Some time ago I read an article online, now lost to the pits of the internet found it! about libraries weeding books. All through reading P.S. Your Not Listening, I kept coming back to that thought of weeding. Would I weed this book? Or would I let it be, with the understanding that it’s a product of its time? On one side, it’s an sweet, slightly bland, story about a teacher’s first year working with “unteachable” kids. On the other side, it’s from the 1970s, the language is dated (mongoloid, retarded, etc.), and other than a testimony of its own existence, there’s not a lot of depth there. Or, I suppose there is depth there but, it’s not the depth that was put there at the time of writing, but rather reading the book now, from a 2016 perspective, man, being a working woman was awful back in the 1970s. Sure, it’s fine for your husband to go out for drinks in the evening, but if you’ve got a work meeting in the evening, well then, aren’t you just cutting into family time. Aren’t you just a lousy wife and mother, which should always come first.

So yay second wave feminism.

But, yeah, probably not the point of the book.

So weed or not? Clearly, as it’s being republished in 2016, there’s an argument for letting it lie. But, as for a purpose in the larger universe of books, I’m not sure. Short and quick to read (although did she get consent from the kids she’s writing about? How much exactly is fictionalized? I guess that’s another whole issue to consider with this book), interesting from a sociological/historical standpoint, but also dated. Hedge-clippers or not, you be the judge.

P.S. Your Not Listening by Eleanor Craig was re-released on May 13, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Maybe I don’t get comic books. I always think I’m going to like them more than I end up doing. Like Private Beach, which seemed like it would be kind of quirky and sullen, but in a good, spooky way, and then just reads like an idea of a story rather than a story itself. The “newly added resolution” didn’t help much (maybe, like comic books, resolution is something I don’t get either). The idea of the story, I liked that. I liked that a lot. But it’s just a throw-away. There’s more time spent in having the main characters neg on strangers and generally be misanthropic.

Time speeding up so [undetermined creatures] can feed on our misery faster! How can you just dangle that in front of us and then just go back to pedestrian twenty-somethings trying to be hipster ironic and cool? It grates on me to have such a good idea squandered.

Private Beach by David Jerome Hahn went on sale July 20, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I read this book in one day, in one sitting. Even with the gaps, the lacking years, the bits and pieces that are missing, it’s a full life of a story. An antithetical to our current need to know everything, to dredge up everything, to consume ourselves with the misery of others. What happened in the truck? Or with her father? Or with snakes? We can drive ourselves crazy with the desire to know everything, or, instead, we can wrap ourselves up with what we have, a story like a blanket: a mother visiting her daughter in the hospital. We aren’t there. This story is for the characters and we are already greedily enough peeking in.

Take all you can from My Name is Lucy Barton. Even in its slightness, whole worlds exist.

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout went on sale January 12, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Do I need to put Spoiler Alert for a novel-in-verse originally published two hundred years ago? Because likely Spoiler Alert.

Me: So I finished Yevgeny Onegin.

Geoff: And?

Me: They still don’t end up together in this translation.

Geoff: So what, you’re holding out for a translation where they do?

Me: (shifty gaze) Maybe.

I’ve read Yevgeny Onegin before, and seen the opera (actually in the opposite order in that I saw the opera first then read the book), so I knew what was coming reading this translation. I can’t really recall any issues with the translation I read fifteen years ago, not that I could tell you who was the translator of that version. This translation also seems fine (not being a student of comparative literary translations I doubt I could say much of anything intelligent contrasting such translations in any case). The stanzas rhyme (unlike Nabokov’s version, not that I’ve read that version), so of course I’ve spent the last few days bouncy-bouncy-talking in iambic tetrameter as the rhythm has invaded my brain.

What may be lacking are explanatory notes. It’s been a long time since my Russian literature course. I could remember some things, but others, a footnote or two would have been nice. But maybe the audience for another translation of Yevgeny Onegin are people who already know a whole lot about nineteenth century Russia and mayn’t need such help. But I did. Not enough to ruin my overall enjoyment of the book/poem, but every now and then I had to stop and try to remember what something meant or put it out of my mind that I didn’t know.

But Onegin — he seemed less dickish to Tatyana in this version than I remembered, but far more dickish to Lensky. I guess that’s the point, him being a superfluous cad and all. Still doesn’t change the fact that I secretly hope him and Tatyana will get together at the end of the poem. Or, at least in the book/poem, Onegin throws himself to the ground wailing as he does in the operatic version I saw, at the realization of all he could have had, all that he threw away so carelessly, tearing his shirt open and crying. Instead, Onegin gets rebuffed, Tatyana stalks out, Onegin is like “Oh, okay, I guess” and then Tatyana’s husband walks by The End. But that’s more Pushkin’s fault than Briggs’, so I guess I’ll let that slide.

Onegin, fall to your knees in overwrought operatic emotion. Aah, be still my heart.

Yevgeny Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, a new translation by A.D.P. Briggs went on sale July 12, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I requested this book from Netgalley in part because the author’s name reminded me of my Calculus textbook. Where is my Calculus textbook? In Geoff’s office maybe? I’m sure there are worse reasons for requesting a book.

So Unspeakable Things, a book which has a Nazi transvestite pedophile mad-scientist masturbating to a picture of Adolf Hitler. I’d put that as the byline if I were the publisher: Read a description of a Nazi transvestite pedophile mad-scientist masturbating to a picture of Adolf Hitler! Limited time only!

There are musicians in this book and, as I read, I thought of the word fantaisie, as a musical term rather than a description of something unreal with dwarves and hobbits and lines and lines of italicized poetry. A fantaisie eschews the rules of strict musical form, like Marc Chagall as a symphony. I think Unspeakable Things was written to be like a word fantasie, a novel by a painting by Marc Chagall. Time, physics, consequences, logic be damned. The Gypsy King meets with one who may be the Grand Vizier of the Freemasons in the New York Public library to plea the case for his people. This is the sort of nonsense (not derogatory, just literally outside the realm of sense) Unspeakable Things engages in.

Did I like it? I don’t know.

Is it well written? I don’t know.

When one exists in a fantastical space, what rules of criticism apply?

I don’t know.

Unspeakable Things by Kathleen Spivack went on sale January 26, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

When an ostracized and mocked teen starts a blog revealing her classmate’s secrets, what is our every-person narrator supposed to do?

I asked my seven year old, after reading the book to her. Her response I don’t know. That probably makes sense, as this book is targeted at, I’d say, the middle-school crowd (complete with vocab and questions at the end for study in the classroom! Which is probably great for a teacher, but I’d have a hard time believing that an eleven year old is going to be enthused about picking up a book only to find homework at the end). I did try to get some of my seven year old’s thoughts as we read through. She said the other kids were mean to Agnes. That even so Agnes shouldn’t have stolen their secrets. That she didn’t understand why Agnes just didn’t act normal to make the kids like her (I’m kind of worried about that response, but she’s seven so maybe she hasn’t developed as much abstract-empathy-thinking-brain-a-doodle stuff as an eleven year old. In any case, I’m going to re-read Franny K. Stein to her to reiterate the importance of not just being what other people want you to be).

The tone of the book is a bit moralistic, which is the point, but not too preachy. The ethical dilemmas presented are all basically simplistic with set answers (don’t be mean to odd kids, don’t steal things, speak up for what is right, don’t judge people without getting to know them first, two wrongs don’t make a right, etc.), which is expected given the target audience. I found it hackneyed, the nameless, genderless, every-person narrator, but I understand that it’s so that the YA reader can put herself as the narrator. It’s a decision that Cheng made, probably because most of us are bystanders rather than the bullied or bully, so the story could appeal to the broadest group of readers. But having the narrator a step back from some of the action means there’s a lot of telling what’s going on with other characters. If it were a trial, most everything would be thrown out as hearsay; and I’d rather hear from Agnes (the bullied) and Leah (the bully) more than nameless. Or to have some of the conflicts a bit less cut-and-dry. But it’s YA. The whole point of YA is that nuance is only as developed as the teen/pre-teen audience.

Edge the Bare Garden is pure YA, doesn’t claim otherwise, or pretend to be more than that. It’s meant for a classroom setting, full of middle schoolers rolling their eyes and acting tough as the teacher reads it aloud and gives journal prompts, but it’ll likely get through to some. Hopefully.

Edge the Bare Garden by Roseanne Cheng went on sale September 15, 2015.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.