Jonny Appleseed - Joshua Whitehead

I was fortunate enough to have Joshua Whitehead himself read me Jonny Appleseed on audiobook, and it was a treat. Whitehead’s voice is beautiful and melodic, and made the book even more enjoyable, even though I have nothing else to compare it to.

Jonny Appleseed is a coming of age story of the title character who is Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, living in Winnipeg, and working in the cybersex industry. He reflects upon his memories of growing up on rez, his relationship with his grandmother, mother, and friends/lovers from that recent past as he prepares to return for a funeral.

The writing is incredibly vivid, and I mean incredible. There are lots of sex scenes, many fluids are mentioned (if you are squeamish or prudish, it may not be for you), but even more memorable is one scene about nails being cut that to this very moment makes me skin crawl to think about the description of clippers and blood and skin. My only critique is the frequent display of sentimentality, grand speeches where characters disclose their love having kept their feelings bottled up for the preceding lifetime. And as much as I love a literary sex scene, they quickly become superfluous and never reach the graphic levels of, say, Marlon James’ explicit writing, which I was waiting and hoping for.

Lastly, I was struck by the similarities between Jonny Appleseed and Toni Morrison’s writing, with a direct quote from Beloved appearing somewhere along the way. The fact that these two texts might be in conversation with one another is fascinating and, in a way, inevitable. The exploration of the inherent kinship between Indigenous peoples and descendants of displaced Africans is well overdue, and emerging more and more.

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - Amos Tutuola

Without giving it a second thought, I have long instinctively said that my favourite novel of all time is Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. After it leaves my mouth, I always wonder to myself if it is actually true and if so, why?

After reading Amos Tutuola’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts I can at least answer the why: I love travel literature with a heavy helping of absurdity. In this novel, which is monumental for Nigerians, Africa, and the Western literary tradition for several reasons, follows a young boy (I believe he is only six years old at the start) who wanders accidentally into a bush populated by odd, fearsome, magical ghosts. Each chapter he makes his way to a new ghost town, or meets a new type of ghost community, or is transformed into some strange or familiar creature.

I had an absolute blast reading this. I could hardly put it down, and throughout lamented my childhood imagination that developed without this novel in its orbit. What would it have meant to have Yoruba fairytales be a part of imaginary and mythology from a young age, instead of only Harry Potter or Middle Earth? Tutuloa wrote several other novels, namely The Palm Wine Drinkard which is often hailed as his most successful. I can hardly wait to dive into that one and others. Move over Johnny Swift.

Plainwater - Anne Carson

Some months ago, before COVID-19, Anne Carson visited the University of Toronto, her alma mater (and mine!) to give a talk. Instantly, I was reminded of why I love Carson so much, and what it had meant to me as a young Classics student to come upon her work, which at the time seemed irreverent (and her academic peers would say as much), Queer, and had opened up a realm of possibility I hadn’t been able to previously consider.

With a sizeable body of work, I still haven’t read much of Carson. I started with Autobiography of Red, which remains excellent and singular, for me, in its ability to exploit the contemporary Classics trope. I then waited for months on a library waitlist to get my hands on NOX, which was visually and tactilely explosive to my mind, but otherwise disappointing.

In advance of her talk I picked up Plainwater, after reading a few good reviews online and hoping to have it signed. The talk was wonderful (you can experience it for yourself here), but she did not offer a book signing. I felt silly for purchasing a book for the hope alone of having it signed, so I set aside whatever else I happened t be reading at the time to read Plainwater instead.

And, what can I say, other than it does not compare to Carson’s previous work. That, and I believe the culture has shifted —at least from my perspective— to think of Classical reception in much broader terms which Plainwater, unfortunately, does not age well into. These days much I am more electrified by allusions to Phillis Wheatly than Mimnermos and Godot. I am also ravenous for critique, and nearly repulsed by unabashed affection towards these figures, whether they be philosophical or mythological, especially without contextualization.

The Memory Police - Yoko Ogawa

I began reading The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa the week my office, and most of the city, decided to temporarily close. I gladly welcomed the opportunity to embrace a dystopia through a novel, in an attempt to delay my own response to our own pandemic reality. 

The premise is simple: an unnamed protagonist lives on an anonymous island where things keep disappearing, sanctioned by the bureaucratic Memory Police. Oh, and she’s also a writer, so woven within the main narrative are selections from her own novel that mirror the plot. Very meta. 

Ogawa’s writing is simple and effective, occasionally beautiful, but mostly restrained. This would explain why it took me 7 long weeks, to finish this novel, and let me tell you, it was not worth it. It is not a long book (just shy of 300 pages) but the novelty of the disappearances wears thin about half way through, and by the end I found myself impatient and unsympathetic to characters I hardly got to know, who did and said so little, considering what was at stake.

The opposite is true for Ling Ma’s Severance, another dystopian novel that eerily mirrors our current moment. I began it last night and had to force myself to put it down and finally go to bed after several hours. More on that later!

Beloved - Toni Morrison

My audiobook journey continues with Toni Morrison’s Beloved which, I can say without a doubt in my mind, is the finest piece of literature I have ever consumed.

I don’t have much to say about the story itself, which I knew quite well before coming to this audiobook, and Morrison herself is someone for whom I harbour something beyond adoration. I didn’t quite understand who she was (still don’t) until I saw the documentary The Pieces I Am. I was struck, most of all, by her confidence, which was not at all boastful, but shockingly quiet. In the softest voice possible, she said something to the effect of “I write because I’m good at it, and better than most of my peers who try and fail to tell our stories.” I don’t think I’ll ever forget that, or its effect.

The version of Beloved I got a hold of was read by Morrison herself. An experience I did not prepare myself well enough for. I thought, well, I’ll finally read Beloved and I’ll do it with an audiobook which is faster, and passive, and I’ll be able to say I’ve done it. Nope. I was spellbound, completely. Her voice —I can’t explain it. I can hear her overbite, a slight lisp, an accent I can’t place, the pauses, the short and long syllables, the vocabulary, the imagery, I—. You know how certain folks say they reread so and so every year, but we all know it’s a lie, because which well read person would choose to reread the Republic or Bleak House every year when there is so much else to read? So many more ways to construct a sentence, to create a mythology, to describe a sigh? Still, I cannot wait until the day comes for me to reread Beloved. Perhaps not next year, but the time will come, and it cannot come soon enough.