The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman

Book #14 of 2021:

Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman (The Rabbi Small Mysteries #1)

This series has been on my radar for a while, and although I’m not sure I’m going to read all dozen volumes, the first one is pretty neat. It’s one of those stories in which a police investigation is aided by a civilian of nontraditional wisdom and insight, but instead of an elderly spinster like Miss Marple, the surprising hero here is the only rabbi in the small New England town where a young woman has just been found murdered. He’s briefly considered and dismissed as a suspect, and thereafter strikes up a friendship with the Irish Catholic detective in charge of the case.

The portrayal of Judaism in this book is a great example of accurate #ownvoices representation, all the more remarkable for having been written back in 1964. Lots of smaller details make me smile in recognition of temple life, and author Harry Kemelman does a good job of explaining Jewish things to his Christian characters and readers, like how our prayers are mostly grateful rather than petitionary (“Thank you for X” and not “Please provide Y”). Even the ugly antisemitism that the protagonist encounters feels textured from real experience, in contrast to the sort of simple Jew-hating bigotry I sometimes see gentile writers attempt.

With so much focus on incorporating these elements of authentic Jewishness into the narrative, the actual mystery plot often seems like an afterthought — and a foreword notes that it did in fact come late in the creative process, at an editor’s suggestion. I still enjoy the finished result a whole lot, but I think I might have liked the original vision for a novel about navigating simple congregation and community tensions even better.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Hound of Death by Agatha Christie

Book #13 of 2021:

The Hound of Death by Agatha Christie

A charmingly creepy departure for author Agatha Christie, who trades in her usual detective fiction for a dozen tales of the supernatural (or supernatural-adjacent). Normally when she’s written of things like possessions and premonitions, their reality is ultimately undermined Scooby-Doo-style by some more mundane explanation. Here instead, those psychic phenomena are largely either confirmed outright or left lingering in tense ambiguity. The whole volume is fairly short, so no story overstays its welcome, and the audiobook narrated by Christopher Lee is a particular delight. It’s a great read for fans of the writer or interested newcomers who don’t care as much for the mystery genre.

[Content warning for ableism and racism including slurs.]

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Justified, season 1

TV #4 of 2021:

Justified, season 1

I’m not thrilled with the first hour of this show about a trigger-happy US Marshal, which has a whole lot of white supremacist violence and rhetoric used as an apparent shorthand for villainy, I assume so that audiences can know which group of white gentiles are the good guys and which group of white gentiles are the bad guys. (I’m sorry, but even for a decade ago, it’s in supremely poor taste to have characters stand in front of swastika flags and discuss their hatred of blacks and Jews when the series cast has one African American character with barely any screentime and no Jewish people whatsoever. We’re not just ideological props to justify the use of deadly force.) There’s no real effort to grapple with the dynamic that draws many actual law enforcement officers to join Neo-Nazi type movements, either; viewers are supposed to simply accept that Raylan and his colleagues abhor Boyd’s message like anyone should.

So that sets me off on the wrong foot, and I’m honestly not sure how much more of it I could have taken. But programs often adjust their formula following the pilot, and in this instance, that thankfully means that the bigotry is scaled way way down (although there remain plenty of slurs, mainly racist and homophobic). When that initial antagonist reappears, he’s still a dangerous backwoods killer, but he’s no longer blowing up black churches or complaining that Jews control the banks. The writers also do a nice job of balancing the loosely serialized elements like his rising threat vs possible reform with a fun case-of-the-week structure — which appears mostly to exist in order to give a talented pool of guest stars the chance to try on their best Kentucky accents and roll around in the delightfully colorful dialogue.

Episode by episode, this is a drama that I’m finding entertaining and engaging, full of complex simmering family conflicts, and after Deadwood and Santa Clarita Diet, I’d pretty much watch Timothy Olyphant in anything. It has some early growing pains, but we seem to have gotten past them well before the end of this debut year, and I’m excited to see where the broader story heads next.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty

Book #12 of 2021:

The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty

An interesting but digressive text, blending personal memoir and genealogical research with an effort to trace the roots of southern cuisine through enslaved and free black traditions. Author Michael W. Twitty’s passion for the project is evident at every point, as is his distinctive perspective as a gay black Jewish chef, and I like his insistence on centering oral histories even when they are not yet supported by any known physical evidence (especially since, as he shows, they often later turn out to be). On the other hand, I find his jumps from topic to topic in this book difficult to follow at times, and am frequently dissatisfied to realize he’s left one narrative thread behind to pick up another with no apparent awareness that the former seems somewhat incomplete. It’s an informative read regardless, full of hard truths about slavery and shamefully obscure details regarding the African American impact on our national palate, but I think I would have preferred a more straightforwardly organized approach.

[Content warning for racism including slurs and mention of rape.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford

Book #11 of 2021:

Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford

[CW: sexual assault. I’m not sharing the cover of this book, out of concern that it may be triggering.]

Author Lacy Crawford’s first nonfiction title offers powerful testimony on the way she was treated as an underage girl at a prestigious boarding school in the 1990s: lured to an upperclassman’s room, brutally assaulted by him and another senior, shamed into keeping it quiet, and maligned by an administration that refused to take her eventual report seriously and hold either itself or the attackers accountable. Her tale is distressingly familiar — even at the same academy, further covered-up rapes from students and faculty have since been revealed — and the writer’s afterword directly identifies her experience with that of Christine Blasey Ford, who famously accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of assaulting her as a teen only to see him confirmed to the bench regardless.

There’s no need to relitigate the various arguments put forth in 2018 to attempt to discredit Dr. Ford, but that context is crucial for understanding why Crawford hasn’t previously spoken out publicly about her abuse and why even in this memoir, she uses pseudonyms for her classmates. Despite the widespread #MeToo movement of people sharing their stories and the exhortations to believe women and other victims when they come forward like that, our culture is full of patriarchal contrarians looking to poke holes, as though trauma responses can be expected to function logically, memory for smaller details is perfect, and crimes always leave clear evidence behind.

Perhaps to get ahead of those critiques, the author admits she is not a flawless survivor. She had been sexually active before that night. She foolishly put herself into the situation. She didn’t struggle enough or call out for help. She didn’t tell anyone what had happened right away. She wondered if she had somehow been ‘asking for it.’ Hopefully, however, any reader can see through these early protestations to detect where true culpability lies, as she herself now can.

Accounts like this one are so important, both as part of a lengthy healing process for the teller and to shine a light on the institutions which continue to enable privileged young men in particular to act on their entitlement in horrifying ways without feeling the consequences. Lacy Crawford writes evocatively of her high school years and the long shadow that fell over them, and although it can be hard to face her raw pain head-on, I hope it acts as a deterrence for future silencings and the cruelty they hide.

[Content warning for racism, gun violence, and domestic abuse.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans

Book #10 of 2021:

Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans

An interesting survey read, albeit with less of a narrative throughline than I would have expected. Author Claire L. Evans presents a history of the internet’s development that focuses on its female pioneers and participants, but there’s little beyond gender linking e.g. the early online bulletin-board communities in one chapter with the designers of computer games for young girls in another.

The best part about this book is how much appears to be original research that the writer has assembled by painstakingly tracking down older netizens to record their memories; the worst is probably how the first third of the text consists largely of well-trodden stories of pre-network thinkers like Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper (which is not necessarily outside the scope of the project, but does suggest that another title may have been more appropriate for it). As a child of the late 80s, I’ve enjoyed recognizing touchstones of my digital youth herein, but I wouldn’t really call it a definitive account.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

Book #9 of 2021:

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

Although author Cory Doctorow’s debut novel doesn’t indulge in the patronizing moralism of some of his later works, its edgy nihilism is nevertheless nearly as tiresome. There’s a neat concept here about an “adhocracy” stepping in to keep a beloved theme park running in a post-scarcity, post-corporate, post-death society, but the power struggles that make up the majority of the actual plot often feel petty and cruel. Even my own love of Walt Disney World and enjoyment of finding a story set there can’t save the mess.

This book also has a strong undercurrent of sexism to it, from the century-old protagonist dating a woman a fraction of his age to how she and the other female characters are physically described and frequently end up stripped. I suspect the writer in 2003 may have still been developing his voice and mimicking older genre figures like Heinlein with their own gender issues, but the result is an obnoxious throwback that gets in the way of the interesting ideas it should ideally be showcasing.

[Content warning for suicide and ableism.]

★★☆☆☆

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TV Review: Kim’s Convenience, season 2

TV #3 of 2021:

Kim’s Convenience, season 2

A slight improvement over the first year of this Canadian sitcom, both by making Appa a bit less caustically opinionated and by finally introducing some plot developments at the end of the season that speak to exciting shake-ups ahead. For now, though, it’s a lot of status quo, with little sign of the ongoing storylines or character growth that usually help draw me into a series. (I hate the sense that a show’s episodes could basically be watched all out of order to no detriment or confusion, and that’s roughly the case here.) I’m still enjoying most of these half-hour installments individually, but the program has yet to really wow me as a whole.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis

Book #8 of 2021:

The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia #3)

This is one of my favorite Narnia installments, in part because it’s an odd misfit even for such a haphazard and eclectic series. The fifth volume to be written, it’s also the first time author C. S. Lewis revisits an earlier era as a prequel (followed thereafter by The Magician’s Nephew, which of course goes back quite further). It’s essentially a “midquel” too, taking place in the portion of his original story The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when the four Pevensie siblings have temporarily grown up to be kings and queens of the realm. And they make an appearance here, but only as very minor characters, which is a delightful refocusing of narrative attention. We barely see any of their proper Narnian demesne either, instead concerning ourselves with the neighboring countries of Archenland and Calormen.

Shasta’s tale there is interesting and exciting, and his gradually thawing relationship with Aravis strikes me as an improved version of what Lewis has previously attempted via the protagonists in The Silver Chair. Moreover, it’s refreshing how little of the customary thinly-disguised Christianity is around for once; I think anyone reading this novel on its own wouldn’t suspect the writer’s usual approach or read into Aslan as a Jesus figure at all. On the downside, the Calormene people and culture represent a bundle of lazy Middle Eastern stereotypes, and it’s hard not to conclude a racist intent behind how their dark-skinned barbarism is portrayed. It turns out the most Christian thing about The Horse and His Boy is the Islamophobia!

In terms of other problematic content, this is a children’s book that opens on slavery and corporal punishment, and later includes references to suicide, incest, child brides, and similar forced marriage. Those elements again separate the text from its fellows, but it’s admittedly heavy material for a swashbuckling adventure that so prominently features a talking horse.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F. C. Yee

Book #7 of 2021:

The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F. C. Yee (The Epic Crush of Genie Lo #1)

This is a fun little #ownvoices YA novel, a contemporary fantasy featuring the Chinese folk hero Sun Wukong the Monkey King. I’m not terribly familiar with that character, so I can’t speak to the accuracy of his portrayal here, but my impression is that the story simply brings him and his associates into the present for a new adventure, instead of retelling one of his classic tales. He’s also less of a focus than the titular heroine, a high-achieving sixteen-year-old volleyball player who somehow turns out to be the reincarnation of his magic elongating staff and is initially more interested in college prep than in rejoining his fight against demons.

I’m not a big fan of that Buffy trope that gives a teenage girl a centuries-old romantic interest, but there’s enough of a charming goofiness to both his characterization and the wider plot around these two protagonists that it’s easy to just roll with the premise and enjoy their prickly banter. Debut author F. C. Yee never overloads the exposition, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he does with the Avatar Kyoshi novels he wrote after this.

★★★★☆

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