Reading Journal of 2024

Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter (fiction)

This book. Holy crap. First of all, it is a slim little volume, a quick read, but don’t read it quick. Savor it. There are three “characters” in the novel: Boys which represents two boys, Dad, and the Crow. Dad has lost his wife, Boys their mother. So many writers have tried and failed to capture grief, what it is, what it feels like, tastes like, sounds like. Many years ago I read Alison Smith’s Name All the Animals and I can still conjure up the narrator listening as her family moves about the house, each waiting until the sounds of movement are gone so that they may go get something to eat or go to the bathroom. That compulsion to avoid has stuck with me for twenty years. Porter starts here

Four or five days after she died, I sat alone in the living room wondering what to do. Shuffling around waiting for shock to give way, waiting for any kind of structured feeling to emerge from the organisational fakery of my days. I felt hung-empty.

He captures something I recognize, the varied voices of grief. Dad moves from emptiness, to anger, to cynicism. He is attempting to finish his manuscript on Ted Hughes and it made me want to read Hughes. Dad is a perfectly ragged character.

Each mini chapter is an alternating voice. Crow is both analyst, therapist and symbol. He arrives and announces, “I won’t leave until you don’t need me anymore.” This sets the reader up to anticipate the leaving of the crow. In Crow’s first chapter, Crow describes their flat of grief, “the whole place was heavy mourning, every surface dead Mum, every crayon, tractor, coat, welly covered in a film of grief.” Crow is witness. Crow antagonizes. Crow listens.

To get so much done in so little pages is inspiring. The chapters are spare yet abundant. It’s one of those books that feels like a treasure and also dredges up a longing: I wish I had written this. Beauty in a small package.

The Villain Edit by Laurie Devore (novel)

This book wasn’t really for me. I’m not a Bachelor watcher though I confess a slight love/hate with Love is Blind. In general, the hetero reality dating/marriage/fake marriage shows feel pretty icky to me and I don’t watch. That said, I could have still been pulled in but I was not. There are far better TV connected romances. Try Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld which really isn’t a fair comparison because Sittenfeld is a gifted storyteller and one of my favorite authors.

Diaspora sonnets by Oliver de la paz (poetry)

Super excited to read this one. Really enjoyed it overall. My only complaint is that sometimes it felt like a run on sentence where I had to stop and try to locate where I was. I’m not really sure why this happened. Last year I read Deaf Republic which was superb. This did not reach those heights, but I enjoyed it. I’m a picky poetry reader. Actually, my tastes in poetry run pretty narrow. This fits into that narrow space.