5 Books that Changed Me in 2019

Introduction

Reading for me has always been a way to break out of old patterns. Far from escapism, I read when I need examples of new ways to react to the world, new metaphors that I’ve never considered. When I look at the books I read or returned to in 2019, there are many patterns. I went through a year of medical, emotional, and personal challenges that had me looking in new places for models of how to live and who I wanted to be. Most of the books I read were written by women; all were autobiographies, memoirs, or interviews; most of them explored very dark themes and unusual points of view.

Zami: A New Spelling of my Name (Audre Lorde)

“”Nothing,” I answered, turning away, not wanting another angry exchange. She was not my creation. She had never been my creation. Muriel was herself, and I had only aided that process, as she had mine. I had released her anger in much the same way as she had released my love, and we were precious to each other because of that. It was only the Muriel in my head that I had to give up or keep forever; the Muriel peering up from the couch belonged to herself, whoever she chose to be (Lorde, 249).”

Of all of the descriptions I’ve read of love, this is one I’ve kept coming back to as a reminder. I love that the active verb usually often to describe emotion- “He made her sad,” “she made him crazy”- is replaced with “released.” The usual metaphor of love as control and manipulation is changed to one of alchemy and art. In doing so, Lorde makes a point: a person cannot change you, but only bring out aspects of who you already are and assist your evolution. For all of those images, emotions, and fantasies you hold of another person- they are your creation and responsibility. After difficult relationships, I’ve come back to this passage often as a reminder of how to both honor a relationship and let the other person go gracefully.

My Struggle (Karl Ove Knausgaard)

“What could be more decent than to allow the girl’s mother and father to see her an hour or two later, lying in the snow at the site of the accident, in full view, her crushed head and the rest of her body, her blood-spattered hair and the spotless padded jacket? Visible to the whole world, no secrets, the way she was. But even this one hour in the snow is unthinkable. A town that does not keep its dead out of sight, that leaves people where they died, on highways and byways, in parks and parking lots, is not a town but a hell. The fact that this hell reflects our life experience in a more realistic and essentially truer way is of no consequence. We know this is how it is, but we do not want to face it.”

Knausgaard opens his 3,600 page autobiography with this reflection on how societies handle death. It sets the tone perfectly for a massive book that spares no one, not even the author. Knausgaard talks openly about his alcoholic father, his alcoholic mother-in-law, his wife’s bipolar disorder, and the hundreds of shameful and dark thoughts that run through his own mind each day. It’s fantastic and addictive to read, even hilarious. If most authors seek to imitate real life, Knausgaard does them one better and puts every single unfiltered thought and impulse on the page. Not a single aspect of his life- sexual and personal failures, a rocky relationship with his wife and kids, or daily chores- is considered too banal or intimate to be recorded. Here is an excerpt of Knausgaard describing his feelings while accompanying his toddler in a daycare sing-along:

“I wasn’t embarrassed, it wasn’t embarrassing sitting there, it was humiliating and degrading. Everything was gentle and friendly and nice, all the movements were tiny, and I sat huddled on a cushion droning along with the mothers and children, a song, to cap it all, led by a woman I would have liked to bed. But sitting there I was rendered completely harmless, without dignity, impotent, there was no difference between me and her, except that she was more attractive, and the leveling, whereby I had forfeited everything that was me, even my size, and that voluntarily, filled me with rage.”

This book was the most human work I’ve ever read and it reoriented my perspective towards shame and self-expression. Despite everything the author lays bare about himself, he never pretends to be better than he is. Knausgaard’s self-exposé did not make him seem despicable, but allowed many readers to breath more easily, as he had paved the way in saying what before that seemed unspeakable. How can you criticize a narrator who has already said every damning thing about himself there is possible to say?

Grace and Grit (Ken Wilbur)

“It suddenly occurred to me that our normal understanding of what passion means is loaded with the idea of clinging, of wanting something or someone, of fearing losing them, of possessiveness…Passionate equanimity- passionate about all aspects of life, about one’s relationship with spirit, to care to the depths of one’s being but with no trace of clinging or holding, that’s what the phrase has come to mean to me. It feels full, rounded, complete, and challenging.” (Wilber, Ken. Grace and Grit (pp. 335–336))

This story is about Ken Wilber’s wife, Treya, redefining herself and her relationship with the breast cancer that eventually takes her life. As mentioned in a previous blog post, I read this book at a major transition point in my own life while trying to reconcile various parts of myself. What I appreciate is that this story doesn’t have a traditional “happy ending” (Treya dies). But in this quote, she sets an intention for a type of love and attitude she wants to create in her life and by the time of her death, it feels complete. Her cancer becomes a catalyst for personal transformation rather than a tragedy. As Ken Wilbur writes about the day of her death, “Goethe had a beautiful line: ‘All things ripe want to die.’ Treya was ripe, and she wanted to die.” This book reminded me of something valuable: the attitude with which you face any challenge or experience is more important than the outcome of that experience.

The Unwomanly Face of War (Svetlana Alexievich)

“So, then, women’s memory of the war is the most “light-gathering” in terms of strength of feelings, in terms of pain. I would even say that “women’s” war is more terrible than “men’s.” Men hide behind history, behind facts; war fascinates them is action and a conflict of ideas, of interests, whereas women are caught up with feelings… and they remember differently. They are capable of seeing what is closed to men. I repeat once more: their war has smell, has color, a detailed world of existence.”

This book had a strong resonance for me this year: many times, I felt like I was operating in a world of facts, statistics, money, and transactions, with no humanity underneath it. I felt that way as a patient in the medical system; at work, where I was more human capital than human; when reading the news and hearing pointless rhetoric thrown around. I think of this as a collective numbing so that everyone can keep moving faster without feeling any pain.

This book does the opposite: it humanizes history. It was also one of the more uncomfortable I ever read, filled with descriptions like: “We found her: they had impaled her on a stake…It was freezing cold and she was white as could be, and her hair was all gray…she was nineteen years old.” What made the stories memorable and disturbing was the coexistence of joy, love, youth, and horror; the moments when a girl would turn her mess kit into a skirt on the battlefield, or express both hatred and lust for a German soldier destroying her village (“such an insolent, terrible smile…a handsome face”).

This book was the first time I had ever read an account of warfare through the eyes of women. Not women as nurses or wives, but as Soviet soldiers next to men and in men’s roles. It showed me something I never realized about horror: horror requires a contrast or a contradiction. The female soldiers- whose stories involve smells and colors and everyday life- share a much more horrific representation of war than any I’ve read about before. They capture a truth that men rarely try to: Why the handsome smile of one enemy soldier is more terrifying than the statistics on 1,000 enemy soldiers. Why the sound of a clock ticking in a room suggests silence better than silence itself.

Walk through Walls (Marina Abramovic)

“Earlier I mentioned my Three Marinas idea, but that’s for after my death. I also think of myself as three Marinas now, while I’m alive. There is the warrior one. The spiritual one. And there is the bullshit one…The bullshit one is the one I try to keep hidden. This is the poor little Marina who thinks everything she does is wrong, the Marina who’s fat, ugly and unwanted. The one who, when she’s sad, consoles herself by watching bad movies, eating whole boxes of chocolates, and putting her head under the pillow to pretend her troubles don’t exist.” (Abramovic, 355)

I picked this book on a whim in a bookshop and fell in love with it. I like the writing, the concepts behind the art, the personal view of a now-destroyed Yugoslavia, but mostly I admire how Marina portrays herself. In her writing, there is no separation between the deeply personal and the professional. Marina gives as much attention to her work and successes at events like the Venice Biennale as to times that her boyfriends left her and she cried for days. She is incredibly aware of who she is, even when it is someone she doesn’t want to be, and she gives this same humanity to every family member or lover she describes. As I see it, this is the same gift she gives to art: she created a form of art that demands connection and interaction with the viewer. In many of her works- including her famous “The Artist is Present” exhibition at the MoMa- she connects her gaze and presence with whoever comes across from her. Her work isn’t distant like the Mona Lisa or the David, but painfully intimate. That visitors waited in line and occupied the chair across from her continuously for the 700 hour show is testament to the fact that it is a meaningful art fulfilling an untapped desire for connection.

Conclusion

What I admired about most of the authors I read this year is that none of them led perfect or glamorous (or arguably happy) lives. Marina Abramovic, world famous artist, contends with ageing and growing old alone at the end of her book. Treya Wilbur doesn’t even make it out alive in her story. The common thread is that all of them turned their lives into works of art and didn’t exclude the messy, seemingly contradictory parts in the process. If I can hope for one thing as I wrap up 2019, it is this: to accept all of the experiences, let go of the heroic and perfect images I hoped for instead, and to realize that experience is no less valuable and worth sharing because it is contradictory and human.