Fiction Fatigue

In case you haven’t heard, the short list for the Man Booker prize was announced last week, and it turns out I didn’t do too badly at guessing: I picked four out of the six books from the official short list. The (Wo)Man Booker Shadow Panel picked three out of the six. I’m very happy that my two favorites — The Sellout and Eileen — made it, and I’m also pleased that All That Man Is made it as well. I was correct about Hot Milk also, although I’m less enthusiastic about that one. I wish My Name is Lucy Barton was on the list, and I think The Many deserves to be there. Of the two I didn’t pick that made the list, one doesn’t surprise me: Do Not Say We Have Nothing seemed likely to make it, with its large scope and ambition. I’m more surprised they went with His Bloody Project, which I thought was entertaining, but had a weak ending and wasn’t particularly ground-breaking.

So now we wait for the winner. I’m hoping it’s The Sellout, and I’m guessing it will be that one or Do Not Say We Have Nothing.

And now, I’m ready for other kinds of books, particularly some nonfiction. I will always read novels, I love novels, but too many of them in a row can be a challenge for me, particularly when the novels are complex with lots of characters and plot. When I finished the Booker list, I felt a craving for books that were simpler in scope. I’m beginning to think that there’s a certain type of large, ambitious novel that I need to read very sparingly — the kind that makes you wish you had kept a list of characters, that makes you go back and double-check plot points, the kind that skips around in time and covers decades or centuries. What I want more of is the kind of novel that focuses on one main character, or two at most, and that doesn’t have a lot going on in the way of plot, but instead focuses on character development and ideas. And I want nonfiction of the same sort: essays and memoirs or other kinds of personal nonfiction that offer the pleasure of a single consciousness and a unique voice.

So what have I been reading in the last week? Well, first I read John D. MacDonald’s The Deep Blue Good-By, which does not fit the criteria of what I’m looking for, but which I needed to read for my mystery book group. It was an interesting novel to think about, but the group in general decided it’s severely flawed by the main character’s misogyny. So, onward. I also finished a forthcoming essay collection by Phoebe Robinson called You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain. This is much closer to what I want. The essays are a great combination of funny and serious. Robinson is a comedian, and it shows, but the pieces also touch on important ideas about race and gender, and they can be moving in places.

And now I’m moving on to two books, the first of which is Ruth Ozeki’s The Face: A Time Code, which is about … Ruth Ozeki’s face. I’ve only just begun, but she decides to spend three hours looking at her face in the mirror and writing about the results. This is part of a series of short books on writers and their faces, with two others in the series so far by Chris Abani and Tash Aw. I love the concept. The other book is Women by Chloe Caldwell, another short book, in this case a novella. It’s fiction, but it’s the kind of fiction that reads like it could be essay or memoir: it’s first person and about real-life experiences  and focused on relationships and identity. It’s good so far. I loved reading the Booker long list fiction, but now I’m loving not reading the Booker long list fiction.