An ambitious historical fantasy addressing colonialism in the 19th century. Favorite aspect: How Kuang takes translation theory and turns it into a magical system.
The jacket cover says it best—”a detective story, a literary chase, and a cultural history.” A fascinating and detailed account of the research required to finally identify Hannah Crafts as the author of The Bondwoman’s Narrative, the first novel written by a Black female novelist. Particularly interesting if you are familiar with the geography of the Carolinas, but a history lesson regardless on the shifting economics behind American slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries and the vile practices and rationalizations slave-owning families engaged in. Hecimovich, a fellow at Harvard and an English professor at Furman, demonstrates how Crafts interwove personal experience and her deep understanding of Dickens’ Bleak House as well as male and female slave narratives. The sophistication of the intertextuality of her tale led historians to doubt for decades that the author could have been an enslaved individual until Hecimovich. Learned a lot.
https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/gregg-hecimovich-880000010975
Idra Novey’s Take What You Need speaks to the teen in me who took welding in high school (metal shop was required) and is grieving the loss of a complicated person. Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Northern Appalachia, this beautifully written novel is about so many things. It’s an exploration of the place a young woman is from and her return there to a profound sense of not belonging. It’s a lesson in modern female artists (sculptor Louise Bourgeios, 1911-2010, and painter Agnes Martin, 1912-2004): “No real art, Bourgeois said, was possible without a fight with one’s material.” It is about the loss of a parent: “This morning, I read that repeating the name of the deceased can quiet the mind when grieving for a complicated person.” It’s about imposter syndrome, an affliction of even the most successful of artists, let alone a middle-aged woman finding her way to metal sculptures of immense proportions in her living room. It’s about how Northern Appalachia has changed in the last decades, economically, politically. The book is a commentary on making art in desperate times. You will find other themes here. I’m glad I found this book, as I make a concerted effort to read authors writing about Northern Appalachia, where, low and behold, I grew up. (Northern Appalachia = 235 counties in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia.) Quick craft note: Novey toggles deftly between alternating POVs, one in first person present, the other first person past, allowing the reader to experience two timelines until they converge. Thanks to WANA (Writers Association of Northern Appalachia) for recommending the novel.
Favorite line: “You have to become more than yourself is what Louise said when she passed sixty-five. . .”