The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik

Book #224 of 2020:

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik

This 2015 book is a solid overview of the major events in the life and career of the titular Supreme Court justice, and a bittersweet read in the wake of her recent passing. It’s not nearly as comprehensive or as linear as I would prefer for a biography, and the fawning profile is probably not the most objective analysis of her complicated judicial record, but it recounts some of her signature achievements and captures why she’s become such a personal icon for so many on the political left (despite once being praised as a moderate and favoring a less popular incrementalist approach to reform). I’d recommend the title for younger readers, or for anyone else looking for a general introduction to this extraordinary woman.

[Content warning for sexism and antisemitism.]

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: The Silver Arrow by Lev Grossman

Book #223 of 2020:

The Silver Arrow by Lev Grossman

There’s a fun Diana Wynne Jones-meets-Norton Juster vibe to the start of this children’s fantasy novel, in which a bored eleven-year-old girl and her nine-year-old brother are gifted a life-sized magical steam train by their eccentric uncle. The ensuing adventure doesn’t quite live up to its potential, however — there’s no particular motivation or larger plot driving the characters, few moments in which they make proactive choices to guide events, and not enough imaginative wonder or interesting worldbuilding that might distract from those other issues. Younger readers will likely still enjoy the ride, but I doubt it will become a favorite.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram

Book #222 of 2020:

Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram (Darius the Great #2)

This YA sequel is another fantastic #ownvoices slice-of-life narrative, following its overweight and depressed Persian-American teen hero after he returns home from his visit to Iran in the first book. Even more so than that initial volume, it’s hard to summarize events here succinctly: Darius is back at school and facing a number of struggles, but there’s very little of an overarching storyline or personal arc. Still, he’s well-realized as a narrator, enjoyable to witness, and easy to root for, with so many details that ring true yet are not often seen in fiction. It’s incredibly refreshing to encounter a novel where consent is emphasized in both sexual and nonsexual contexts, where strangers’ genders are not automatically assumed, and where a variety of queer identities are an intrinsic part of the social landscape.

This title also reveals that the protagonist himself is gay, a fact which was hinted at but not explicitly confirmed before. I do think it’s a bit strange that we jump forward to Darius being out and having a boyfriend when his sexuality went unmentioned for so long, but I love how comfortable he is and how supportive his friends and family generally are. There is still homophobia in this setting, just like there’s still fatphobia and racism (and transphobia, against some supporting characters), but as with the mental health issues, this is never the most important challenge defining anyone. Sorting out feelings toward two potential romantic interests who each have realistic good qualities and bad is given greater priority, which feels about right for a high schooler.

Because the plot is so minimal, I honestly can’t tell whether this is supposed to close out the series or not, but if author Adib Khorram can continue to write this level of quality, I am happy to come back to it again and again.

[Content/spoiler warning for death of a grandparent.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph by T. E. Lawrence

Book #221 of 2020:

Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph by T. E. Lawrence

This 1926 memoir was the inspiration for the classic movie Lawrence of Arabia, about a British soldier’s experiences aiding the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks. I haven’t seen the film, and I also don’t know a whole lot about that moment in history, each of which I suspect may have limited my appreciation for this text (in addition to a few issues I’ll get to below). Author T. E. Lawrence certainly seems to be writing for an audience already familiar with the big picture of the conflict, such that his ground-level view of the battlefield is rarely contextualized with any military strategy or particular objectives driving events.

And there’s so much bloody fighting here, although I personally prefer the quieter moments of ethnographic observation. It’s a frankly numbing degree of combat detail, and I can see the book being a real boon to anyone interested in studying that element of the war. On the other hand, the writer glosses over plenty of human suffering in these pages, and generally shows a cavalier attitude to the brown bodies around him. He is fine with slavery and with torture and sexual assault as a tactic — even brushing off his own in a memorable passage discussing his capture behind enemy lines — and is prone to broad racist statements about the different essential characters of white people and Arabs. Even when he’s not directly comparing foreigners to apes, lizards, and other animals, his perspective is firmly rooted in colonialist thought that is seldom self-reflectively examined or critiqued.

To some extent, I suppose this can all be brushed off as a sign of the times, but it doesn’t add up to an especially enjoyable tale for the modern reader. Lawrence is such a braggart about his exploits that I’m not sure we can entirely trust his narrative either; I’m reminded strongly of John Smith’s infamous Generall Historie of Virginia, which sensationalized and fabricated his own gory deeds. That’s another indicator that this account is probably best situated alongside scholarly works of the era, rather than automatically taken for straightforward and honest reporting.

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★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

Book #220 of 2020:

Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

Any new rendition of Beowulf is an achievement, but this modernized and feminist approach to the Old English epic is particularly exciting. Author Maria Dahvana Headley has retained the poetic structures of the original, with its internal rhymes, alliterations, and kennings, but she boldly challenges the preconceptions that most prior translators — almost exclusively men — have brought to the task. As she notes in her introduction, for instance, the figure of Grendel’s mother is typically rendered as a monster like her son, but her only physical descriptions in the surviving tenth-century manuscript are similar to those of Beowulf himself, such that although the Geat is traditionally framed as a champion and she an ogress, the proper term for each is probably something like “formidable.” In Headley’s version, this antagonist is restored to the stature of warrior queen: consumed by rage and set on revenge, but recognizably the swordsman’s equal in humanity.

That mentality of reinterpretation extends throughout the text, bringing a freshness echoed in the writer’s language. Headley uses the full breadth of Modern English to brilliant effect, nestling more archaic expressions alongside the latest slang. Thus she describes one scene as “a banquet unmatched in munificence,” yet elsewhere has her hero spit a verse in Lin-Manuel Miranda style:

“Every elder knew I was the man for you, and blessed
my quest, King Hrothgar, because where I’m from?
I’m the strongest and the boldest, and the bravest and the best.
Yes: I mean—I may have bathed in the blood of beasts,
netted five foul ogres at once, smashed my way into a troll den
and come out swinging, gone skinny-dipping in a sleeping sea
and made sashimi of some sea monsters.”

Or consider the very first word of this saga, the ancient interjection “hwæt,” a call to attention often glossed as “hark,” “listen up,” “behold,” or “so.” In Headley’s hands, it’s more colloquial yet, opening the tale with a plaintive, “Bro! Tell me we still know how to talk about kings!” Such lines encapsulate the poet’s take — faithful and subversive at once, hilarious and heartfelt as ever, carrying the story forward for a contemporary audience without losing sight of its essential nature. If you’ve read other translations of the poem before, it’s a delight to see the contrast here. If you haven’t, this is a great place to start.

★★★★★

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Book Review: The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie

Book #219 of 2020:

The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie (Miss Marple #2)

This second Miss Marple book (published as The Tuesday Club Murders in the U.S.) is a fun collection of short mystery stories, presented in the loose framework of a group of friends trying to stump one another with puzzling cases each has come across. It’s a type of detective fiction with very little detecting, just armchair deductions and a few pointed questions. The problems are not all solvable by a reader — especially one an ocean and almost a century away from their initial context — but the answers are generally clever, and author Agatha Christie livens up the proceedings by giving each member of the club a distinctive manner of laying out their contribution. And it’s neat to see the heroine of the hour, old Miss Marple herself, grow in estimation in everyone’s eyes as her insights and small-town observations on human nature lead her to the truth again and again.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Book #218 of 2020:

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Last Survivors #1)

I already loved this novel when I first read it five years ago, and I’ve only grown more appreciative over time. The narrator is a realistically flawed teenager, alternately moody and intensely caring, and her slice-of-life diary entries document a gripping yet gradual slide into disaster. I can’t speak to the science here — would an asteroid striking the moon at that angle really wreak such havoc on the earth’s tides and climate patterns? — but I like how the story narrowly focuses on a few survivors trying to navigate the ensuing chaos and dissolution of society, rather than presenting some epic conflict or full dystopian nightmare. (The later books in the series do eventually head in that direction, but I’m not planning on rereading them too, and this initial volume stands fine on its own.)

It’s also a great title to revisit during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, although I think I made the right decision to hold off on that in the early weeks of our crisis when supply lines seemed threatened and grocery purchases a huge risk. Food scarcity is a major issue for Miranda and her family, and author Susan Beth Pfeffer presents their dwindling rations in harrowing detail even when a reader isn’t staring down the same empty cupboards. But the household’s isolation and worries for the future are far more relatable than the writer could have ever imagined in 2006, and while our circumstances are not quite so dire, there’s a strength in fiction about people facing similar challenges and finding a way to get by.

[Content warning for disordered eating, suicide, and implied danger of sexual violence.]

★★★★★

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Book Review: I Killed Zoe Spanos by Kit Frick

Book #217 of 2020:

I Killed Zoe Spanos by Kit Frick

I love the idea of a (loose) YA retelling of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, but the danger in that sort of project is that I’m probably not going to enjoy the new take as much as I do the original. Here, for instance, although I like the true-crime podcast elements that author Kit Frick adds to the story, I find myself frustrated by the nonlinear structure and too removed from just what’s going on in the main heroine’s mind as she unwittingly retraces her vanished predecessor’s steps in the past and questions whether she herself is complicit in the girl’s death in the present. Ample red herrings keep the narrative somewhat unpredictable — and I appreciate that it doesn’t go in the groan-worthy direction that seems likely at one point — but I don’t have much patience for mysteries surrounding a protagonist’s own personal history that seem like they could be resolved for the reader with a single open conversation that characters have no clear motivation to avoid.

[Content warning for gaslighting and underage drug and alcohol abuse.]

★★★☆☆

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TV Review: The Office, season 2

TV #38 of 2020:

The Office, season 2

There may be better individual seasons of television than this, but I can’t think of another program that improves so much from its first year to its second (except maybe The Office’s spiritual descendant Parks and Recreation). The tweaks to the cringe-humor formula inherited from this show’s British predecessor are subtle, mostly involving a greater degree of humanity in and toward antagonist figures Michael and Dwight, but they pay dividends in making the titular workplace a fun spot to return to week after week. Those guys are still pretty awful as people, but they’re stronger as characters because the folks around them have been granted a grudging tenderness to include them in jokes and help them save face when their own worst impulses blow up. As a result, Michael’s inappropriate and awkward behavior as a boss is now generally undercut with his employees’ comedic riffing, rather than playing out in the more realistic extended silence of before.

That heightened tone also manifests in everyone’s personality being more richly drawn and hilarious. A few of the minor roles like Creed aren’t quite there yet, but overall we’re getting so many punchlines — both spoken and visual — that are generated from specific characterizations that simply weren’t present in the initial run. A hangout sitcom requires a cast that viewers will want to hang out with, and the writers provide that by leaning away from a grounded view of work as miserable drudgery and toward an interest in how it can be livened up in an absurdist setting. They’re settling into the particular rhythms of the mockumentary style too, with some inspired use of the camera as an additional player in events and the insertion of miniature ‘cold open’ sketches to get the energy up ahead of the credits.

Finally, this batch of episodes hooks its audience by unfolding shifting relational dynamics over time, which was then a relative novelty for a series like this. For the most part, these pairings are romantic in nature — as in the tender will-they-won’t-they of Jim and Pam, two friends doing their best to ignore the sparks between them, and whose connection represents the true heart of this season and several yet to come. They deservedly got top-billing in all the headlines, but no fewer than three other office relationships form here as well from developing characters first clicking into place with one another. Not all would last, but as a group they speak to a productive writing process willing to tinker with the status quo to find the most interesting configurations.

At the finest, these half-hours strike a balance between relatable situations we’d hate to be in and ridiculous scenarios we’d love to imagine, with coworkers who frustrate and delight in equal measure. It’s funny and charming and only occasionally devastating, and it’s a definite testament to why The Office was ultimately able to run for as long as it did.

★★★★★

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Book Review: Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

Book #216 of 2020:

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #3)

This novella is another fun outing with everyone’s favorite heavily-armed cybernetic introvert, but the events feel somewhat less significant for either the protagonist or the ongoing plot than the two previous installments. Even a filler adventure with Murderbot offers the usual delights of the grumpy A.I. wearily protecting its latest human associates, yet the lower stakes and the bot’s poor judgement at certain points in this volume hamper the overall exercise. I’m still on-board for the remaining sequels, though, in the hopes that they can recapture the series momentum.

★★★☆☆

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