August Books Two: Nonfiction, Modern Classics, a Utopia, and a Poetry Collection

 Carrying on from yesterday's post, these are the rest of the books I read in August. There were a few nonfiction titles in my post yesterday, but those haven't yet been published--at least not here. The other two nonfiction books I read--one history and one memoir--have been out in the world for a while now.

Vertigo: The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany by Harald Jähner (borrowed from library)

The book does exactly what the subtitle says it will, which is trace the history of the Weimar era in Germany from the end of WWI to the rise of Hitler. Jähner looks at various aspects of culture, from gender roles, ideas about morality, family, art, design, film, popular culture of various kinds, music, sport, economics, industry, and more. As this era progresses, the backlash grows--we know where things ended up. This is a fascinating book and one that is sadly relevant today as backlash and magical thinking is once again leading to increased oppression, violence, the removal of basic human rights, and authoritarianism even in places where people thought it could never happen. This book is yet another reminder (how many of these do humans actually need, I wonder) that people are people and these things can happen anywhere. Of course, the specific ways this kind of thing will unfold will be unique in many ways to the cultures that are deteriorating, but the overarching methods used to manipulate people remain the same as do some of the messages these authoritarians use to manipulate people. I became interested some years ago at how alike supporters of the Nazis and supporters of the current US president sound when they talk about their adoration of their sad little leader. This book adds to my foundation of understanding as to how they come to fall under the spell of such people. It's an excellent read.

Timecode of a Face by Ruth Ozeki (BorrowBox audiobook)

I was clicking around the BorrowBox site one evening looking for an audiobook. I decided to give this one a try. It was surprisingly fascinating. Ruth Ozeki describes an assignment given by an art professor to look at a piece of art for three hours. Being a Buddhist, she also remembered a koan--what did your face look like before your parents were born. She sits down in front of a mirror and looks at her face for three hours, noticing physical things about herself, but also letting memories drift through her mind. Noticing that a part of her face is like her mother's, for example, memories arise. Being of Japanese ancestry and a small child in the US just after WWII, some of her memories are quite painful. Others are joyful. This is the case for every life, of course. This is a short book, which I listened to on audio, which I think made the experience even more enjoyable. The author herself reads it, which is excellent. I'm really glad I gave this one a try. I loved it.

I read a couple of modern classics last month as well.

The Glass Pearls by Emeric Pressburger (borrowed from the library)

This book has been reissued by Faber and Faber and has many autobiographical elements woven through the story. In the book, we're following Karl Braun, a piano tuner who is newly arrived at a boarding house in London. Everyone assumes he's someone who fled from the Nazis, but it's soon clear that this is not the case at all. He's fleeing from Nazi hunters because he's on the list of people they want to find. He becomes increasingly paranoid as it becomes clear that someone is looking for him and his behavior becomes more reckless. Through his own thoughts, we learn about his previous life and his work during the war as a doctor, which he justifies as being scientifically valuable and important. The tension increases at a steady pace and the ending is surprising and satisfying.

Good Behaviour by Molly Keane (my copy)

This is the first book Molly Keane published under her own name rather than a pen name and it came after a 30 year break from publishing. It may be her most well-known novel. Keane was an Irish writer who, in this book, writes about an Anglo-Irish family that is quite dysfunctional. The book is narrated by Aroon St. Charles, who is close to her brother Hubert and her father, but has a very bad relationship with her mother. They don't seem to like each other much, although Aroon also wants her mother to care about her. Her father is an amputee since the war and has tried to deal with his traumas by spending money they don't have and getting involved with women other than his wife. Her mother is an artist who is more interested in painting than her kids and is especially disappointed in Aroon who is tall, large, and has a big appetite. Aroon herself is trying to navigate class expectations about good behaviour with the reality that money is in short supply. She's basically someone who doesn't fit in anywhere. The book opens with the death of her mother and then moves backwards in time to relate the history of this family and the few people who've worked for them and lived with them. It was an excellent book, which I picked up in a charity shop. I have an earlier book by Kean, which was written under her pen name, so I still have that to look forward to.

There was one classic utopia in my reading list last month.

Looking Backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy (read on the Serial Reader app)

I'd heard about this book and was intrigued as I often am by old books that are set in a future time. It's always interesting to see what they thought life would be like. I've read several dystopias, but not may uptopias. This one was apparently very popular and influential at the time of publication, but it seemed ridiculous to me and I suspect that if I hadn't been reading it in small chunks each day, I wouldn't have finished it. One thing I did find interesting was how similar this utopian thinking is to the ideas put forward by the left wing today. Don't get me wrong--I am a lefty in spirit and I think that the ideas are often good ones, whether they're being promoted by people today or in books like this. If these ideas came to be, the world would be a much better place to inhabit in so many ways. But rationally, I know that humans are not like this in general and the kinds of societies dreamed of are not the kinds that humans would build, accept, or keep alive. This is why these ideas are called utopian, I guess. Nowhere have they been and nowhere shall they be. In this book, Julian West, a wealthy guy impatient to be married and annoyed at the workers' strikes that are delaying the construction of his house and thus his wedding, suffers from insomnia. He builds himself an underground chamber to help with this problem and one night, after dinner with his future wife and her family, goes to sleep. It's 1887. When he wakes up, he has no idea where he is and is shocked to discover that it's now 2000 and he has recently been discovered in his bedroom, where his metabolism had slowed to such an extent that he is still alive and kicking 113 years after he went to bed. The book is basically him learning what Boston (and the US and the world) is like now and why it's so much better than his time. The book is good at pointing out the ridiculous aspects of society, but it's very preachy and, considering human behavior throughout history, extremely ridiculous. 

Finally, I read an excellent poetry collection.

What the Earth Seemed to Say by Marie Howe

I heard this poet in an interview and before it was done, I'd been to the library website to place my request. I was not disappointed. This is a beautiful collection of poetry that speaks to so many aspects of life, from the everyday tasks of cooking, taking a child to school, running errands and more, to larger existential issues like climate change and the death of a loved one. There were one or two poems I didn't much care for, but such is the nature of any collection. Overall, I loved this book. Here's a poem from the very beginning that spoke to me.

And that wraps up my reading for August. I hope that, whatever you're reading, it's enjoyable.

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