5 stars for Nghi Vo's - The Chosen and the Beautiful

This month was the 100th anniversary (Mar 4th 2022) of the publishing "The Beautiful and Damned", Fitzgerald's jazz age novel with many similar themes to "The Great Gatsby" (which I was also be reading for the Amsterdam English Classics in March). 

While the title of Nghi Vo's "The Chosen and the Beautiful" is a wordplay on Fitzgerald's "The Beautiful and Damned", her principal character Jordan Baker is queer and Vietnamese! Jordan Baker was an enigmatic but minor character in Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby".

In terms of GoodReads ratings, This is my first 5-star review for a while, I'm trying to save 5-stars for all-time favourite books and not just my current favourite / new book. However, this is a book I've immediately fallen in love with and touched me deeply. 

Curiously I see that a few years ago I rated the original The Great Gatsby at 4 stars, which now seems wrong. The Great Gatsby is a book that has really grown on me, it is a short and easy read, packed with symbolism and can be relatively easily seen as harsh criticism of the "American dream". It is outstanding fiction about the roaring 20s, prohibition, and more tragically it interleaves F Scott Fitzgerald's and his "it girl" wife Zelda Fitzgerald ("the first American flapper") battles with alcoholism, depression and mental health. This book is more up than down, but there is no doubt by the end that the down is coming, which is explored in his later novels.

Since first reading The Great Gatsby, about 5 years ago, it's grown on me, there is so much in this short book that is just below the surface and also resonates with real-world events going on now, approx 100 years later. This book has come back to mind so often over the last few years, sometimes triggered by the events in the "big world out-there" of macroeconomics with politics, organized crime and mafia operations. But also the more personable, micro world of cool parties, having fun, pulling back from the edge of reason, the nature of love, mental health challenges. As I said, this is a book that has worked its way into my psyche and resonated deeply with me.  

I could go on about how much I like The Great Gatsby but I'll leave that for another book review ;) 

So getting back to Nghi Vo's "The Chosen and the Beautiful", the title is a wordplay on Fitzgerald's "The Beautiful and the Damned" which just had its 100th birthday (published March 4th 1922), but potentially confusingly this book, is much more closely related to The Great Gatsby.

Actually, this book is a pretty faithful re-telling of The Great Gatsby, but from a very fresh perspective of Jordan Baker, a minor but colourful character in the original.  In the original Ms Baker is a glamorous, if slightly hard-edged potential love interest for the narrator Nick (Carraway). Nick is probably the most sensible person in the whole story, the voice of reason, who guides us through this beguiling and corrupting world. Nick never seems that interested in Ms Baker, or any other woman, instead, Nick is more enchanted by the American dream, he is quietly getting on with his life and is somewhat bewitched by the weird and wonderful going on in the house-next-door: Gatsby's palatial mansion, with wild parties, wacky musician, plus the beautiful and the quixotic people. 

So now the story is re-told from Jordan Baker's harsher perspective, and in Nghi Vo's new version Jordan Baker character is far more fleshed out, plus now she is both queer and Vietnamese!

I'm not normally a fan-fiction reader, it is a very tricky thing to do i.e. retell a much-beloved story, capture the essence of the original, add some new and not to sully the original? This sounds almost impossible to do, many have tried and failed, but in this case, Nghi Vo somehow pulls it off.

Nghi Vo has a remarkable prose style, both rich and floral. Fitzgerald is famous for his tight prose, especially in The Great Gatsby, parts of which he apparently re-work and re-work and then re-worked again. Fortunately, some of my favourite lines and dialogue from the original have been woven into this retelling. For me, this is not plagiarism, but homage.

Next, what does Nghi Vo bring to the original and I do I think F Scott Fitzgerald would have approved? Assuming he is somehow looking down on the earth from the pearly gates and has adjusted for where we are culturally at in the 2020s vs his world of the 1920s. Obviously, this is highly speculative but the question for me is: whether this story seems to fit and resonate well with the original. 

• The very first thing Nghi Vo bring is some magic realism at several key moments including the wonderfully playful and charming opening chapter, with Daisy and Jordan getting up to some fun hijinks. It gets a bit deeper later, and Nghi Vo uses magic realism sparing and with great effect. There is also an interesting wordplay between Oculist and Occultist, I don't have the time to explain hn  ow magic realism lead me into this quirky wordplay but it made me smile while reading "The Chosen and the Beautiful"
  .   
• The second thing Nghi Vo bring is an insight into the racism of 1920s America towards the Asian community. In the original Tom Buchanan is a bigotted fool, and his wife gently mocks this brutish man but this is only a few lines. Re-telling the story from an Asian American perspective, allows us to really explore the stigma, the feelings, the day to day grind, the frequent minor irritations and occasionally the major confrontations. It is very compelling storytelling, as it is mostly a moment's tension here or there, with a steady build-up, making it highly believable and relatable.  
  
  
• The third thing Nghi Vo bring is openly gay, lesbian and bisexual characters. The original is all about decadence and cool parties but it is very hetero normative. Again the storytelling has a gradual build-up with an illusion here, a mysterious underground party there and climaxing in some spectacular declarations of true love. Like the original this is fundamentally a love story, but with a new twist at the end. 

I can imagine with the help of a bit of time travel, F Scott Fitzgerald would have really enjoyed this 2020s hommage to his 1920s iconic works. Also for myself, it was wonderful to revisit the original story but with a fresh pair of eyes.

  

Qui a tué mon père and an Amsterdam standing ovation for Édouard Louis

 

I meet Frédéric (a friend through the Amsterdam Queer Bookclub) today for Édouard Louis's new play "Qui a tué mon père" which was quite amazing.

I really admire Édouard Louis works and in my opinion, he is just getting better and better as a writer.

Édouard Louis first book "En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule", is a real shocker, it grabs that reader by the throat and never really takes its foot off the pedal, one hell of a ride and not for the faint hearted. 

This book seems to be a new genre that is very largely autobiographical, similar to the American poet Ocean Vuong, whose lyric style seems to accentuate the negative and shocking. Édouard Louis's childhood is portrayed in unrelenting misery, the principal villains being a nasty mixture of toxic masculinity and poverty. After reading "En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule", I did wonder how his family and especially his father took the publishing of this sensational childhood story?

Édouard Louis's second book "Histoire de la violence" is of a similar shocking style, he is a little older and the events are just as grim, very Hobbesian again i.e. the 17th British philosopher who maintained life is 'Nasty, brutish and short'. And yes, it would appear that there were some parallels between poor and working-class between 1650 and 470 years later, in 2020?  This regression in the quality of the life for the working poor, especially over the last 30 to 40 years, with neo-liberal and more purist free-market economics, which has hit the poorest in society hard, drives much of Édouard Louis' writing.

On a lighter note, if I remember correctly, I think there was a bit more humour in this second largely autobiographical novel? I need to re-read it to verify, but I remember it feeling very real but people took some absurd pleasure in the farcical nature of their lives

Édouard Louis now has a new play, focusing on the last few years of his father's life. While his father seems to be the victim of his own toxic masculinity, his wife eventually could not stand it anymore and he spend the last few years of his life in grinding poverty.  Louis details the repeated benefit cuts and how his father was forced to work to travel long distances and work as a street cleaner (barely covering his travel costs) until his health failed him. A very raw account of the harsh reality of the populist "back to work schemes" of the last few decades. On a more everyday level, he portrayed a more balanced relationship with his father, who was also very loving and proud of his son, even if he rarely showed it. His father seems to have had toxic masculinity in spades and he was sometimes his own worst enemy? 

Anyway, today was a very special performance for me, I had assumed that some actor would be performing today. I didn't realize Édouard Louis was actually performing his latest play until after the play had actually started and then I had this crazy dawning realization: that guy looks like quite Édouard Louis. I had seen a few photos of him, but I was more interested in books than his looks (although he is quite handsome), but then I thought this guy really sounds like Édouard Louis and I had heard him give radio interviews, plus I had listened (twice through), to the audiolib.fr french version of Qui a tué mon père, read by Édouard Louis ... so then I realized this guy actually is Édouard Louis ... OMG!

To see him perform live was simply incredible, a remarkable writer, performer and event. Édouard Louis received a standing ovation for his performance today.

Omicron vs the Common Cold and Best Wishes to the Queen

It seems to me that that covid i.e. omicron is nearly everywhere now,

and it is inevitable that even the most vulnerable i.e. elderly are going to be very hard to protect.

My first concern is naturally my parents,

my Mum is 80 and clearly suffering from various conditions related

to old age (toothache and a nasty rash recently) but is in general in robust health physical health.

My biggest concern is my Dad who is 82 and has been in and out of the hospital several times

in the last two years and hasn't had covid yet.

My brother passionately believes that covid is now typically

only a mild common cold (this has been a theme of a few weeks now).

I was pushing back, I've just had covid two weeks ago now and it was nasty,

but yes for myself it pretty mild i.e. a million miles from being hospitalized.

Still, I was quite sick/weak for a few days and while I thought I have fully recovered

a week ago, I have had some fatigue and headaches this week.

My brother annoyed me today, by his aggressive assertion that

omicron is typically only a mild cold, which many people hardly notice,.

When I complained that I have been pretty ill and so have several of

my friends in recent weeks with covid, he also started mocking me, along the lines of "I know David thinks he nearly died of covid". 

Today I held my ground asking where is the evidence that "omicron is typically no worse

than a mild cold", there might be some truth in this? I was hoping for some sort of report/link/evidence… and my brother

got rather the hump and left the family call… my parents then blamed me for being

too hard (was I being insufferable or are my parents just hoping for a quiet life?). 

Well I do see the queen is now sick and the briefing from Buckingham Palace is that :

“Her Majesty is experiencing mild cold-like symptoms but expects to  

continue light duties at Windsor over the coming week."  

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/20/queen-tests-positive-for-covid

and 🤞 she makes a speedy recovery, although I'm a bit sceptical about Buckingham Palace briefings?

The Queen undoubtedly has the best health care that money can buy, but I believe she has only

just tested positive so predicting recovery times seems a bit premature?

Don't spit on Spinoza.

Amsterdam is a famously liberal and diverse city, not just in the 21st century but going back centuries and centuries. 

Amsterdam's rich cultural history and it's reputation for toleration has also built up over the centuries, for example, Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) was pushing the boundaries of the Amsterdam Jewish community in the mid 17th century with his then-radical ideas that God is everywhere and in everything:

 “Most religions teach that God exists somewhere outside the world, perhaps in heaven. Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) was unusual in thinking that God is the world. He wrote about ‘God or Nature’, to make this point–meaning that the two words refer to the same thing. God and nature are two ways of describing a single thing. God is nature and nature is God. This is a form of pantheism–the belief that God is everything.”
— A Little History of Philosophy (Little Histories) by Nigel Warburton

I find this thinking beautiful and clearly resonates with many modern thinkers, but is possibly antithetical to religious extremists who believe this sort of thinking is dangerous?

There are boundaries to freedom and even Amsterdam struggles with some more extremists movement, who don't believe in equality for women or still see being in a same-sex relationship as a perversion. There appears to be a correlation between such religious zealots and a dislike of more liberal-thinker like Spinoza.

Before my Dutch wedding, we met outside the Amsterdam Gementee by the statue of Spinoza who is rapidly becoming one of my favourite philosophers. Not just an advocate of seeing God in Nature, but also geometry and mathematics: 

“Spinoza did not just admire geometry; he wrote philosophy as if it were geometry. The ‘proofs’ in his book Ethics look like geometrical proofs and include axioms and definitions. They are supposed to have the same relentless logic as geometry. But instead of dealing with topics like the angles of triangles and the circumferences of circles, they are about God, nature, freedom and emotion.”
— A Little History of Philosophy (Little Histories) by Nigel Warburton

The Leopold Bloom, the hero of Joyce's Ulysses, an Irish man from Hungarian-Jewish family background, is also a fan of Spinoza who is mentioned a couple of times, including this famously comic scene, were Bloom gets attacked by a bigotted fool with a biscuit box:

“—Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.—He had no father, says Martin. That’ll do now. Drive ahead.—Whose God? says the citizen.—Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a jew like me. Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.—By Jesus, says he, I’ll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy name. By Jesus, I’ll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuit box here.”
— Ulysses by James Joyce

and checking, I see this Ulysses-Spinoza on Wikipedia:

1922: Leopold Bloom is shown several times to be an admirer of Spinoza in James Joyce's Ulysses (1922). Thoughts from Spinoza, an anthology, is represented on Bloom's bookshelf towards the end of the novel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza   

So I'm in good company with Leopold Bloom and Joyce! Well we live in remarkably broad and diverse society, none of us is divine, we all have our strengths and weakness, and I always try to be open to new ways of thinking plus putting myself into the perspective of others. But there are limits to toleration and I really struggle with those who want to spit on Spinoza?

NB Spinoza lived where the Moses and Aaron Church is located now, and there is strong evidence that he may have been born there:

By Amsterdam Municipal Department for the Preservation and Restoration of Historic Buildings and Sites (bMA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza#/media/File:Mozes_en_A%C3%A4ronkerk.jpg

Moments of Joy 003 - George Takei and the Amsterdam Queer Bookclub

We had a really good discussion of George Takei autobiography in graphic novel format. Unfortunately, he didn't elaborate on this LGBTQIA+ activism, but it was still a really good discussion plus we were introduced briefly to George Takei husband, which was a fun and light-hearted moment in the book.

We were not convinced that America is such a "role model of modern democracy", every country has its problems and challenges and American exceptionalism can be a bit grating at times? I had assumed that the book was written pre-Trump. George Takei has a very popular TED talk made in 2014, although this book does touch on Trump and the resurgence/re-usage of refugee camps on US soil. Quite heartbreaking for George Takei who grew up in a camp in an internment camp in Rohwer, Arkansas.

Personally, I don't believe either democracy is dead in either America or UK but the last few years have seen very worrying trends, especially the Cambridge Analytical scandals which eventually cost Facebook $6 billion dollars i.e. US government fine and another $0.005 billion dollars to the UK government  

In response, Facebook apologized for their role in the data harvesting and their CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of Congress.[7] In July 2019, it was announced that Facebook was to be fined $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission due to its privacy violations.[8] In October 2019, Facebook agreed to pay a £500,000 fine to the UK Information Commissioner's Office for exposing the data of its users to a "serious risk of harm".[9] In May 2018, Cambridge Analytica filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal 

On the topic of graphic novels we also discussed these books:

* Fun Home (by Alison Bechdel i.e. of the Bechdel film test fame*)

* Our Dreams At Dusk

* My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness

* I Think Our Son Is Gay (I need more humour)

We also discussed reading some of Sarah Waters' Historical Fiction, especially her first three novels seen in Victorian London

* Tipping the Velvet (1998)

* Affinity (1999)

* Fingersmith (2002)

* The Night Watch (2006)

* The Little Stranger (2009)

* The Paying Guests (2014)

I am a huge Sarah Waters fan and would love to re-read them all! I see that last year I was musing on these books attending English Classis status in the future:

Sarah Waters - one of my favourite writers and IMO going to become a classic

https://davetravelogue.blogspot.com/2021/07/queer-literary-classics.html

NB I've also been watch Star Trek (mixed with Black Mirror) during lockdown, not especially for background for this book but rather as seminal SciFi Television works and programs often referenced at the SciFi bookclub. A nice moment of synchronicity.

NB2 The Bechdel test for a film: * At least two women * The women need to talk to each other * They need to talk to each other about something other than a man

Meditations on Joy - part 002 - Sally Rooney - Beautiful World, Where Are You

Somewhat to my husband's frustration, I do love an absorbing story and over the last couple of month's I've been particularly enjoying Sally Rooney's latest novel.

As per the Guardian "love-quadrangle review", there are four principal characters in this novel, i.e. all with strong voices and significant character development, but the primary narrator is Alice, a hugely popular but discontented writer, struggling with her new rock/writer-star celebrity status. 

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney review – author of her own discontent

… a love-quadrangle storyline à la Conversations With Friends. Eileen, employed by a Dublin literary magazine, beds her girlhood crush, Simon, a political adviser; Alice, now living by the sea in Mayo, falls for her Tinder hookup, Felix, a warehouse worker. Their relationship crackles with the flinty repartee that is the shining currency of all Rooney’s fiction.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/05/beautiful-world-where-are-you-by-sally-rooney-review-author-of-her-own-discontent

This was my first Sally Rooney, people have been telling me for a while I should be reading her and so I was happy when she was chosen for the book club at work. One of the epithets the author doesn't like is as a millennial writer, or more precisely, she is being dubbed the first great millennial writer by some? 

My younger colleagues saw her as writing for millennial's. However, they focused on the details of being in their late 20s or early 30s and living in an expensive, metropolitan hub city like Dublin or Amsterdam. And yes, there are many parallels for young professionals living in these two cities; the conversation even briefly drifted onto New York with the revamping of Sex and the City? 

However, I suspect the epithet "millennial writer" annoys Sally Rooney because yes there is something in the fresh rebellious tone of her writing and this epithet can be seen as somewhat patronizing. The book is packed with both exciting people and exciting ideas, especially the defence of socialism and complacency of those who see the last 50 years as a vindication that the "right-wing thinking has been proved right" plus the "left-wing think is a bit simple and naive"? While I hope no one would try to defend the old USSR, I like that she is pushing back against "end of history": 

“Human beings lost that when the Berlin Wall came down. I’m not going to get into another argument with you about the Soviet Union, but when it died so did history. I think of the twentieth century as one long question, and in the end we got the answer wrong. Aren’t we unfortunate babies to be born when the world ended? After that there was no chance for the planet, and no chance for us.”  

— Beautiful World, Where Are You

  

I think the visionary Jeannette Winterson with her "superior arguments of socialism" would approve of Sally Rooney's perspective and push-back against the triumph of naked capitalism:

“It was a real advance in human consciousness towards collective responsibility; an understanding that we owed something not only to our flag or to our country, to our children or our families, but to each other. Society. Civilisation. Culture.

That advance in consciousness did not come out of Victorian values or philanthropy, nor did it emerge from right-wing politics; it came out of the practical lessons of the war, and–and this matters–the superior arguments of socialism.

Britain’s economic slow-down in the 1970s, our IMF bail-out, rocketing oil prices, Nixon’s decision to float the dollar, unruly union disputes, and a kind of existential doubt on the Left, allowed the Reagan/ Thatcher 1980s Right to skittle away annoying arguments about a fair and equal society.”  

— Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

  

But putting politics aside, my favourite character was Simon, quiet, elegant, peacefully getting on with his life. I perceive him as a role model, of those many "gently religious" folk, who have the self-discipline to keep their faith, find the good and relevant in their religious convictions without getting drawn into extremist and/or intolerant positions?

I was chatting with a couple of friends after Church last month and mentioned that I was reading this great new novel: final there was with a strong Christian character who is not a complete idiot. My two friends, who are probably a bit more orthodox than myself were a bit shocked but also amused (I hope). Simon is likeable, relatable, handsome and possibly the nicest character in the novel. He is also the perfect counterbalance to his neurotic girlfriend Eileen. There are two strong romances in this novel: while Alice and Felix bump along and slowly fall in love, with a modicum of bickering; Eileen is more intensely besotted with Simon and in one memorable scene they have the best phone sex ever. Well, it is the best phone sex scene I've ever read and I can't help musing that only an accomplished author could have phone sex with such elegant dialog? I will not quote any of this, partly as it is the romantic context and build up which makes this scene so perfect.

I will leave you one last quote, demonstrating the quixotic humour and eye for quirky details, which made this book so a joy to read, Alice is writing to Eileen (this is largely an epistolary novel):

“I miss you. I was sitting in the Musée d’Orsay this morning looking at sweet little Marcel Proust’s portrait, and wishing John Singer Sargent had painted him instead. He’s quite ugly in the painting, but despite this unfortunate fact (and I do mean despite!) something in his eyes reminded me of you. Probably just the glow of brilliance.”  

— Beautiful World, Where Are You

 

patronize | ˈpatrənʌɪz | (also patronise) verb [with object] 1 (often as adjective patronizing) treat with an apparent kindness which betrays a feeling of superiority: ‘She's a good-hearted girl,’ he said in a patronizing voice.

metropolitan | mɛtrəˈpɒlɪt(ə)n | adjective 1 relating to or denoting a metropolis: the Boston metropolitan area. noun ...
2 an inhabitant of a metropolis: a sophisticated metropolitan.

epithet | ˈɛpɪθɛt | noun an adjective or phrase expressing a quality or attribute regarded as characteristic of the person or thing mentioned: old men are often unfairly awarded the epithet ‘dirty’. • an epithet used as a term of abuse: people jeered and hurled racial epithets.

besotted | bɪˈsɒtɪd | adjective 1 strongly infatuated: he became besotted with a local barmaid. 2 archaic intoxicated; drunk.

Meditation on Joy

It has been a pretty good week, I'm not normally a fan of Amsterdam in the winter and January is the cruellest month. Still, we had three consecutive sunny days. each started with a cool fog, with the feeling of isolation and mystery, but this fog soon burnt off into beautiful winter sunshine, I felt briefly blessed!

One of the things I like about my new job is that they have been organising lunchtime meditation sessions, which works surprisingly well even though we are back on zoom? The meditations are well-led, focusing on traditional mindfulness plus acceptance of mental state i.e. whether you are feeling up or down, feeling focused or unfocused…  this week we had introduced the theme of meditating on joy i.e. focusing on joyful moments and focusing on positive memories moments and feelings. 

This wasn't easy at first, but it was a well lead session and after a few slightly uncomfortable minutes, I was surprised at how many genuinely joyful moments I was able to bring to mind, after a bit of searching. Then it occurred to me how often my thoughts get tangled up in all the problems, tensions and petty arguments which can trick to unpick and step away.

I have a Facebook friend Geoff: a nice guy, a very distant relative but also my only openly gay relative. He has been running a series called "Moments of Pleasure". His last post in this series was on Dec-31 "Moment of Pleasure No. 565: New Year Fireworks". Although I don't exactly share Jeff's taste, sometimes I'm 100% behind his choices e.g. "Moment of Pleasure No. 519: Julie Walters" (one of my favourite actresses) and his posts are nearly always good fun and thought-provoking in a light-hearted way. 

Anyway getting back to my own Meditation on Joy, while I have the normal friends, family, pets, travel, exciting news moments of joy, which were suggested in the meditation, one extra and common source of joy for myself is discovering a good story and/or writer, typically either a new novel or revisiting an old story and finding something new. Sometimes when I revisit an old favourite, I find that I have forgotten just how much I like this story and sometimes it can be even better on revisiting.

In recent years, especially since covid I've found myself spending more time in novels, either reading the original or listening to an audiobook version and sometimes listening to a dramatisation. I'm a big fan of BBC Radio Play, I've just finished the DH Lawrence collection which was joy itself. In my 20s and 30s, I was very keen on DH Lawrence and read many of his major novels plus The Virgin and The Gypsy which is one of my favourites, along with "Women in Love", I'm less keen on "Lady Chatterley’s Lover" (a bit of a let down for me).

Now I'm in my 50s I prefer EM Forster over DH Lawrence but they are both great writers and joy to read.

meditate | ˈmɛdɪteɪt | verb [no object] focus one's mind for a period of time, in silence or with the aid of chanting, for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation: I set aside time every day to write and meditate | it was here that the monk spent much of the day reading and meditating on Scripture.

joy | dʒɔɪ | noun [mass noun] a feeling of great pleasure and happiness: tears of joy | the joy of being alive. • [count noun] a thing that causes joy: the joys of country living.

novel1 | ˈnɒv(ə)l | noun a fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism: the novels of Jane Austen | a paperback novel.