Ursula: Moving through 2023 with Books and Music (pt 4)

Konstantin-Basilikum, Trier. This was Constantine's throne room, built in 310. It is the largest surviving single room not supported by pillars.

Hello from Germany! I'm Ursula, 52 years old. I've been married to my husband Morgan for 12 years. We're both native Californians, but we have moved a lot beginning in 2013 due to his job as a mathematician in academia. We left Istanbul at the end of March and moved to Kaiserslautern, Germany.

In 2022, I managed to read 62 books. That's just slightly short of my hoped-for goal of 65 but you know, that's how it goes sometimes. Morgan and I also do various album-listening projects together, we are currently working through best of 2022 lists and a "best albums of the 1980s" list. On my own, I'm doing various other lists including the 1001 Albums to listen to before you die and the Rolling Stone 500 best albums. I post an update on my listening weekly, and on my reading whenever I manage to finish something.

Books Read in 2023

     
.... January .... Ocak .... Januar ....
Pines by Blake Crouch ☆☆☆☆
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan ☆☆☆☆
New Animal by Ella Baxter ☆☆☆☆1/2
At the Edge of the Woods by Masatsugu Ono ☆☆1/2
The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius, translation by Robert Graves ☆☆☆☆
The White Mosque by Sofia Samatar ☆☆☆1/2

      
.... February .... Şubat .... Februar ....
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner ☆☆☆☆
Kaçırılan Çocuk by Robert Louis Stevenson ☆☆☆1/2
The Italian by Shukri Mabkhout ☆☆1/2
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia ☆☆1/2
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet ☆☆☆
The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler ☆☆☆1/2
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca ☆☆☆

     
.... March .... Mart .... März ....
Our Wives under the Sea by Julia Armfield ☆☆☆☆
Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen ☆☆1/2
Death on Gokumon Island by Seishi Yokomizo ☆☆☆
Wayward by Blake Crouch ☆☆☆1/2
Ducks by Kate Beaton ☆☆☆☆1/2
Ghost Eaters by Clay McLeod Chapman ☆☆☆1/2

   
.... April .... Nisan .... April ....
Walking Practice by Dolki Min ☆☆☆
An Unlasting Home by Mai Al-Nakib ☆☆☆
Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal ☆☆☆ 1/2
Spare by Prince Harry ☆☆☆☆☆

    
.... May .... Mayıs .... Mai ....
Death Is Hard Work by Khaled Khalifa ☆☆☆☆
The Teller of Secrets by Bisi Adjapon ☆☆☆
Biography of X by Catherine Lacey ☆☆☆☆
Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka ☆☆☆ 1/2
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy ☆☆☆

       
.... June .... Haziran .... Juni ....
They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib ☆☆☆
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li ☆☆☆☆
The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji ☆☆☆
Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris
Murder Book by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell ☆☆☆
I Sing the Body Electric by Ray Bradbury ☆☆☆
Universal Harvester by John Darnielle ☆☆☆ 1/2
Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi ☆☆☆ 1/2

Abandoned
John Dies at the End by Jason Pargin

      
.... July .... Temmuz .... Juli ....
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai ☆☆☆☆
Kitty Language by Lili Chin ☆☆☆ 1/2
How To Be a Rule-Breaking Letterer by Huyen Dinh ☆☆ 1/2
Things We Found When the Water Went Down by Tegan Nia Swanson ☆☆☆
Glow by Ned Beauman ☆☆☆
Where Are Your Boys Tonight? by Chris Payne ☆☆☆☆ 1/2
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa ☆☆☆

      
.... August .... Ağustos .... August ....
The Golden Bowl by Henry James ☆☆☆☆
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai ☆☆☆☆ 1/2
No One Will Come Back for Us by Premee Mohamed ☆☆☆
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson ☆☆☆☆☆
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa ☆☆☆☆
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami ☆☆ 1/2
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson ☆☆☆ 1/2

     
.... September .... Eylül .... September ....
Devil House by John Darnielle
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
Honeybees and Distant Thunder by Riku Onda
Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

Currently Reading


Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis


Our Hideous Progeny C.E. McGill


The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

First line: They all look the same, hotel bars, even when they don't.

Our main character is a food critic. She is also a serial killer who eats part of her victims. She's telling her story from a prison, so we know right off the bat that she eventually gets caught.

The main thing I found interesting about this book is how deeply uncomfortable it can be reading a book like this written from a woman's point of view. There are so many topics, and methods of talking about those topics, that we're used to hearing from male characters but feel distasteful coming from women. Here you have the dispassionate, condescending attitude of a sociopath combined with frank descriptions of everything visceral - food, sex, murder, the workings of our bodies.

It was kind of interesting reading this while we are also working our way through the last season of Hannibal, because it kept making me think about the reception of a man who is convinced he knows everything versus a woman who feels the same way. Anyway, that may or may not be the point of the book, so let's just talk about it as a horror/thriller: it kept me turning the pages. It sometimes strained my disbelief-suspending muscles, but that's how it goes with this type of thing.

Quote: I thought it would be unappealing; rather, the hustle was energizing. I did some fancy strategizing and managed to monetize my blog - and can we for one moment ponder the violent deformity of that phrase, “monetize my blog”; it’s so grotesque that Diane Arbus could photograph it.

>5 ursula: Interesting start to your new thread. I hope autumn in Germany is treating you well.

>6 rocketjk: Thanks! So far it's the good part of autumn, temperatures are a little lower but it's not dark and raining all the time yet.

Weekly 5x5



Clube da Esquina - Milton Nascimento & Lô Borges [MPB (Música popular brasilera)] (1001 Albums list)
Singles Going Steady - Buzzcocks [punk rock] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Brand New Soul - Angel Du$t [alternative] (new releases) +
American Idiot - Green Day [pop punk] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
John Prine - John Prine [singer/songwriter] (1001 Albums list) ♡

There Will Be Fireworks - There Will Be Fireworks [alternative] (self pick) +
The Meadowlands - Wrens [indie rock] (self pick) +
Mr. Money with the Vibe - Asake [afrobeats] (2022 lists)
#1 Record - Big Star [rock] (1001 Albums list) ♡
In Utero - Nirvana [rock] (TrebleZine 100 all-time favorite albums list) ♡

Laugh Track - The National [rock] (new releases) +
Music for the Masses - Depeche Mode [synth-pop] (200 Best Albums of the 80s list)
Transformer - Lou Reed [rock] (1001 Albums list)
The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We - Mitski [indie] (new releases)
Rite of Suffering - Moon Phase [rock] (new releases) ♡

Pink Moon - Nick Drake [folk] (1001 Albums list) +
This Nation’s Saving Grace - The Fall [post-punk] (200 Best Albums of the 80s list)
Illusory Walls - The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die [emo] (2021 review) ♡
Harvest - Neil Young [rock] (1001 Albums list) ♡
Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling - Slaughter Beach, Dog [folk] (Morgan’s pick, new releases)

Love Deluxe - Sade [r&b/azz] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
The 7th Hand - Immanuel Wilkins [jazz] (2022 lists)
Antisocialites - Alvvays [dream pop] (self pick) ♡
Pool Kids // POOL - Pool Kids & POOL [emo/punk] (self pick) ♡
Oblivion Will Own Me and Death Alone Will Love Me (Void Filler) - short fictions [emo] (new releases) / partial album ♡

----------------------------
******Notes on this week:

• Below the chart:
  Home Is Where the Music Is - Hugh Masekela (1001 Albums list)
  Honky Chateau - Elton John (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
  
  Skipped for recency:
  The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
  Whitney Houston - Whitney Houston (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
  


• Listened to the John Prine again even though it was previously on another list because I wanted to revisit it. And then there are Big Star, Paul Simon and Neil Young, all of which I know and love; I listened to them just for the pleasure of it.


• I really liked the Nick Drake, again. (I had never in my life listened to any of his albums before so this is a discovery.) I hadn't listened to American Idiot in years and years - it has its interesting points, and some good songs. But I just don't know that there's any reason for 9 minute long progressive Green Day songs. Transformer was like a study in contrasts, it was almost exactly one incredible song alternating with one ridiculous/terrible song all the way through.


• There Will Be Fireworks is a little like Frightened Rabbit with less self-loathing, and not just because of the heavy Scottish accent. I liked it. The National dropped a surprise second album for the year. Consensus seems to be that 1. this one is better than the first one and 2. you can combine them and cut out a lot to create a single good album. I dunno that I fully agree with that; I was one of the dozen or so people who liked the first album, and this one also seems pretty good. But I'll need to listen to it a couple of times to solidify my opinions. The new Mitski bored me to tears.

+ = added to my library
♡ = already in my library

Big Star was new to me. Loved it.

>9 dchaikin: I actually just asked Morgan if he would be okay with me getting a tattoo that said "Would you be an outlaw for my love", haha.

I am not (very?) serious, I'm not really into text tattoos and also am ambivalent about lyric tattoos in particular. But I love that line.

Oh and I forgot to mention in my music post that I've hit a few milestones on my lists: I passed the first 250 on both the 1001 list and the RS 500. I'm also down to the last 75 on the 200 albums of the 80s.

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

First line: If you want to know how poor somebody was growing up, ask them how many windows they had.

Natsuko is a single woman, living in Tokyo and making her way as a novelist. She is originally from Osaka, and much is made about Osaka accents at various points in the story. In the first part, she is visited by her sister Makiko and Makiko's daughter Midoriko. Makiko wants to get breast augmentation surgery, Midoriko is suffering a teenage crisis, and Natsuko is simply adrift and unable to relate to either of them. Natsuko wants to have a child, but she doesn't have any real options since Japan's laws about adoption etc. mean that she can't do it on her own.

In the second part of the book, it's some years later and the interest Natsuko had in the first part - having a child by donor conception - is a full-blown obsession. She's at a standstill in her career, she rarely sees her friends. She spends her time googling information on donor conception and through that, attends an event where she hears the experiences of people who were conceived by sperm donation. Events finally kickstart Natsuko into assessing her life up to that point and what her future will look like.

I found this book very interesting. Sometimes the actions of the characters were hard for me to understand; I chalk at least some of it up to cultural distinctions I don't get. The near-impossibility of a single woman having a baby in any way in Japan and the attitudes toward the expression of a desire to do so were enlightening (even if those attitudes were unenlightened themselves!). And I felt like Natsuko was a character I don't often read about, for reasons I won't get into here, but I'll just say it was an interesting viewpoint.

Quote: Hey, everyone loves surprise parties, right? One day you open the door, and everyone's there waiting for you, ready to surprise you. Here are all these people you've never met, never seen before, congratulating you, big smiles on their faces. Parties are different, though. You can go back through the door behind you, but when you're born, there's no leaving. There's no door. There's no way back to how things were before. I hate to say it, but not everyone likes surprise parties.

ETA: I just looked at the Wikipedia page and I saw this under "Reception":

Writer and then-governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, who himself won the Akutagawa Prize in 1955 and was a sitting member of its selection committee, criticized the selection of Kawakami's novel for the prize. In Bungeishunjū he wrote, "The egocentric, self-absorbed rambling of the work is unpleasant and intolerable."

Also separate comments about the English translation being flat and the second half being "rambling and chatty". I don't know, I reacted to both of those things somewhat differently I guess.

>10 ursula: that would be cool. 🙂

>11 ursula: "The egocentric, self-absorbed rambling of the work is unpleasant and intolerable."

I do love that criticism. Captures a lot of literature the last 1000 or so years.

>13 dchaikin: Fair point in the general sense, although I read it with a lot more misogyny in this specific case.

>14 ursula: oh yeah, i got that aspect too. (And maybe an anti-western-literature-influence intent in there. ??)

>5 ursula: Great comments on this one, Ursula, even though I don't think it's for me. I got a little queasy just reading your comments.

>12 ursula: And more great comments although this is one on my WL.

My son loved American Idiot. I did like some of the tracks he made me listen to, but it has been years.

>15 dchaikin: Maybe! I definitely get the impression that this guy probably would think that reading excerpts from a teenager's diary about her mother's interest in breast augmentation and her own changing body is egocentric. Ew, women's stuff.

(Also I believe he said that about the original version of the book, which was novella-length, haha.)

>16 BLBera: The first one does definitely sound like not one for you. And if/when you get to Breasts and Eggs I'll definitely be curious what you think.

I feel like I remember liking American Idiot at the time too, I guess it was just sort of that moment. I'm not sure it totally stands up, but I'm not mad about listening to Billie Joe sing more!

>8 ursula:

As usual, I have no business commenting on the music really, but I'll echo the love for Lou Reed.

There was a law in Japan (it was supposed to change last year) that divorced women must not remarry until a certain period post-divorce, to prove they are not taking away the ex-husband's child. Maybe there's some justice in that a country still that horrible to women is struggling to keep growing.

>18 LolaWalser: Business or not, you're always welcome to comment!

It's a weird mix of laws I think, because on the other side of it, a friend of Morgan's family had all kinds of problems when he divorced his Japanese wife. She took the child back to Japan and he had no rights to her whatsoever.

>19 ursula: That was similar to a German law. My ex-SIL refused to let my niece see her father in Germany because he would have been able to keep her had he chosen to -- the workings of the legal system meant that she would have been 18 by the time the court had decided on the issue.