toa books of the year (2021, part one)

Howdy reader! Slow start for me to 2022, and I have no imminent plans to hit the gas pedal. Stay tuned, though, TOA should be back soon enough with some real posts.

For today, a return to an old tradition - awards season! Let's start with the books of the year. Unlike in years past, I actually kept track as I went along, so this is going to be a much faster process than in prior editions. (I'm also not sure if I ever did one for 2020, so we may have a catchup post coming up.)

I sorted my shortlist in chronological order by when I finished the reading, then included alongside each book a short blurb with three components - links to past TOA posts about the book (if applicable, otherwise an estimate of the reading review date), some comments as I look back on the reading, and one parting thought from my notes (essentially, what I remember now from the book). The original plan was to do the shortlist today, then come back in a few days to sort out the finalists. As it turned out, I went on quite a tangent for my first entry, so we'll just go with that for today and get to the rest later. (However, for those interested I did include the full list at the bottom of this post.)

Thanks for reading my reading!

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (January 2021)

TOA Review: posted in April 2021

It's amusing to look back on what I wrote in April, which per TOA standards saw only about 25% or so of the post being actually about the book. This also was a reread, so the ideas lacked the appeal of originality that might apply for other readers, and I therefore skimmed over them in my review. I hope this was not a major oversight; I would say most of us by now understand both the point and the importance of Woolf's ideas. I think from my perspective a modern iteration of this work would look more so at systems rather than the individual, perhaps restating the main idea by focusing the lens on social structures - these are the only forces capable of freeing all people from the material constraints that prevent so many from writing fiction (or pursuing other creative work).

This leads me to wonder what the reaction to such an iteration would be in the present day. I wonder if Woolf, who by the language of our time would surely be described as "privileged", would feel required to reflect on her personal circumstances as it relates to her craft, perhaps sharing my suspicion that her circumstances would have a negative effect by default on the public perception of the work. To put it bluntly, Woolf was rich, and her point could read as something like "to write fiction you need to be rich, or at least have the circumstances that are currently enjoyed by the rich". I think if this book came out today, it would be seen as something that should have been by a writer from a poor background, perhaps scribbling out drafts on the bus while commuting from one minimum wage job to the next; the reaction to Woolf might be something like "how does someone who doesn't buy her own groceries know this is the only way to write fiction?"

This scenario may reflect my perception that people today will not read carefully enough to grasp a deeper point. But regardless of the reason, it would still be the same outcome, and it seems odd to me that this is more or less the accepted state of affairs, where certain descriptors about a person or a person's circumstances can qualify or influence how the public perceives a creator's output. It suggests to me that there is something specific to this age that makes people uncomfortable about stepping too far out of line, and in turn this feeling is reflected onto others by the way we collectively perceive their work within the constraints of who is qualified to produce it. In this current moment, I think a lot of time is wasted justifying the fact of the work itself, as if the strength of the idea alone is irrelevant unless it comes from someone qualified to express such an idea.

I think this speaks somewhat to the challenge facing a society as it makes strides against longtime challenges such as poverty - as more and more people reach a certain level of material comfort, there is a growing collective complicity in leaving others behind, and this is dealt with by ignoring rather than addressing the collective guilt, with those who step out of line to point out the problems being shouted down for their hypocrisy of speaking rather than taking action. The specific problem Woolf wrote about is not as relevant today, when so many societies around the world have reached a certain level of affluence, but it does beg a different question - why write fiction at all, supported by the minimum means required to pursue creative work, when so many remain in suffering? And why are so many afraid of confronting this situation, sometimes expressing this fear by citing the inaction of others to justify their own selfish indulgences, needlessly worrying themselves over a faulty premise that individuals are somehow responsible for single-handedly correcting the accumulated wrongdoings of billions?

But is it too much to at least do what we can? I write this on a day where wind chills dip sharply below zero, seated next to a spare blanket. I could bring it out and look for someone who may need it, but I don't do it, and not many would. I suppose it goes back to the top - the modern iteration of this work would need to restate Woolf's idea with a certain system change in mind, for at the moment it seems like we are disconnected from the sense that individual action can improve a global situation, particularly if it means we must risk the personal security that has rarely been guaranteed throughout the history of civilization. It may be that not just to write fiction but to right wrongs, to right and rewrite the nonfiction of history, requires more than just a room of one's own, but also the security that it will be there when we must return to it.

The security of having our basic needs guaranteed can be the foundation to take necessary risks, for establishing a fair and just society is just as much a creative act as writing fiction, given that such a society is yet to be found on this planet; we can only create what is yet to exist, but all creation requires risk. At its core this is the point of Woolf's work, the sense that material security emboldens us to do what is right by our hearts and minds. Her security enabled this examination of the effect that so many deep-seated injustices had on the ability of the women of her time to write fiction. In the present, we can only grow from and build on her example, seeing the world's crises as problems waiting for the solutions of creative work, and recognizing that securing the needs of individuals - a process which connects the feminist themes of Woolf's work to the ongoing battle for economic justice - will enable the people of today to perform a higher quality of such creative work.

Parting thought: Political action requires an issue to be simplified, which leaves the work of restoring nuance and complexity to those who come in its wake.

Remaining TOA book of the year candidates

The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van der Kolk (March)

Thirty-One Nil by James Montague (March)

Thinking Without a Bannister by Hannah Arendt (March)

On Immunity by Eula Biss (May)

Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether (May)

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders (August)

Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin (September)

The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada (November)

Tenth of December by George Saunders (December)

Wild by Cheryl Strayed (December)

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (December)

leftovers #2 - a room of one's own

I speculated at the end of my reading review that the unspecified masculine values might include wars, sports, and being a business bro. I think I'd like to take that last one back and replace it with a broader concept - stepping out of line. I'm not sure if I've necessarily come closer to listing "values" with my revised list, but it looks better to me.

leftovers - a room of one's own

I left out a couple of thoughts last week in what surely was among the most nonsensical "reviews" in the history of written communication.

First, I want to emphasize my point that although little insights of the highest caliber are certainly scattered throughout this extended work, the ones I captured in my book notes merely reflect those that caught my reading eye in January. It's natural that what I notice will change over time due to the accumulation of experience, but I suspect most of my transformation will be informed by my writing efforts; it is hardly worth the trouble of writing if we are not the first to learn from the experience.

Some may wonder if reading can lead to a similar change. I don't rule out the possibility, but I think writing is better suited for the task. The difference is generation - a reader becomes familiar with the end result in a certain context while a writer understands the process of creating the same conclusion regardless of the surroundings. I came across an intriguing example when I looked at Le Monde's "100 Books of the Century" list after learning A Room of One's Own placed #69 in the rankings. I realized that of the top twenty books, eighteen were written by men. I think it's plausible I would have noticed this even had I not written those TOA posts I referenced in last week's review, but I know this caught my eye now because of my writing.

Speaking of that list, I know it's always a shaky process to read too much into survey results, but I wonder if it presents another angle to my point regarding the difference in reading and writing. Surely, the readers surveyed were at least familiar with A Room of One's Own, yet ignored its argument as it settled into the bottom half of the top 100. So what did they think made the book any good if they didn't apply its argument to their assessment of the work? The highest ranked book written by a female author, The Second Sex, finished #11. I have not read Simone de Beauvoir's work but I'm confident enough to repeat my point - if you think enough of the book to rank it #11, to rank it behind the work of ten men, then you should probably have understood its message to the extent that you'd have had no choice but to rank it higher.

reading review - a room of one's own

There seems to be a consensus to describe this work as an extended essay, whatever that means. Why not just say "essay"? I worry that some may be put off by the implication that this work falls into some unreadable limbo between essay and book.

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (January 2021)

For those who need more information to make a reading decision, I'll cut right to the chase - Woolf's main point is that in order to write fiction, a woman must have a room of her own, which implies a certain degree of accompanying financial support. Despite not being the fiction for which she is known, Woolf's superlative writing is on display in A Room of One's Own. The structure of the essay is suited for the stream of consciousness approach, and I often found myself flipping back a few pages just to figure out how the narrative had wound its way to the current point. This essay, published in 1929, was based on a series of lectures (or is it extended lectures?) that she delivered at two women's colleges in 1928. I can relate to this sequence, having written many TOA posts based on some remarks originally made around friends, family, or colleagues. There is something logical about treating spoken pieces as rough first drafts, particularly considering all the writing advice out there based on the unusual premise that writers, of all people, have an impossible time getting started - just write, baby!

Of course, although the lectures led to the book, I have no way of knowing if the lectures produced the work. It's entirely possible that at some point earlier in her life Woolf wrote about this topic until she inspired herself to speak in public; writing can change the way we live. I can also relate to this process, specifically in how writing on TOA has preceded a shift in the way I notice details about the world. The posts I've written about gender bias in the literary world, for example, may have influenced me when I noted the way Woolf describes how prevailing masculine values influenced the way her culture thought about literature. As Woolf notes, the critics have always been male, and they have reinforced these values, making books about war more culturally important than those about domestic work. This male, in his own little corner of the critical world, is delighted to state his certainty that this book is far more culturally important in 2021 than any book about those unspecified masculine values - my guesses are wars, sports, and being a business bro.

TOA Rating: Three extensions out of four.