Monday Miscellany: Bye Vladimir!!
Notes from March 3 - 9
Friends, it’s a new week. The birds in our yard have been out and loud. I’ve gone on a couple of greenway runs. We made it through a tornado warning on Wednesday unscathed. My calendar for the upcoming days is a bit fuller than I’d like, but good things are happening and I feel some much-needed optimism seeping back into my bones. Also, I get to rant today about a book I legitimately hated reading, which is always fun!
Currently reading
(Content warnings for pedophilia and child abuse in the following description)
It was never the plan to read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov; knowing the general premise (adult man abducts young girl and takes her around the country pretending to be her father and raping her a bunch) was more than enough for me. But it was the February pick for The Stacks book club and I am a completist, so here we are.
In short, I hated this experience.
Time described the novel as “intensely lyrical and wildly funny” and Vanity Fair called it “the only convincing love story of our century,” to which I say, my dudes, did we read the same book?? When I wasn’t full-body cringing—main character Humbert Humbert is thirty-seven actual years old, lusting after a girl of TWELVE—I was rolling my eyes or yawning. Satire or not, this shit is gross, and even if you’re somehow able to get past that, it’s boring. Finishing it felt like this:
I could probably complain more specifically and eloquently, but I simply shan’t be spending any more time thinking or talking about this book. Bye Vladimir!!
After tossing Lolita out the metaphorical window, I took a deep breath, savoring the taste of sweet freedom, and switched over to my e-reader for Human Acts by Han Kang. This is also a difficult book, but of an entirely different sort. It covers the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea, centering around one fifteen-year-old boy, Dong-ho, who is killed by military forces during the student protests. The story is told through several long chapters, each written from a distinct perspective—Dong-ho himself, his best friend who dies around the same time, his mother years after the fact, an editor trying to publish a book about the tragedy in the face of government censorship, and a few others.
Some memories never heal. Rather than fading with the passage of time, those memories become the only things that are left behind when all else is abraded. The world darkens, like electric bulbs going out one by one.
There is so much sadness here. But there’s a lot of beauty to balance it out, both thematically and on a sentence level. These characters live through unspeakable violence and horror, and yet they continue on, trying desperately to tell their stories and keep their loved ones alive by remembering. Human Acts isn’t a long book, but I will be thinking about it for quite a while.
Added to my to-read list this week
Life in Three Dimensions by Shigehiro Oishi: In a recent Book Riot newsletter, Rebecca Schinsky wrote that “if, like me, you are forever in pursuit of a feeling of expansiveness, of a life that is big not in terms of fame or recognition but a breadth of experience, this book will make you feel so seen.” And, she said, “if you’re feeling stuck, bored, or in a place of, ‘Is this really all there is?’ it will point you to new possibilities.” YES PLEASE.
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers: This is the March book club pick for The Stacks and I was immediately intrigued by the subtitle. Very much looking forward to what promises to be an informative and challenging reading experience.
No Less Strange or Wonderful by A. Kendra Greene: Tin House kindly sent me a copy of this book of “essays in curiosity” a week or so ago and it’s blurbed as a meditation “on the complex wonder of being alive, on how to pay attention to even the tiniest (sometimes strangest) details that glitter with insight, whimsy, and deep humanity, if only we'd really look.” Lately I’ve been mulling over the idea of observation and discovery as antidotes for burnout and malaise, and it seems like Greene might be speaking directly to that line of thought.
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Currently listening
One of Jordan’s Christmas gifts last year was tickets to see Hovvdy at Cat’s Cradle this past Saturday. The concert snuck up on me a little bit (what is time?), but I did listen to their most recent couple of albums, True Love (2021) and Hovvdy (2024), a few times over the past week to prepare and get hyped.
We weren’t really sure how their subdued, dreamy sound would translate to a live performance, but it turned out to be a great show. The down tempo songs were beefed up using electric guitars and drums, and two members of the opening band pitched in on keys and bass.
They played a good number of songs from their latest release—I was especially happy to hear “Bubba,” “Jean,” and “Forever.” There was something really sweet about singing together with a whole room full of people:
I’ll cut, cut it out, I’ll get a goddamn grip And hold onto it for a while
But my favorite continues to be “Blindsided” from True Love, which they also blessed us with. Please enjoy the bittersweet and nostalgic summertime vibes:
Speaking of summertime, what is more summertime than baseball, fishing in a Tennessee river, and running around in the sunshine underneath a colorful parachute? Our recent higher temperatures have me really feeling this one right now too.
And another thing
”Rebel With a Clause” is a new documentary about a woman who travels the country answering people’s questions about grammar and I wish I lived in one of the cities that’s screening it!
For a long time, my answer to “what’s your favorite book?” was Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but it’s been so long since I read it now that I’ve forgotten most of the details and am no longer sure if that’s true. This Slate retrospective reminded of it, though, and now I’m tempted to pick it up again and see.
Kathryn Stockett, who wrote The Help, has a new novel coming and I definitely won’t be reading it but I will be observing its release and reception through my fingers. 🫣
Haiku round-up
Please enjoy a few short poems from the week!
Monday, March 3
Next time, I tell you, things will be different and this will be easy
Tuesday, March 4
A sustaining thought: If I can make it through this, I’ll go home to you
Wednesday, March 5
Morning tornado gives way to afternoon of sunshine and breezes
Thursday, March 6
The impact of rest on one’s general outlook cannot be measured
Friday, March 7
Rag and spray in hand, flitting about like a moth, cleaning this and that
Saturday, March 8
Clouds in the rearview, an orange and pink palette putting on a show
Sunday, March 9
Extra daylight means time for a few evening miles I come home wheezing
Until next time
While I don’t doubt that we’ll have more cold weather before spring is here for good, I’ve been truly thriving in the sunshine and warmer air of recent days. At our usual Saturday brewery hang this week, we sat outside on the patio and I ordered a pale ale instead of a porter—that’s how you know the season has changed, at least spiritually. It was perfect. Once again, I have lived through almost an entire winter slowly growing to internalize the darkness and chill, assuming that this is just what existence feels like now, only to feel a single ray of warm March sunlight on my face and suddenly remember: oh yeah, I am alive.
See you next Monday, and until then, wheeeeee!
—Emily
If you have any feedback, or want to tell me what you’re reading or listening to, I’d love to hear it! You’re always welcome to leave a comment or reply directly to this email.