A Bookish Salute to January, 2023

Hello my dears! January has come and gone, and I have decided to do monthly rather than seasonal book reviews so that there is more room to talk about the stories. So here we go: everything I finished reading in this first month of Anno Domini 2023. 

Image credits go to Goodreads.

A Selection of Short Stories by Flannery O’Connor

I’ve had Flannery O’Connor’s short stories on my shelf for years. Last time I tried them I just…didn’t get it. I was too young and green.

This time around I still didn’t get it, but I think I’m a few steps closer to appreciating the weirdness. At any rate I was compelled to keep reading, which is a good sign.

The four I read were:

"A Good Man is Hard to Find”—featuring a rather pathetic grandmother, her rather grouchy son, the son’s rather unmemorable wife (with baby attached), and some very bratty children. Oh yeah and a serial killer. There is a road trip being planned for Florida. The grandmother doesn’t want to go to Florida; she wants to go to Tennessee. (…I think it was Tennessee.) And that, believe me, is only the beginning of her troubles. 

"A Late Encounter with the Enemy"—featuring a 104-year-old general, chiefly concerned with being seen in parades; and his daughter, chiefly concerned with him living long enough to be put on display at her college graduation. My personal favorite of all Flannery’s stories so far. I felt like I understood what she was driving at…which is probably never a feeling one can trust.

"The Life You Save May Be Your Own"—featuring a one-armed man who can fix cars and a woman who is a little too eager to see her daughter married off to someone who will be helpful around the house. This was about as unintelligible to me as A Good Man is Hard to Find, but it wasn’t quite as depressing. It was at least as disturbing. But I thought I detected a faint glimmer of hope, as opposed to a dying memory of hope.

“The River”—which I think I liked the least of these four, even though I could tell you I suspect it’s Flannery critiquing the evangelical style of certain Protestant preachers who baptize without equipping their converts with any kind of structured Christian life. At the same time it seems to be commentary on the validity and power of baptism even when it’s done in a not ideal way. Very interesting, just not at all uplifting. I guess…no one should ever expect Flannery O’Connor to be uplifting. But it’s even more depressing when neglected children are involved.

Letters to his Friends and Family, by Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati

My man Pier Giorgio! It took me a few months to work through these letters…which aren’t the juiciest things in the world, but that’s kind of the point: Pier Giorgio Frassati was a normal kid. He writes dutiful letters to his family when he’s out of town; he’s concerned with grades and exams and registering for classes; he’s very up to speed on politics. His writing style isn’t particularly flowery and his letters are generally quite short and to the point. There are moments when the liveliness and depth of his faith flash through—for instance, in his commitment to the sacraments and his frequent requests for or promises of prayer—and that’s really beautiful; but on the whole it doesn’t feel like spiritual reading. It feels like going through primary documents from the son of a wealthy Italian household during the rise of fascism in the 1920s.

The most interesting section of the book was the later letters, from 1923-1925, because at that point Pier Giorgio is writing a lot of letters to his friends in the spiritual club he founded, the Tipi Loschi (“Shady Characters”)—which was meant for prayerful fellowship and good-humored pranks. 

Also at that point things get really SAD because Pier Giorgio is working so hard to finish his degree, and he just wants to be DONE so he can live a normal life and go mountain climbing with his friends instead of studying for exams, but at the same time he’s really SAD about everyone getting older and moving away, especially his newlywed sister, and he’s torn up about loving this girl he’s not allowed to marry and he’s discouraged about his spiritual life and he just needs a BREAK— 

And then the letters stop because he DIED.

His sister wrote an account of his last days so I think…I might have to read that now.

Memento mori, was my main takeaway, because Pier Giorgio certainly did.

Jeepers I just love him.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

Switching gears from Italian saints to American sinners— 

GUYS I know I squeal about The Great Gatsby a lot, but like, seriously. Every time I read it again there is something new to think about, some motif that leads you to look at the story from a new angle or some observation about the characters that adds to your conception of the story and its themes…but it’s always consistent with what you’ve already noticed, it’s not like the book changes shape every time you read it. No, it remains itself. It just gets better. And I don’t think I’m imagining that. I think this is a legitimate masterpiece of a book.

I think this is the best darn book that any American has ever written, ever.

…well okay that’s a lot coming from someone who’s barely touched American lit. We’ll modify the claim: I can’t think of a better novel in the U.S. canon. Like. I just can’t.

What I’m freaking out about this time is the fact that the characters are human. I’ve always said they were interesting but now I’m realizing they’re human, in every sense of the word: believable, yes, broken, definitely, but also, shockingly warm and pathetic. They’re warm because they’re actually capable of friendship, of humor, of authentic relationship—you get glimpses of it, don’t you? all the way through the book. They’re almost having fun when they spend time together—almost. I could ship Nick and Jordan, if they weren’t so morally spineless together. I could ship Daisy and Gatsby, if Daisy weren’t married. If they were better people, they could be fun to spend time with; they could have good relationships. And the most pathetic thing about them is clearly how out of touch they are with their own potential for authentic love—it’s all about money and power for Tom and Daisy, and for Jordan I think it’s fame and success. Obviously for Gatsby it’s an illusion. But Nick…

Guys I have come to an epiphany:

I love Nick Carraway.

I love him SO MUCH.

And not just because he writes pretty, and is super relatable, and has a dry sense of humor that kicks in when everyone around him is being far too ridiculous to notice his amusement. All those are the initial reasons I started to love Nick. They’re what you see on the surface.

But they’re not why I keep coming back to Gatsby again and again and again.

If that were all, the novel would still be pretty empty and cold and full of despair.

But, like, guys. Gatsby’s not as depressing as it pretends to be. It’s only depressing the first nine times you read it. The tenth time, you realize it’s actually got its redemptive side. Because it’s not only about the death of Gatsby. It’s also about the redemption of Nick Carraway.

Nick is too humble to talk about himself much. But he grows SO much from the start of his story to the moment he starts telling it. For most of the novel he’s a spineless people pleaser, complicit in adultery on multiple counts. Actually, for most of the novel, he seems to be getting WORSE—more accustomed to the wild ways of the East, more accepting of debauchery.

But when it all goes down with the death of Myrtle Wilson, something in Nick snaps—or rather, he suddenly grows a backbone. There’s this one little line in that chapter that goes something like:

“I’d be damned if I went in there with them.”

Which, literarily, is an excellent use of the theological term “damned.” It’s at this moment that Nick realizes his soul is in jeopardy—from associating with these people.

And once he comes to that realization, he turns it around pretty quickly. He takes responsibility for Gatsby’s funeral, he breaks up with Jordan, he lets go of things with the Buchanans. And then he decides to go HOME. 

That sense of homesickness in the last chapter is just…it gets me, man. It’s so wholesome.

There are WHOLESOME moments in The Great Gatsby. Shocker.

Really, I’m shocked.

But I think it’s true?

Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney

This was my first time reading Seamus Heaney’s translation! And it only took me, like…three months. Heh. Frankly, I missed Rebsamen’s translation. But it’s cool having a copy with the original language on one side. Someday I’ll try to study up on Old English a little bit. (And some other day, I’m sure, I’ll come to appreciate Seamus Heaney’s great poetic powers.)

The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

*dial tone*

I’m sorry, the reviewer you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. She will get back to you when her emotions are in some semblance of order.

And that is all the books I’ve finished this month! So much better than previous months, I must say. Next on my list are The Brothers K and Scaramouche, which so far I’m quite enjoying. (Although Scaramouche threw me a curveball that I should have seen coming but DIDN'T and it HURT.) 

A new thing I’m trying this year is keeping track of the movies I watched. I’m not gonna do full reviews here, but I thought it’d be kinda fun to try and rank them in order of my least favorite to most favorite. (Which is a pretty subjective thing, so.) TV shows don't count.

in 9th place:
McClintock (1963): I feel bad putting this in last place, because there was nothing wrong with it; John Wayne is a fun time and so is Maureen O'Hara. But it happens to be a comic Western, and anytime I watch a comic Western, my foremost thought is, "But nobody's actually in danger of dying so what's the point." So it’s not so much “least favorite” as in “least likely to be rewatched.”

in 8th place:
Persuasion (2022): Guys, hot take: they've done the impossible and turned a Jane Austen novel into a regular old chick flick. Don't get me wrong, it's a really fun chick flick. I enjoyed it. But it's not Jane Austen. I advise anybody who wants to see Jane Austen's masterpiece of a novel brought to life on the big screen to just...skip this movie. It’s more like modern commentary on the Regency Period than anything else. (I would be very interested in doing a detailed compare-and-contrast with Emma (2020), because that was definitely made to cater to a modern audience but without being...unfaithful to Jane Austen's era. If that makes sense.)

in 7th place:
The Return of the Magnificent Seven (1966): Remarkable that this isn't my least favorite. It's objectively awful, because the perversion of the best becomes the worst. But, well--it was laughably bad, and Robert Fuller's face covers a multitude of sins. 

in 6th place:
Command Decision (1948): It wasn't riveting enough to go around recommending to people, but Clark Gable + WWII bombers = a cozy black-and-white military drama that I'm not sorry to have watched. 

in 5th place:
Shane (1953): An objectively impressive Western that I'd seen once long ago. The set is STUNNING. I dig the way we can actually hear the water running in the background. Alan Ladd makes a rather lovely ex-gunslinger, in spite of being very blond (generally I am of the opinion that they should be dark-haired...see Robert Fuller), and the other characters have way more to offer than I remember thinking, too. I suspect this is one that grows on you with time. In any case, it was pretty solid. 

in 4th place:
Glass Onion (2022): One thing about this movie makes me mad. I get that these are rich people without morals running around on an island vacation, but does that mean we have to see them half-naked all the time? Unnecessary, my good sirs.--That said, I was blown away by all the ways in which Glass Onion lives up to Knives Out. Twistiness? check. Playfulness? check. Loveable non-detective protagonist empowered by Benoit Blanc to stand up to the baddies? check. Thematically cohesive? check. Solid moral underpinnings? check. And I think the finale might have OUTDONE Knives Out, if such a thing is possible. I dunno. I was reminded of that line in Sayers or Chesterton about mystery stories being "the purest literature we have," because no matter how raunchy things get (and they get pretty raunchy), good always triumphs over evil. (But, like. It IS pretty raunchy. So tread carefully.) 

in 3rd place:
War and Peace (1956): I didn't know I was in a War and Peace mood when I sat down to watch this, but Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn changed that for me. THEIR PORTRAYAL OF PRINCE ANDREI AND NATASHA. I SHIP IT SO HARD, GUYS. It's a very Americanized edition of War and Peace, but...I'm very American myself, so I don't mind that. I'm impressed by how successfully they condensed the novel into a 3-hour movie. They didn't give screen time to everything, but they at least gave verbal nods to all the important plot threads, and...yeah. Good job on this one, Hollywood. 

in 2nd place:
The Sons of Katie Elder (1965): Because it's a WESTERN and a SERIOUS Western and it has DEAN MARTIN in it and it's about BROTHERS. It kind of hurts my soul what happens to the brothers. But in spite of that it was a good time. I'm open to liking it better than Rio Bravo someday. But not right now.

in 1st place:
Rio Bravo (1959): If anyone wants to see my full review of this movie, just say the word. It's not objectively flawless. But I love it very much. It's because of the friendship between John T. Chance and Dude, you see. And Dean Martin's singing. And the fact that it's serious all the way through but manages to have a happy ending. I am very monstrously pleased with it. I may or may not play it sometimes just to have its reassuring presence on in the background. 

And that is all I have for you today, my dears! What have you been reading/watching lately? Any recommendations? Any warnings? May your February be so lovely that you need not be thankful it is short!