5 Books Written in the Span of 80 Years That Delighted Me Last Year
Shakespeare in a Divided America, James Shapiro, 2021
I have been obsessed with Shakespeare lately and read more than a few books with “Shakespeare” in their titles, among which James Shapiro’s Shakespeare in a Divided America is one of a kind. While the other books are all about the real or imagined life of the Bard, this book recounts seven anecdotes in critical junctures of American history and examines how they intertwined with Shakespeare or his work. Re-living the racist anxieties over Desdemona’s marriage to Othello in the 1830s and reading about Abraham Lincoln and his assassin John Wilkes Booth’s parallel interest in Shakespeare, we are gently reminded that political fault lines over issues such as race, gender, immigration, and free speech have always existed, even though we are sometimes convinced that America’s social fabric has never been as bitterly torn apart as today.
It is not easy to find a book dealing with not one, but two, of one’s favorite subjects. Striking a fine balance between scholarly rigor and popular appeal, Shakespeare in a Divided America is a rare treat for those with a passion for both American history and Shakespeare.
Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, Mary Norris, 2015
As someone who immigrated to the US from Asia in her twenties, I have secretly harbored the dream of passing for a native speaker, at least in writing. That is why Mary Norris’s Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, a book with English grammar as the subject matter, holds enormous appeal to me. Norris spent more than three decades in The New Yorker’s renowned copy department to maintain its celebrated high standards. Besides the finest taste for good English, she is also blessed with humor, wit, and good-natured cheerfulness. Her book threads together cute little stories from both history books and her own life with the common theme of grammar and is a charming and surprisingly entertaining read.
In today’s world of social media, self-publishing, and digital journalism, the work Norris and her colleagues do seems quaint. Their attires and appearances and manners, the sharpened pencil they hold to make edits on the proof copy, and the meticulous attitude they adopt towards words and sentences make them otherworldly as if they are from a different era, which indeed they are. The nostalgia her book evokes is certainly one more reason I enjoyed it so much.
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen, 2001
The Corrections is the story of a dysfunctional family of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children trying to get together for “one last Christmas”. With each chapter delving into the backstory of a main character, it traces the lives of the family from the mid-20th century to the turn of the millennium, revealing how the characters’ formative years made them what they are today, and how they struggle to “correct” the emotional suffocations of the past.
According to a 2001 article on salon.com, “Franzen is trying to drag American literary fiction back to basics, toward the character-based, big-canvas storytelling of Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope and George Eliot.” Compared to some novels I read in recent years, the way The Corrections is written is indeed refreshingly “basic”. As a vivid family drama with contemporary American society as the backdrop, it is sharply critical of capitalism and the American culture permeated with sexual inhibition, widespread mental instability, and irrepressible greed. But reading it is not at all a bewildering exercise as reading novels sometimes can be.
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote, 1965
Herb Clutter was a prosperous farmer and a respected community leader living in the quiet rural neighborhood of Holcomb, Kansas. In the early morning of November 15, 1959, Herb, together with his wife and their two teenage children, was murdered at home in cold blood. The horrific incident shocked the community and made the national headline.
Capote learned of the quadruple murder and traveled to Kansas to write about it. In In Cold Blood, he chronicles the events surrounding the homicide, followed by accounts of the capture, courtroom proceedings, and ultimate execution of the two killers. The book was published in 1966 and was an instant bestseller. It is considered one of the best true crime novels.
I serendipitously picked up this book at the library and was immediately captivated by the stories told with eloquent prose and rich details. I’m thankful the crime happened 60 years ago and thousands of miles away though. Otherwise, it could have been too disturbing to read.
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway, 1940
Before Ken Burns’ three-part, six-hour documentary Hemingway refreshed my memory of the renowned author, the only Hemingway I had read was a Chinese translation of The Old Man and the Sea. Then, as if fate detected my tremulous anticipation of another Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls fell into my lap as a Christmas gift and I immediately picked it up to read.
From the film and many other reliable sources, I understand that Hemingway is best known for his economic and understated style. Reading his work in his original words, i.e., not in translation, for the first time, I was most impressed by his storytelling skills. His simple language, coupled with his consummate understanding of human psychology, releases an immense narrative power.
In addition to being a war epic, To Whom the Bell Tolls is also a psychological thriller, a romance, and a social critique. My enjoyment of the romance part is unfortunately spoiled by my recent exposure, through Burns’ documentary, to Hemingway’s amorous personal life. The rest of the story is mesmerizing.
