the last couple of years though it’s pretty much gone to half and half. I feel like nonfiction could easily outpace fiction if I let it.
I’m actually very curious how the stat’s will play out for this year. Nonfiction definitely feels like it has an edge but, then, there are times when there are only novels and stories in my stack too (like now) and I start to wonder if it’s just a matter of “more” but not majority. And now it’s nearly November, so I probably won’t trouble to check until year-end now. Speaking of NF, I had borrowed a copy of Nell Irvin Painter’s book from the library on your rec, but couldn’t get through much before it was due back, but received a copy from Mr BIP for my birthday, so I’ll be able to take my time with that one now!
From Roots to Rooted: just the sort of segue I would have used in a Six Degrees of Separation or Book Serendipity post 🙂 I’m always looking for these connections, and always fascinated by how one book leads to another.
Yes! Bookish synchronicity! I knew you’d appreciate this. And I know I used one of these (The Bluest Eye!) in one of your synchronicity posts but other than the playing card, I didn’t think most of them were specific enough to “count” there.
Some wonderful books there, and I enjoy seeing how you make connections between them. I love the sentence you quote from The Story of a Brief Marriage, it’s the kind of atmospheric writing I like. Your autumn reading has been very impressive.
If I had a cornucopia on the table as decoration for this season, it would be spilling forth books for sure! Arudpragasam is impressive and this would be an excellent introduction to his work (I did wish I’d read it first, before his Booker-nominated A Passage North).
Great post and I enjoyed to read about the links between your books.
Unfortunately, most of the time, I can’t read non-fiction, except biographies. I don’t remember what I’ve read before, I have a hard time to concentrate and keep reading. I wish I were better at reading this genre, so lucky you, it’s such a great way to learn new things.
This is a new pattern for me, too, so I can relate. As I mentioned to Jacqui, my non-fiction has been around a quarter (rarely a third) of my reading until this year and mostly books about writing and reading. This year some projects I selected equated to more non-fiction, but I think it’s also due to a new subscription to the NYT, whose book coverage has broadened in a way that really appeals to me (more international authors, despite the regular American political coverage).
Hmmm. I’m probably reading a bit less nonfiction now then when I read just about every history book on Russia, the former USSR, and Central Europe I could get my hands on. I do still read these books now and again, but more often books with literary topics (biography, books about books, etc.) and almost always have an art book on the go.
I’ve had occasional reading projects or fascinations that resulted in spikes of non-fiction like that, but I suspect the swell this year has been a result of being more attentive to reviews and media, and regularly adding holds on those new books via the library, alongside specific projects (e.g. migration, slavery). I used to always have a poetry book on the go, like your regular art book, but I feel like that’s gotten a little lost this year.
I’m definitely reading more non-fiction now than I used to, say, 5 or 10 years ago. Mostly memoirs or literary biographies of writers whose work I enjoy (e.g. Shirley Jackson, Deborah Levy and Deborah Orr). Lisa Zeidner’s book sounds fascinating, many thanks for the tip!
That’s the kind of non-fiction that was forming the bulk of my reading too, and I was consistently around 25-35% for quite some time. I’ve not peeked at my stats this year (just distracted, I keep meaning to) and I’m wondering if it could be more than half of my reading this year. (But, it’s also been an exceptionally book-stuffed year for me.)
My first introduction to the Muslim faith was in PC Wren’s Foreign Legion books (Beau Geste etc.) which I collected in my teens. I was astonished when the Saudi version of Islamism began to be publicised after 9-11 just how similar it was to the whirling dervishes whipping up crowds in north Africa in Wren, Beau Ideal especially.
As you are aware, I am barely started on African-American Lit. Hopefully by the end of next year I will understand a bit more and also be more understanding of how slavery – which is largely denied – worked in Australia.
Interesting. (Wikipedia link here.) One of those cases where the story behind the story is just as engaging? It reminds me a little of what I “discovered” while reading about Margaret Landon’s writing of the biography of Anna Leonowens, the “governess” in The King and I, whose account of her experiences couldn’t be wholly verified as historically her personal experience either.
Resendez’s The Other Slavery proved to be illuminating on that count. I think I mentioned it in the context of our Roots discussion when I was in the middle of it…it’s definitely worthwhile and, although focussed on what is currently the United States, it’s easy to see how certain patterns c/would have played out in other nation-building and colonization, elsewhere.