Happy Wednesday everyone! Wednesdays also mean WWW Wednesday updates. WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme hosted originally by SAM@TAKING ON A WORLD OF WORDS. Unfortunate

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?

Time flies fast without us even noticing it. Today is already the last Wednesday of September; it still feels like yesterday when the ninth month of the year started. Before we realize it, we will already be welcoming a new year. With the year inching toward its inevitable close, I hope that the remainder of the year will shower everyone with blessings and good news. Reading-wise, September was a foray into recently published novels; this is a journey I commenced in August. However, I have since run out of recently published books – some are still in transit – which prompted me to shift my focus to books that are part of my ongoing reading challenges, like Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance; there was an internal tug-of-war before I finally picked Mistry’s highly-heralded work. This is my first book by the Indian writer who I first encountered through must-read challenges.

Reading A Fine Balance makes me hit two birds with one stone. It is one of the books in my 2024 Top 24 Reading List and is also one of the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die; it is my goal to read at least 20 books from the latter. Mistry’s sophomore novel, the novel introduces an eclectic cast of characters. The first of these characters was Dina Dalal who had a thorny relationship with her brother, Nusswan Shroff, especially after the untimely demise of their parents. Dina refused to yield to her brother and when she became a widow, started her own business to support herself. It was through her business that she encountered and hired two tailors, Ishvar Darji and his nephew Omprakash (Om) Darji. On their way to Dina, the tailors met Maneck Kohlah, a college student, who has rented a room in the city. This is one eventful novel and is riddled with germane events post-Indian independence. The partition, for one, was extensively explored during the early parts of the novel; the book commenced in 1975. I am just roughly a third into the book so I still have a lot to cover in the story. And yeah, the book kind of reminds me of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy in the way that both books utilized India’s diversity to probe into important events in contemporary Indian history.

What have you finished reading?

I had quite a very productive reading week as I was able to complete three books; A Fine Balance somehow steadied the ship as I was forced to slow down my momentum. The first of the three books I was able to complete was Namwali Serpell’s The Furrows, a book that I was really looking forward to when I first encountered it back in 2022. It was actually Serpell’s The Old Drift that directed my attention to the Zambian writer. I kept encountering the book through online booksellers. When I learned about The Furrows’ release in 2022, I was ecstatic. However, it would take about two years before I was finally able to obtain a copy of the book.

At the heart of The Furrows was young adult Cassandra “Cee” Williams; she was also the novel’s primary narrator. She was born to a white mother and a Black father and was raised in suburban Baltimore. The story, however, revolves around what happened when she was twelve. When in her care, her seven-year-old brother Wayne mysteriously vanished; they were swimming in the sea when a storm intensified and separated the siblings. Wayne’s body, however, was never recovered. This created chasms between the members of the family as they were never able to cope with Wayne’s disappearance. As a young adult, Cee constantly grapples with her memories of the event. Her dreams were filled with dreams about her brother; this was mixed in with her fantasies. This is the part where the story gets a little muddled. Her mother, on the other hand, was holding on to the hope of reuniting with her son. The story starts off fine but it soon peters out as the story moves forward. The premise had a promise and was at its most affectionate painting the portrait of a family that was divided by death and grief, including the trauma and the impact of the loss on them. The writing was also lyrical and great, particularly at the start; the first half was gripping. Serpell lost my interest in the second part when new elements, disjointed at best, were integrated into the story. Despite this, I am looking forward to reading The Old Drift.

Another 2022 book that caught my attention back then was Oscar Hokeah’s Calling for a Blanket Dance. It was midway through the year when I came across the book.  It was among the books that were touted by several literary publications as among the best books of the year. Nevertheless, even sans these accolades, the book immediately piqued my interest. There was just something about it that made me gravitate toward it. I guess the obvious reference to Native Americans reeled me in? Unfortunately, like in the case of The Furrows, it took me about two years to finally obtain a copy of the book. Without ado, I immediately immersed myself in the book.

Calling for a Blanket Dance, I learned, is Hokeah’s debut novel. The novel is polyvocal with the opening chapter narrated by Lena Stopp, the grandmother of Ever Geimausaddle, the novel’s main protagonist and also its final narrator. Lena recounts the love story of Ever’s parents, Turtle Geimausaddle and Everardo Chavez. Lena was against her daughter’s marriage to the troubled Everardo. To cure Everardo’s temper, Lena advised her daughter to bring him to his mother. The couple, along with a six-month-old Ever, drove from Oklahoma to Chihuahua, Mexico to see Everardo’s parents. However, on their drive back, border patrol police stopped the family and beat Everardo. This set the tone for the story as the succeeding chapters painted an evocative portrait of Ever. With each new narrator, Hokeah was building up the story. He wove patches of Ever into a lush tapestry. While capturing Ever’s profile, Hokeah was capturing seminal events that shaped contemporary American history; the story starts in 1976 and ends in 2013. It also captured the conditions of reserves; the characters have a mixed heritage: Cherokee, Mexican, and other indigenous tribes. Violence, drug abuse, petty crime, and poverty were ubiquitous. The long wait for the book was worthwhile because Hokeah held my attention from the opening pages until the conclusion.

The last book before Mistry’s A Fine Balance was Marga Ortigas’ latest novel, God’s Ashes. This is her sophomore novel, after The House on Calle Sombra which happens to be part of my 2024 Top 24 Reading List. I was actually not planning to read God’s Ashes because I rarely read two books from the same writer in a year. I eventually relented; I can’t remember why. However, there was something about the book that intrigued me. While her debut novel was A Parable, her sophomore novel had the byline Apocrypha. This already had my interest, making Ortigas just the second Filipino writer who I read at least two books, the other being Dr. Jose Rizal, our national hero.

I am not exactly sure where to start with God’s Ashes. Unlike her debut novel which is more concerned with the past, God’s Ashes is more concerned with the present and the future although the past is an integral part of the story. It blends mystery and technology and introduces a vast cast of characters that takes the readers across the world, from London to Taipei to Guam to Palau and to the Philippine countryside (Siquijor was one of the many settings!). Apparently, the title was derived from a kind of coral that has been subjected to nuclear radiation. It is both a narcotic and a raw material used in a kind of new superchip which is similar to cryptocurrency. I guess this is a good starting point because the novel deals with the environment, ala Richard Powers; I was reminded of him while reading the book. The book introduces a lot of elements that could be disorienting but can also be riveting. It is quite complicated, to be honest, because it casts a net over a vast territory. The story contained a great deal of social commentary, particularly on the consequences of technology. It also probes into the impact of climate change, nuclear weapons, geopolitics, and even gender politics. These are all timely subjects The conclusion was rather unclear but I guess this is because chaos is the novel’s middle name.

What will you read next?