The Anthropologists, Ayşegül Savaş

 

The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş

Started: January 13, 2025

Completed: January 13, 2025

Recommendation: Not recommended

Recommended By: Barack Obama

Review:

I dunno.  I guess that this book was supposed to be a character study and I just did not find it interesting.  The characters seemed flat and I simply did not care what happened to them.  Their lives seemed banal and maybe that was the point, but I really don't know.  It is hard to walk away from this book thinking anything but that this was sort of someone writing a book about what was just sort of happening nearby (person, woman, camera, etc.)  Maybe the problem isn't the book, it is that I'm too thick to get it.  It felt like modern art.  Something that almost anyone could write, but was somehow raised up on a pedestal.

Freedom, Jonathan Franzen

 

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen is a book from an author who piqued my interest.

Started: 12/16/2020
Completed: 12/21/2020
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: An Obama list of books

Words for which I sought help:

cicatrix -- a scar left by the formation of new connective tissue over a healing sore or wound

Review:

This book was well written and the author had some excellent turns of phrase, "The kitchen was a nauseating never-cleaned sty that smelled like a mental illness."  Despite that, I found the subject matter ugly.  Who is cheating on whom with whom and wreaking havoc on one another's mental state is not something that I find interesting.  If this is intended as a cautionary tale, I already have that caution.  If this is not, then it feels more like a Peeping Tom kind of novel.  It largely made me uncomfortable for the privacy of fictional characters.

The rant on the Republican party was prescient.  It was reflective of Bush, but it was also projective of Trump.  I try hard to pay attention, but Franzen was completely on it.

The Topeka School, Ben Lerner

The Topeka School by Ben Lerner was on the New York Times best book of the year.

Started: 5/5/2020
Completed: 5/9/2020
Recommendation: Not Recommended, unless you are a forensic type...then it is hard to resist
Recommended By: The New York Times

Review:

It was interesting and darn near shocking to hear a recounting of a high school debate.  I never expected to read a book that talked about "first affirmative."

Other than the near constant debate references (I also never expected to hear about Lincoln-Douglas debate, either), which gives the book its title, I  find this book unappealing.  The disjoint nature of the story telling was uncomfortable to me.

The writing was well done though I did not like it.  There was a scene in which a father would not help keep peace on a play ground.  It brought back to me my own experience with other parents at a play ground and how it had almost become a physical altercation.  As I read the scene my own adrenaline returned from that event in my history.  I kept trying to suppress my own reaction, but could not as the events described in the book kept taunting my own emotional response back.  It was very well written and extremely uncomfortable. 

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates was exceedingly well received when it was printed and Ta-Nehisi Coates has become an exceptional American commentator since.  I wanted to read this book and understand better his message.

Started: 1/22/2020
Completed: 1/24/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By:  Everyone

Review:

This book is a letter.  This book is a tribute.  This book is a cautionary tale.  This book will move you.  All of that and I do not live in the world in which Coates grew up (despite being in Prince George's County, Maryland because his world is not a place, but a mentality--he calls it a tribe). 

I am definitely not a member of his tribe.  I live among people who are.  This is one tribe I would never hope to join.  I recognize and appreciate the good parts of this tribe, but I am sad for the situation that caused it to arise.  I want to eliminate the need for this tribe to exist.

In the meantime, however, it is important to understand the internal dialog that Coates exposes.  How can I hope to change my own errors without understanding the effect of our culture on people who grew up like Coates.  I thought I had an intellectual understanding of this tribe (I have no hope of understanding this tribe in any other way), but I was wrong.

A really, really important piece of understanding for me was the talk of the body.  Coates focuses repeatedly on the integrity, safety, and nurturing of his body.  Why?  Because those things cannot be taken for granted (as they are in many ways by me).  Our culture has exploited the bodies of Coates' tribe in every way imaginable and we continue to do it.  Members of his tribe are mostly black and brown, but not exclusively and, again, nobody should be a member of this tribe.

One step, one way, to start to make change happen is to respect everyone's body.  Especially those whose bodies have historically not been respected.  I say this in the same sense as "Black lives matter."  Yes, everyone's lives matter, but the point is that all too often black lives have not mattered, so take a moment and remember that black lives matter.  Take a moment and remember that black and brown bodies matter.  Yes, like everyone's bodies matter, but don't forget that black and brown bodies matter.  Unless you feel like an attack on the body of one of Coates' tribe is an attack on "everyone's" body, then you aren't getting it.  We all need to protect everyone. 

I need to work to make this an action, not just an idea and it is going to start, for me, by supporting District Attorney candidates all over the country who see the mass incarceration of black and brown people (yes, everyone, too) as wrong.  Who support the elimination of cash bail.  Who oppose stop and frisk.  I will start by doing a small part to protect people's bodies.  I will do more, but that is where I will start.

I also think it is insightful that Coates refers to Howard University as the Mecca, but is not a religious man.  He feels the need to have a focus, a center, a heart for his understanding of the world and this book says to me that Howard University is that place for him.