This year I re-directed my focus away from a couple of years of determinedly reading from backlists (so that new books comprised only about 30% of my reading) back to freshly published and forthcoming books.*
What I hadn’t anticipated was how delicately I would need to balance my library habits, without being able to renew what I borrowed. It seemed to take half the year just to get a new rhythm…and I was too busy reading to adjust my goals and be reasonable about things!
*If you’re curious—and, Rebecca, I know you ARE—that translates to about 30% of my reading being fresh books in a “backlist year” and about 60% being fresh books in a “new year”—because I continue to read authors’ backlists for paid review work, and most events and challenges invite backlisted reading too.
Nikita Lalwani’s Gifted (2007) was in my stacks thanks to Paula’s Dewithon but I kept stalling at the start (it’s true that it begins with her father’s observations of his daughter Rumi, so I felt distanced straightaway from her coming-of-age story, but I think my disengagement had more to do with the other books in my stack). In another reading mood, I clicked with Rumi more readily (even though she’s better with numbers and I’m better with words); I especially enjoyed the scenes of her after-school library sessions, when she’s supposed to be studying but she learns that she can sneak into the stacks to read novels instead.
Born in India but raised in Cardiff, Wales (like the author), Rumi takes the train into town and buys cumin in the Morgan arcade near the Queen Street Station. Because I was reading it with Dewithon in mind, I was peering closely for setting details, but what I enjoyed most about the book was the interior life of a single family, particularly Rumi’s experience of student life which is a key part of the novel, but also more fleeting details, like an argument between her father and a friend about the film Gandhi, and glimpses of India (whether memory or reality).
“Rumi had four sets of thoughts running in parallel. She alternated between them with swift nervousness, like a bird hopping between four lanes of traffic. Some were unpleasant, leading her to adjacent safer lanes; one lane, which she kept open for emergencies, was sweet.”
Paula’s #ToveTrove urged me to tarry a little with the 2014 NYRB edition of Tove Jansson’s short stories: The Woman Who Borrowed Memories (a title I’ve long admired). It landed in my stack because I was writing an article about Lauren Groff’s new novel, so as part of reading her backlist, I peeked at the introductions she’s written for short story collections by Nancy Hale, Lorrie Moore and Jansson.
So I spent some time at “An Eightieth Birthday” with Grandma: “her brocade from Barcelona and richly spread with everything from olives to cream cakes”. (Trans. Silvester Mazzarella) And I absolutely loved “The Squirrel” (Trans. Thomas Teal) particularly the way it closes in on itself in a most profoundly satisfying way. Groff’s introduction concludes: “We read Tove Jansson to remember that to be human is dangerous, but also breathtaking, beautiful.”
Daphne du Maurier’s Mary Anne (1954) landed on the top of my stacks in time to celebrate Heavenali’s #DDMReadingWeek, when I was deep into climate crisis reading. There were a couple of books in my research that literally gave me nightmares…and both their authors were pleased—proud, even—of that. (I ‘fessed up when I later interviewed them for an article about how writers are confronting climate change in fiction.)
But even when the other books in my stack were not overtly disturbing, it felt like a treat to sink into Mary Anne’s world, for just a few pages before bed (not every night, but most nights, which is why the pleasure extended for such a long time). It opens by situating Mary Anne in relationship to a bunch of other characters but, once that’s dispensed with, the fun begins. And I stuck it out because I remembered that Heavenali had enjoyed it a great deal, so there was that. And the “rise to the pinnacle of trollopdom” statement on the overleaf of my bookclub edition. Turns out that’s the kind of statement that catches my attention.
So is this: “The first exuberance, the thrill of discovery, passed to guile and all the complications of secrecy—the terror of the creaking door, the hazard of the dark stair, a footfall too loud, a clumsy stumble. These things awakened a sleeping house. Moments that should be prolonged were hastened through fear, finesse and the tender approach were skipped to achieve finality.”
It was Kaggsy’s Bookish Rambling’s and Stuck in a Book’s #1936Club that brought Rebecca West’s The Thinking Reed (1936) into my stacks, and Lisa who convinced me to finish it. I’ve done a terrific job of collecting Rebecca West’s books but a miserable job of actually reading them; they’re long, they have tiny print, are strangely sized.
My only success to date was her first, Return of the Soldier, which is a skinny little thing. Her style takes some adjustment; it feels more tell than show and is sometimes uncomfortably direct (which, in some instances, is also what I find admirable about it).
The Thinking Reed also immediately showcases her astute observation, in particular of relationships and elements of power encased therein. It, like my #Dewithon read, was a slow start because, as also with Mary Anne, it felt like a lot of men cluttering up Isabelle’s mind and heart in just the first chapter. It reminded me of reading Edith Wharton, if only her characters had more bookshelves. (And not that we see Isabelle seated in her library with a cup of cocoa either, but somehow there’s an air of intellectualism in the authorial voice even though these characters don’t read either.)
Isabelle is in France (a place that “demanded perpetually that one should hit the note in the middle” and friendless, the “only one flaw in her new existence”. She’s a twenty-six-year-old widow and unsure about the kind of relationship she seeks, but the bulk of the book revolves around Marc. Who muses: “When one really talks to a woman, one always finds she believes in nothing…provided she is the kind of woman who has faith in life. If she has no faith, she will tell you she believes in everything.”
Say, what? But nevermind—I’m not in this for Marc, rather for Isabelle. Who also holds some curious positions. Like this, which is likely too progressive a concept for many 2021 readers yet: “It was inevitable that a number of both men and women should compromise the institution of marriage by marrying for money, and once that happened there could be no question of impressing on the toughly logical female mind the unique vileness of prostitution.” Not an easy book, but I’m glad I read it.
Anne Tyler’s Ladder of Years (1995) was one of the July reads in Liz’s Tyler Reading Project, an endeavor I’d thought I’d participate in more frequently, but my own projects have consumed more time and energy. Nonetheless, even just the first sentence of this Tyler novel renewed my desire to read and reread her. I’ve read about ten of them, over the years, all without realizing that her works are quietly interconnected, with nearly all of them featuring a small overlap with another of her novels—one of my favourite things—so I’ve wanted to revisit ever since. (Learning this about Madeleine L’Engle’s books and Louise Erdrich’s had the same effect.)
And what was that magical first sentence? “This all started on a Saturday morning in May, one of those warm spring days that smell like clean linen.” It’s not even magical, I know. Indeed, when I encountered it and reread, I wondered to myself whether its even true. Surely it’s the other way around, I thought—that a warm spring day can infiltrate the fabric and encapsulate that wonderful fresh depth of aroma that speaks, so powerfully, of home. But, no, I reconsidered: when you hang a sheet out to dry in the different seasons, it does smell differently in spring, in summer, in autumn, and in winter.
So, I cast my mind back to the idea of how fabric absorbs the different seasons’ scents differently, and I feel like I’ve re-captured the peculiar spring-y-ness that Tyler is referring to. And I wonder why she hasn’t chosen the other three smells which, living in a place with distinct seasons for my whole life, is something that lives unexamined in my mind for the most part. (At least, seems to.) And that imagined scent remains, as I move forward in the narrative, which springboards from a gently comical situation, in which a man approaches a woman in a supermarket and asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend because his ex-girlfriend is shopping with her new lover and he wants her to think he’s moved on from the relationship with finality too.
When I’ve read Tyler in the past, I’ve not spent much time wondering how she pulls me into her stories. They’re filled with ordinary people—often revolving around loneliness and connection, loss and love, solitude and marriage—and ordinary situations and circumstances, and I can see why some readers would long for more plot. These kind of innocuous detail—a single scent in a single sentence—which holds the possibly of triggering nostalgia and emotionally rooted memories, is almost ubiquitous in her narrative; I fall into it and don’t even realize it’s happened.
How about you? Has your participation in reading events lagged this year? Is there a book in your stack that you have yet to finish, despite your good intentions?
My participation in reading events is always lagging – or nonexistent. Alistair MacLeod’s stories is a good example. Sigh. But we do what we can when we can and enjoy every minute of it. 🙂
This post is fun! You’ve really made me want to read Mary Anne, or one of her other books. Any of them would be good, I’m sure!
Anne Tyler kind of reminds me of Carol Shields in the way she pulls you in with the details of everyday life. I love stories like that. I think I told you I read Ladder of Years way too long ago – I think I’d appreciate it a lot more now.
This year feels different to me. I’ve always had too many reading plans to make finishing things for specific dates a comfortable process; when I was reading so many more ARCs and taking part in blog tours, I was often finishing the book and writing about it, on the day before or, sometimes, the day of! But I think focussing on the new books this year has complicated by library borrowing habits to such an extent that ALL the other reading (Lalani and Jansson were library loans, but the others were all my own copies) gets pushed aside the duedates. What I still loved about Tyler, even as a young reader, was her concentration on family relationships; I liked being able to peer into other people’s ordinary lives, even when I was too young to see all the dimensions that she was putting out on display for us!
I certainly was interested in those stats! And would “fresh” literally only be current-year releases, or the last few years? I’m not good at keeping track of what ratio of older stuff I’m reading, though I’m aware that it’s generally lower than I mean it to be. This year I have your spreadsheet template to help me keep track of release years 🙂
I’ve not read anything by Rebecca West, but got a copy of The Birds Fall Down free from a neighbour.
Ladder of Years was a real standout from Tyler. I’m currently reading The Amateur Marriage for the readalong and have noticed a few of those tiny connections with her other books, but am also finding a lot that surprises me in the tone and specific plot details.
Hee hee, I suspected! In my mind, it’s the past 12 months, but that ends up being all of 2020 and half of 2021 in this case (easily sortable on that spreadsheet). I figure it works out cuz each calendar year takes a bit to work into my stack (even when I am reading a few ARCs).
I have that one, but simply open and close it again!
Ladder is excellent. I didn’t read it with my flags in hand, so it would feel like a holiday read, and regretted it the whole way through because there are so many little touches that make a big difference that I knew I would want to remember and marvel at separately; I wished I was noting them, even while I was simultaneously glad to just sit back and read and enjoy.
Ladder of Years is one of my favorite Tyler novels! I know what you mean, she manages to pull me along without outlandish people or plots, but with so much careful and brilliant examination of the details that build lives. It feels familiar and illuminated, like she’s shining a spotlight on your own experiences. I enjoyed Mary Anne last year but it occasionally bogged down. I managed to finish 20 Books of Summer but now I’m embarking on a “free reading” period for the rest of the year – and perhaps next year. We’ll see. 🙂 I might not be able to help myself.
I suspect she must do a lot of work behind-the-scenes to construct these scenes, that seem effortless. And I always enjoy a good supermarket scene. *giggles* I’m thinking of Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman and Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age and Stephen King’s short story “The Mist”. There are likely more…
It’s really worked for me this year choosing themes and subjects rather than individual books; I feel like I’m just choosing whimsically all the time, because there are so many choices for these themes, even just with new releases. For me that’s the key, the balance between planning and spontaneity. If I don’t have some kind of plan, I watch TV instead. 😀 Will be curious to see how your experiment plays out!
I think I’ve been keeping up OK, and I have my book on order for the 1976 club!! I did finish my first Anne Tyler for this month the day before the review was due but kept up with it OK!
It seems like you’ve been doing a great job of making reasonable plans and sticking to them, even buying a few new books along the way! (I just picked up my copy for 1976 today!)
Lovely to hear about Mary Anne, which I hadn’t heard of before (at least, it’s not one I can recall hearing about in the past). I do find her novels very immersive – as you say, the sorts of books one can sink into for some literary ‘escapism’.
Definitely. I thought of you when I spotted a Margaret Millar novel in a Little Free Library this morning. If you lived closer, I’d’ve nabbed it for you. Speaking of escapes…
Without really thinking it through I’ve been reading a lot more old stuff this year, and the few new releases I’ve read this year have mostly been non-fiction–history & literary biographies, though also some recent poetry. Almost no new fiction. Not sure why that is…
I’d totally missed the Anne Tyler reading project. That would be a fun one. All in all I’ve been a bit hit or miss about reading events, but no worse than usual, I think?
Has being unable to browse in the library or bookshops affected your choices maybe? I looked at the uncatalogued paperbacks, the last time I picked up my holds in the library (for non-Toronto folks-the staff has been processing holds for patrons until earlier this summer but, as the city has been emerging from lockdown, they’ve opened the libraries to browsers again with one person allowed in each aisle at one time), and it felt so strange!
Hi Reese, nothing to miss in my project, the posts are all there and coming along through the months, and I’m very happy to hear from anyone who reads any one of her books during the year, and to hear what they think of them. I’m always very relaxed with everyone else’s participation in my challenges! So do feel free to join in!
Thanks for the mention:)
I’ll leave analysing my reading till the end of the year but I’m not conscious of doing anything differently… I had a vague plan to read more of 1001 Books but of course that barely lasted more than a month.
I’m hopeless (and unrepentant) at planning!
Mostly I love the planning, but some years it’s harder than others, as you’ve run into with your plan to read…oh, which Australian woman writer were you aiming for again? She’s one of my many on my TBR too, but I’ll probably be better able to read along by the time you are better able to host for her books in the future! 🙂
Keeping up with reading events is always such a challenge. I like the sound of the Tove Jannson, though some pieces I may have already read, The Squirrel is a wonderful little story. Glad you read Mary Ann for DDM week, it’s one I really enjoyed last year. What a life! The Thinking Reed is another book I wish I had, Rebecca West is such a good writer.
For me, it’s felt like an occasional challenge in the past; this year it’s felt like one big messy miss all ’round. I feel like I’m participating, but I guess I’m really not! LOL Maybe I just need to snuggle back into backlist country and get cozy. DDM is so entertaining and so different from West, but the gobs and gobs of men in both the main characters’ lives was an interesting comparison!