Happy midweek everyone! Woah. Today is the first Wednesday of 2024. Happy New Year everyone! I hope that 2024 will usher in more blessings and good news for everyone. I hope that everyone will be happy and healthy, in body, mind, and spirit.

With the midweek comes a fresh WWW Wednesday update, my first this year. WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme hosted originally by SAM@TAKING ON A WORLD OF WORDS. The mechanics for WWW Wednesday are quite simple, you just have to answer three questions:

  1. What are you currently reading?
  2. What have you finished reading?
  3. What will you read next?
www-wednesdays
What are you currently reading?

After a record-setting year – at least where reading is concerned – it is time to buckle up for a new reading journey which I hope will be as prolific as the previous year. I believe it was midway through 2023 when I learned that Vietnamese writer Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai was releasing a new work. I didn’t hesitate to add the book to my reading list. You see, her first novel written in English, The Mountains Sing, really impressed me back in 2020. It made me want to read more of her works. The opportunity came three years later. I was really looking forward to reading Dust Child but since my 2023 reading list is congested, I had no recourse but to push reading the book further.

Dust Child is the second novel I read this year after Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend. The novel commences with Nguyễn Tấn Phong who we learn was a son of the Vietnam War, an important historical event that is a staple in the works of contemporary Vietnamese writers, and for good reasons. Phong was the son of an African American soldier and a Vietnamese woman. Phong was eventually abandoned in an orphanage where he was raised. Because of his appearance, he was discriminated against in Vietnam. A second set of characters, Dan and his wife Linda, was introduced as they traveled to Hồ Chí Minh City. Dan was a war veteran, yet another reference to the war. From the present, the novel flashes back to the past in order to provide more context to the events of the present. I am already riveted by the story but I must say I find The Mountains Sing more compelling. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to how Nguyễn will weave her literary magic into the story of Phong, Dan, and those who perished during or those whose lives were altered by the Vietnam War.

What have you finished reading?

I concluded my 2023 reading journey with my 130th book, making it my most prolific reading year; my previous best was in 2022 when I read 103 books. To cap my 2023 reading journey, I dedicated a book I was looking forward to. Before 2023, I have never heard of Paul Murray nor have I encountered any of his works. Midway through the year, I kept reading positive reviews of his latest novel, The Bee Sting. It even earned the Irish writer a couple of awards. My interest in the book was further piqued when it was longlisted, and eventually shortlisted for the Booker Prize. I knew I had to read the book.

Murray’s fourth novel, The Bee Sting charted the individual fortunes of the members of the Barnes family. The well-to-do Irish family living in the countryside. The patriarch, Dickie, was managing a car dealership once managed by his father. The business was once lucrative but due to economic downturns that impacted the motoring sector, or so it seemed, the business started to decline. In the face of adversity, Dickie instead retreated into the forest and poured his energy into other projects. Imelda, his wife, who once lived in abject poverty and refused to experience it again, went into a panic. She sold their furniture to keep the family afloat. Their children, Cassie and PJ, had their own concerns. Cassie was about to enter university and wanted to run away from the town. PJ, on the other hand, was forgotten by everyone. What compels readers to keep moving forward in this thick book – it is over 600 pages – are the secrets that the members of the family keep from each other. Murray also has a knack for making readers inhabit his characters, each individually riveting. It was the right decision to conclude my 2023 with The Bee Sting, easily one of my best reads during the year.

From one highly heralded writer to an equally heralded writer across the Atlantic. I commenced my 2024 reading journey with another writer I am unfamiliar with. I have, however, heard of Jesmyn Ward although I have yet to read one of her works. When I heard she was releasing a new work in 2023, I was naturally curious. Like The Bee Sting, Let Us Descend was earning positive reviews left and right. It was then a no-brainer for me to add the book to my reading list and also my wish list. I was lucky I got the book as a gift.

Set in the antebellum South, Let Us Descend charted the story of Annis. She was the daughter of a slave who was raped by her enslaver. Annis found herself alone after her mother was sold. The fate that befell her mother would also be the fate that befell her. Along with fellow enslaved people, she started a long trek to Louisiana, with Annis recounting the long and arduous journey. To escape the hellhole she found herself in, Annis relied on her memories of her mother. She found comfort in the stories her mother told her about her grandmother. The novel had magical elements as Annis soon started communicating with spirits. Aza, her ancestor, also occasionally made her presence be felt. This, however, does not mean that Ward sugarcoated the plights of the enslaved. Physical and sexual violence permeated the journey. Such graphic details can be discomfiting These, however, are necessary. Let Us Descend is an addition to a growing list of books dealing with slavery although the book is not as groundbreaking as the other books in terms of its discourse on the subject. Ward, however, does make up for it by providing an intriguing mix of history, magic, and lyrical writing.

What will you read next?