Two major novels of note:
Heretics – Leonardo Padura
Translated by Anna Kushner
The back of the book alluded to Padura being “Cuba’s Gabriel Garcia Marquez” – which is quite the statement. Heretic’s is a novel of Jewish diaspora masquerading as a crime novel set across a vast span of time and locations. 17th century Italy, 1940s Europe, and Havana in 2008, this one dragged me all over three distinct story lines that seemed to have nothing in common with one another until the end of the final act. Through it all? A fabled, valued Rembrant painting that is more valued and well-travelled than anyone who is likely to read this page.
Padura has numerous novels under his belt and Cuba’s national literature award, but this is the only novel of his that I could find with an English Translation. Definitely worth the read.
<script
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data-sku="9780374537395"></script> American Spirits – Russel Banks
Published post humously (Banks died in 2023) his latest and last novel that read quickly, but not quickly enough. I chewed through it in two afternoons but you could predict the outcome of each of the interconnected stories from the first page or two.
Nothing ends well for these people, which is what we more or less expect out of our current political landscape. This is the first I’ve read from Banks, which might have been a problem – was I expecting something different? More? Something crafted with a scalpel instead of a sledge? It reminds me of the thousand-and-one stories with “Love in the time of Coronavirus” penned during the early days of the pandemic, when we were still locked down and figuring everything out. Most of the authors hadn’t bothered reading past the title, and the rest needed to let the events settle a little before they weave into a tapestry of story.
I guess the same goes here. Fiction isn’t great for current events – something Franzen talked about at length in Why Bother? Maybe this is one of those books where the editor took it upon himself to finish the job after Banks died?
<script
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data-sku="9780593536773"></script> The Lying Life of Adults – Elena Ferrante
Halfway through this one. I’m trying to read as much of Ferrante’s body of work before every last page is adapted into film or TV (this one having premiered as a series on Netflix at the end of 2022 – in Italian and everything). Why is it that I truly enjoy reading Italian novels translated into English? I’m a fan of everything Ferrante publishes, and I’m about ready to re-read Virgine Despentes Subutex series.
Figuring – Maria Popova
After a year and a half, I am still working through this book1. It’s under 500 pages, but it is so damn dense with crisscrossing biographies, thought patterns, and the revelatory histories of prominent thinkers. Built in the same fashion as her popular website/ blog – The Marginalia (formerly Brain Pickings), Popova takes us from the early days of astronomy all the way up to our modern scientific advancements and how love, women, poetry, and public perception melded everything together.
- I assure you I am by no means a slow reader. I started in on heavily annotating this book at the end of 2023. Figuring I’d have plenty of time in transit, I packed it with me on our trip to Scotland in early February 2024. I was about halfway through a close read, with heavy notes lining all of the pages, when I managed to leave my copy of Figuring on the train between London and Glasgow. I put the project on ice until we got back to the states, where I acquired a used copy and started over. On the upside, there is definitely an added bonus to re-reading the first half. Also, someone in Scotland now has a copy of this book with my notes in it. If that’s you, holler! ↩︎