Recent Reading

If on a Winter’s Night (Italo Calvino): This is the most self-conscious novel I have ever read. The way the story it told continually makes the reader aware that he/she is reading a novel throughout the story, or the many plotlines that are begun and re-begun and woven together to form the semblance of a story. This is certainly the only novel I have ever read of its kind, and worth reading if just to have had the experience of reading a book that refuses to suspend disbelief in such a deliberate way.

A Day Called Hope (Gareth O’Callaghan): Superficially, this book is the author’s first-person account of his battle with depression. However, the fact that he writes it himself actually detracts from the book, in my opinion, as he ends up writing it more as his own personal “guide” for how to overcome depression. The problem is that the basis for this book, if it is to be read as a guide, is that because this program of health and happiness works for him, it should work for anybody. While he does make some good points regarding depression, he tends to make too many universal claims, ignoring the fact that depression is actually a very individualized condition and every sufferer may not show the same symptoms or respond well to the same sorts of treatment. I also found his attempts to make the book chronological while instructional tedious. “Just pick a format,” I wanted to shout at him. “Either write an autobiographical account of your struggle, or write a self-help book. Stop trying to do both!”

Saving Fish From Drowning (Amy Tan): Despite this novel being written by one of my favorite authors, I am currently being disappointed in her latest work. It is narrated by a dead character, but this added viewpoint seems somewhat unnecessary, and I have spent two thirds of the novel (what I have read thus far) waiting to find out why Amy Tan has chosen Bibi (the dead narrator) to tell the story rather than just making the narrator omniscient. Also, the story is set in Burma (now called Mayanmar, as I learned through my reading) and focuses on a group of Americans, as opposed to Tan’s usual tendency to write about China and its native inhabitants. In short, if you want a good representation of Amy Tan’s best writing, I’d stick to The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, or even The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Those novels best encapsulate her style and make use of her cultural knowledge.