A Slow Literary Start to the New Year

Lately, I've been a bit lack luster in the reading department. I'd like to attribute it to the start of the semester being hectic, or some ulterior aspect of my life, but mostly I've just been a bit lazy. The brief reading I have been doing falls in to two categories: for school and for pleasure (more of the first and less of the second, as of late).

Within the 'reading for school' category, the predominant literature is heavily academic. Applying to some rather sweaty nerd mathematics programs for the summer means reading up on the particular brand of math they want to study. I won't go in to too much detail, but there isn't much (or any?) elegant narrative to talk about to begin with.

I will say that the dryness of my current reading  has made me more appreciative of the readings we have done for this class. The Betsy Lerner chapters are interesting and fun to read. It definitely helps that expounding on the publishing industry naturally lends itself to discussing some wild drama. Regardless, the excerpts rarely mention an aspect of publishing a book I don't find interesting. It also helps that she is so very obviously in love with books. Thankfully, not all my readings have been academics related.

Travelling back to Boston from California a few weeks ago, I had a chance to revisit one of my favorite books,  A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain, by Robert Olen Butler. The book is a collection of short stories, heavily character driven, written from the point of view of different Vietnamese American voices. I think I described the book to a friend as 'overwhelmingly human'. As we discussed in class, books can be useful as mirrors or windows. It's my opinion that the book on a whole accomplishes both. The issues and problems dealt with by many of the characters are very unique to their situation. Some stories deal with intense culture shock or other life events that I can't very well grasp/comprehend. On the other hand, each character still describes some aspect of their life that is universally relatable. Aspirations, disappointments, love, nostalgia, etc. The array of emotions from story to story create quite the spectrum. Some stories can be quite novel, compared to others that are very dramatic and emotional. I find Butler's character's to be quite varied in personality and as a result, the collection is likely to have a story for everyone. I'm really quite fond of this book and am willing to lend it out to anyone (the copy is often in my backpack anyway). If you care about these kinds of things, the book won a Pulitzer prize in fiction.

Thanks for reading !