Forbidden Notebook

Review: 5 stars

During a recent business trip to London, I took a detour to the airport to visit Foyles, one of the largest and most impressive local bookstores. I was in heaven - imagine five stories of neatly stacked books, with feature tables and end-caps tiled with intriguing (not only bestselling) titles! I was specifically looking for ‘Forbidden Notebook’, which I have been wanting to read for a while.

The novel is set in 1950s Rome, and follows the inner narrative of Valeria Cossati, a committed mother to two, dedicated wife and office worker. On impulse in a tobacco shop, Valeria purchases a black notebook, in which she secretly chronicles all the things she does not say to those around her. This simple act of subterfuge - writing her thoughts in a diary - is a rare selfish indulgence for Valeria, and it sparks a re-education and re-examination of her entire life. It also unleashes a pandora’s box of deceit that infiltrates the household. Valeria’s daughter Mirella becomes ensnared in a scandalous romance with the much older Cantoni; her son Riccardo goes to the point of no return with his girlfriend Marina, and her husband Michele pursues a fraught partnership with her filmmaker friend Clara. These tribulations are tirelessly archived by Valeria in the midnight shadows. As she enters into evidence the thousand ways that her family transgresses against society, she realizes as well that they transgress against her rights to individualism. As she sheds her titles of ‘mamma’, ‘daughter’, ‘wife’, ‘friend’, ‘breadwinner’, ‘employee’, ‘paramour’, she simultaneously begins the process of reclaiming ‘Valeria’ for herself.

Elena Ferrante (of ‘My Brilliant Friend’ fame), listed Alba de Cespedes as an inspiration ina , single-handedly reviving recent interest in works that are over seventy years old. But the ideas are as fresh as ever. I would dub De Cespedes to be the 1950s predecessor to Esther Perel, a globally recognized couples therapist and love expert. The incisiveness of de Cespedes’ insights into motherhood and marriage, and how these come to define and unravel one another, was astonishing.

Throughout my reading, I found myself shaking my head in admiration for how perfectly crafted and revelatory her writing is. For example, as Valeria finds herself struggling to connect with her husband of over twenty years, she writes “I felt an uncontrollable sadness rising in me. I’m afraid that because my way of being seems so natural to him it no longer has any value in his eyes”. Then later, she attributes lack of intimacy in marriage to the following: “It’s because we feel that husband and wife who unite in an obscure, silent relationship, after talking all day about domestic matters, about money, after frying the eggs, washing the dirty plates, are no longer obeying a happy, joyful desire for love but a gross instinct like thirst, or hunger, an instinct that is satisfied inherent dark, rapidly, eyes closed. How monstrous.” Or even more poignantly, when forcing her daughter to admit a painful fault: “She spoke concisely, as if to consume as quickly as possible the need to wound herself and to wound”.

Even more interesting are the artificial narratives that Valeria constructs, even as she writes in the notebook - the one place she can be freely honest. Her reluctance and inability to piece together her husband’s infidelity, and how she conjures up a nemesis in her future daughter-in-law, become fictions that are logged as truths. The notebook in the end becomes a version of herself that Valeria vehemently denies, burning it to ashes to return to a skin she wants to wear again - that of the weary, saintly matriarch that gives everything and receives nothing.

One review of the book simply said it was “incendiary” and I cannot agree more wholeheartedly. I am in awe of how deftly de Cespedes took simple moments of everyday life and wove them into an intricate meditation on womanhood. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a lover of fiction at its finest, and to every mother who feels even the slightest bit unmoored.

My Absolute Darling | raw, violent, unflinching

Review: 3 stars

‘My Absolute Darling’ was one of NPR’s top picks for 2017, and also earned rave reviews from Stephen King, who crowned it a ‘masterpiece’. ‘Turtle’ Alveston is our hard-edged teenage narrator - molded in the unforgiving ways of survivalist living by her emotionally, physically and sexually abusive father, Martin. The theme of hunter and prey pervades throughout the novel . Turtle, for all her fierceness and strength, cannot break free from her father’s psychological hunting grounds. She degrades her own worth, appearance and intellect to match the level of depravity Martin bestows upon her. Turtle is not immediately conscious of her victimization, her shame, nor her role in the ongoing abuse, but she is shocked time again back to reality by the new levels of cruelty Martin achieves.

The novel is a very uncomfortable read, and intentionally so. Tallent includes scenes such as Martin forcing Turtle to do pull ups, dangling above a knife, in addition to the attempted rape of a 10-year old girl. Turtle is inadvertently saved with a chance encounter with two schoolmates - Jacob and Brett - who bring her back into the orbit of normalcy. The development of a crush on Jacob and the simple desire to attend a high school dance are events that bring the extremity of Turtle’s double-life into sharp relief, and compel her to save herself. The climax is incredibly vivid, action-packed and thriller-like - with the stakes of Martin and Turtle’s cat and mouse relationship elevated to all-time highs.

Tallent is a very ambitious writer for tackling a tale of this complexity and difficulty, told from a vantage point so different from his own. There are quiet scenes he includes, that speak to Turtle’s true character beyond the abuse (which can tend to be buried at times). Take for example, the care and art with which she cleans her guns, or seasons the cast iron skillet - signs of her fastidiousness, pride. Her character-defining arc is anchored in her evolving relationship with Cayenne, the young girl Martin grooms as Turtle’s successor. Seeing the abuse play out on another human is what catalyzes Turtle to no longer accept her reality as fixed.

I found the novel powerful and disturbing, and do not recommend it for the faint of heart, or those looking for a light read. It can be dark and offensive, but is one novelist’s perspective on what female strength looks like, and how complex relationships can be.

Three Women | revealing, fragile, yearning

Review: 3 stars

‘Three Women’ was featured as one of Indigo’s top 10 books of the year, and I picked it up, intrigued by Taddeo’s journalistic angle on female sexuality. This bestselling non-fiction book follows three women - Maggie, Sloan and Lina - and their complicated relationship with intimacy and physicality through nearly a decade.

We meet Maggie at the tender age of 17, who is rapidly exploring her sexuality. After a prior relationship with an older man while vacationing in Hawaii, she begins falling into a tangled romantic relationship with Aaron Knodel, her high school English teacher. This marks the beginning of Maggie’s unravelling - of her future, her reputation, and her confidence in love. Knodel is portrayed as a charismatic trapper of Maggie’s heart, initiating texts, hours-long midnight conversations and a transgressive encounter at his family’s home. Taddeo deftly surfaces Maggie’s anguish when Knodel abruptly ends the relationship. Maggie is devastated to her core that her lover has spurned her, an emotion that overwhelms a more rational epiphany that her youth and caprice has been marred by an older, more powerful, advantaged man.

Lina and Sloan similarly lead lives of deception, torment and ecstasy, bringing sex lives that are indecent in the eyes of society, into the bright of day for examination, but even more for empathy. A key message of Taddeo’s is that how we choose to experience sexuality is wholly our own. That when women feel heartbreak, lust and adoration, that we are making ourselves vulnerable to pain, and should not be judged, especially by other women, each living their own truth.

I did find myself fighting impulsive questions of ‘Is she at fault for this?’ and ‘How could she do this to another woman?’. Yet this is the deftness of Taddeo’s journalistic magic - she brings the full perspective of each protagonist, such that I was forced to delay reaction, and instead pursue contemplation. This is a highly readable and pulsating piece of journalism. I did however find that it was not as impactful to my outlook on life, despite its candour and unique subject matter. I was asked by my sister-in-law over the break whether I had read anything great lately, and this novel simply slipped by mind. However, this is a solid pick for any man or woman who is looking for an engaging non-fiction read.

Where the Crawdads Sing | enchanting, romantic, effervescent

Review: 3 stars

‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ has been so widely promoted that I actively avoided reading it because I assumed it would be a bit of a throwaway novel. A much-vaulted pick as part of Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Book Club, this novel by Delia Owens was marketed as a romance-whodunit-ode to nature. Finally, intrigued by the unbelievably positive reviews, I decided to purchase a copy from Indigo.ca.

I am glad I didn’t let my initial judgement get the better of me, because I found ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ to truly be an incredibly meditative homage to America’s swamplands, Geography that is typically thought of as dank, dark and bereft of elegance is recast by Owens as mystical, temperamental and bewitching. Owen’s training as a wildlife scientist shines through unabashedly in how she paints the unrelenting afternoon sun and dazzling dusk skies of the North Carolina coastal marshlands.

Kya, our heroine, is known by the townsfolk as ‘The Swamp Girl’, reviled for her wayward barefoot lifestyle and completely misunderstood. As she is abandoned by her family one by one, she learns to rely only on herself - catching bait to trade for goods at Jumpin’s general store, cooking grits day in and day out for each meal, learning how to maintain the house. The story blossoms into a beautiful adolescent romance when Kya finally allows herself to depend on Tate. First to learn how to read, then to make sense of the natural world around her by naming species, and ultimately to care for her wary, scarred heart. The simplicity and honesty of their love is one element of the novel that makes the book such a compulsive read, and its subsequent unravelling is truly heartbreaking.

From there, the plot evolves into a murder mystery - Chase Andrews, the town alpha male, and Kya’s secret suitor, is found dead below a water tower. Suspicion swings to focus on Kya despite a paucity of evidence, and so begins a trial pitting town against marsh, law against nature and prejudice against girl. Owens is most successful when she is in her own comfort zone - evoking the unassuming charm of the woodlands she is so familiar with. In contrast, passages that elucidate the town’s hunt for justice and the court proceedings feel more mechanical and plot driven.

‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ is an easy, worthwhile read that helps impart a greater appreciation for America’s diverse natural geography and for those who choose to live a noble life amongst creatures not humans.

Pachinko | bracing, hopeful, absorbing

Review: 5 stars

‘Pachinko’ had been on my ‘to-read’ list for quite a while. I am finding that most National Book Award finalists are turning out to be some choice picks for my style of reading. This dynastic, sweeping sophomore novel from Min Jin Lee captivated me from start to finish. It follows several generations of Koreans, struggling to make sense of their self-identity in their homeland and in a highly stratified Japanese society.

At its heart, it is an immigrant story - one of unwanted pregnancy, of discrimination, of cherished yen earned through toil and desperation, and of the eventual reckoning of one’s self with parentage and parenthood. The story follows various characters, but Sunja’s voice rings throughout. Her actions as a teenager set off an inexorable series of events that culminates in hope for future generations, and a devastating blow to one branch of the family tree. Her secret affair with wealthy Koh Hansu on the shores of her fishing village is the genesis of how Hansu covertly becomes the puppet master of her clan. This includes protecting her family from certain death during the war, providing her with reputable employ to keep her family afloat, and funding their son Noa’s education to help him transcend the class he was born into. Despite Hansu’s behind-the-scene machinations, it is Sunja and Kyunghee’s powerful roles as breadwinners and family binders that make this a female-forward story.

The prose is delicate, honest and incredibly compelling. I was completely pulled into the narratives of each character, and invested in an internal debate between what qualifies as honourable and dishonourable. As a Chinese-Canadian, while I haven’t experienced anywhere close to the degree of ostracism that Noa and his brother Mozasu suffer in Japan as Koreans, I empathize with the impulsive desire to assimilate completely at times. Noa’s journey to mask his ethnicity through education and later through adoption of a Japanese name and personage proves futile in the end - his Korean heritage and struggle to come to terms with it becomes his eventual undoing.

This was an incredible read - and one of my most recommended books to friends. I also increasingly appreciate tragic, bittersweet endings, which ‘Pachinko’ successfully delivers upon. Hope you have a chance to delve into ‘Pachinko’ - it is well worth your while.

Becoming | moral, candid, aware

Review: 4 stars

I can’t think of a more anticipated read for 2018 than ‘Becoming’ by former First Lady, Michelle Obama. From the vestiges of the Obama presidency came an insistent movement of believers who yearned for a presidential run from “the better half” of the former First Couple. Like many others, I thought that this tell-all would lay the foundation for Michelle’s campaign for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. What I encountered instead was far more intimate and independent than I expected.

‘Becoming’ is told in three parts - each an integral piece of the composition that Michelle is today - her childhood, her relationship with Barack, and finally her experience as First Lady. Throughout she seeks to distinguish herself from Barack, signalling that the values she stands for were entrenched long before her charismatic, nation-leading husband sauntered into her life. As an adolescent she bore witness to white flight from her neighbourhood, which.shuttered businesses and unbalanced schools. Her innate drive for overachievement was instilled into her by her mother. Her belief in “showing up” was nurtured through osmotic observance of her father, who went to work everyday despite his MS. The early chapters firmly establish Michelle as independent woman with strong ethics and true fortitude, forged with the anvil of Black America.

She also pulls back the curtain on what it felt like to be in the maelstrom of Barack’s candidacy and presidency itself. Suddenly, her identity as a successful lawyer, talented health care professional, and empowered mother, became recast as singularly as patriotic wife and mother. Her voice, which she so valued, became muted in fear of passion being translated as anger onto national television screens. Her role as advocate and ambassador for her husband overrode her personal ambitions. It is this narrative that I found the most compelling. Michelle portrays herself as “Everywoman” - navigating through the same inequalities in marriage and motherhood doubts that many of us succumb to.

Michelle writes with the full awareness of a seasoned public figure. She is aware of the legacy this book will create for herself. She is aware of how her opinions may reinforce or counter Barack’s oft-articulated platform. She is aware of what this book means for the status of womanhood, motherhood, African Americans, democracy and the peaceful transition of power. Her biography is hopeful, urgent and a graceful commemoration of the first Black First Family. One of the most astounding revelations of the novel for me were when she describes paying for the initial White House redirection personally vs. using taxpayer money. She asserts that because of their blackness, she and her family have to do more and do better, just to be perceived as equal by society.

The parts of the book I appreciated the least were when she reinforced her own platform as a First Lady (Let’s Move, White House garden). Oddly, it felt inauthentic and forced, a tone very at odds with the rest of her intimate narrative. Despite this, I came away from ‘Becoming’ with an even greater appreciation for Michelle as a person. Her ability to connect through story is powerful and inclusive. This is not her launching point for political career (as she clearly affirms), but her ambition, empathy and talent are too great for her to fade into the annals of First Ladies past.

Educated | inspirational, raw, courageous

Review: 4 stars

I have been following along PBS and NPR's 'Now Read This' bookclub throughout the summer, and have discovered quite a few wonderful reads through them. 'Educated' was the May pick, and after having seen it heavily merchandised in Indigo stores as well, I decided to give it a go.

'Educated' is an autobiographical memoir by Westover, taking us through her unbelievable and highly unorthodox upbringing in Idaho. She is one voice in a cacophony of Mormonism, survivalism, and sexism that defines her family. This voice is humble, hellbent on truth-telling, and pioneering. As someone who had a largely mainstream childhood with oddball moments (my father caught us a pet bird using a plastic bag), Westover's family seems to be the stuff of fiction. The memories she intimates are shocking in their violence, bitterness and detachment from our society's typical notions of reality. Her larger-than-life characters are complex and flawed, particularly those of her father, mother and brother Shawn. Perhaps the moments that were most outrageous for me were when her family outright rejected modern medicine in favour of prayer and homemade antidotes for life-threatening injuries. 

It was fascinating to follow Westover as she came into her own, and conquered her unintentional ignorance of the world as most of us know it. Sequestered away in Buck's Peak, she was able to forge a path to Harvard and Cambridge - the highest echelons of Western education. This is a radical transformation from a woman who was unaware of the Holocaust or the American Civil Rights movement until her first day of college.

This is a captivating, heartfelt read. Westover's writing deftly evokes her struggle between the steel toed, hell and fire narrative that wins her acceptance among her family, and the broader world and history that many of us take for granted. I appreciated how it made me question the balance of value I place on the classroom education I received from kindergarten to matriculation, versus the life lessons that have defined my character. 

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