(Gentle) Suggestions for the Millenial's* Summer Reading List: #1

This begins an ongoing list of book recommendations for "my generation" – in quotes because frankly these stories are enjoyable and inspirational for ALL! I simply propose that they might be especially appropriate and meaningful for twenty-somethings. 

It’s been my experience that a book recommendation can be the perfect way to ensure that said book accumulates dust. I recently lent a smart buddy Art Speigelman’s Maus, insisting that he read it. Of course, he hasn’t started it yet, nor has he touched The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I lent him, oh, 4 years ago. I mean come on! Maus is a graphic novel! Way more accessible than, say, some of the novels on this list.

But seriously, I’m pretty sure that this recommend-and-spoil phenomenon is widespread. A few years ago I had a pop culture fiend for a boyfriend (who never read the books I recommended). I got into the habit of flipping through his “Entertainment Weekly”s on occasion. Okay fine, only when there was a cute-looking person on the front. Good thing the cast of Harry Potter made it on one particular summer cover, for if it hadn’t I might’ve missed this gem from the brilliant Alison Bechdel, a comic called “Compulsory Reading.” (You can also check out the photos for this post to see the comic.) She demonstrates that for teenagers, books on a reading list are often doomed never to be read.

Isn’t it true, though? One of the students I tutor was writing a final reflection for her high school English class; she was asked to think about how her attitude toward reading had developed over the course of the year. After some probing on my part, she admitted that she didn’t do much of the assigned reading during the year. “I prefer books about stuff I can, like, relate to,” she told me. Translation: some square teacher told me to read a book whose main character is not a teenage girl, so I blew it off. Makes sense, if you know anything about teenagers.

Anecdotally, I know that twenty-somethings are worse than teenagers when it comes to listening to square people tell them what to do. So instead I’ll just gently, lovingly recommend these books, and if you happen to get a Barnes & Noble gift card from your granny, you might check out this list for ideas instead of spending your money at the over-priced bookstore café.

So as not to overwhelm, I will release titles two per post. Check out mini-reviews of each read, then feel free to post thoughts and suggestions of your own in comments! 

Today’s Gentle Suggestions: 

Circles in a Forest, by Dalene Matthee. One word: ELEPHANTS. This is a classic work of Afrikaans literature, and lucky for us anglophones, there’s an awesome English translation. The story takes place in the Knysna forest of South Africa, where the inhabitants of the forest call elephants "bigfeet" so as not to attract their attention. The story spans the life of Saul, a woodcutter’s son with a special relationship to the king elephant in the forest.  Even at a young age, he sees and understands the ways English colonists in the villages are exploiting and cheating the woodcutters out of their hard-earned livelihoods. Saul cannot bear to stand idly by as businessmen rape his forest--nor can he tolerate his own father's refusal to see the truth. As moral tensions surge in his changing landscape, Saul is forced to radically rethink his--and humankind’s--relationship to nature, to wildness, and to civilization. This book is a visionary and prophetic opus of environmentalism, not to mention a compelling portrait of a young man trying to honor his family while staying true to his own diverging worldview. What twenty-something can’t relate to that?! I cried my eyes out. You will adore Saul and everything he believes in. [Note: This book is like a morally commendable version of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. While I loved Howard Roark, the architect main character of The Fountainhead, I could never get on board with the extreme-individualist ideology pulsing through the story.]

The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver. What’s a lacuna? you’re thinking. Put simply, it’s a gap; a hole. Kingsolver teases out many metaphorical and literal meanings from this title: it’s the small underwater passage through which the main character swims again and again during his childhood; it’s also the missing journal in a fictional collection, the significant omission that we’ll never see, containing sensitive secrets. The secrets belong to Harrison Shepherd, a half-Mexican half-American who falls in with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo because his skills in mixing dough in the kitchen translate well to the plaster-mixing Rivera needs for his revolutionary frescoes. When Leon Trotsky moves in with the artist couple, taking political asylum from Stalin, our protagonist gets to watch American history unfold from an unrivaled vantage point. Meanwhile, Shepherd is writing novels that are reshaping Mexican history, telling the story of Spanish colonialism not as a glorious triumph but as a genocide. His characters are heroes who question tyranny. At first, America loves his books; but when patriotism swells after World War II and the country enters the Cold War, Harrison's messages start to sound subversive, and the trouble really starts. This book is a long one: you will traverse three distinct decades before the story's done. But I assure you it's worth it to reach Kingsolver's poignant observations on the hypocrisy of the media, the beauty of radical thought, and the heartache that comes with telling the truth. Ignore the fact that some book reviewers have called The Lacuna's protagonist a weak character. I say, we millenials don’t need type-A heroes, bathed in limelight! We like the “little guy” behind the scenes who sees and feels it all.

Happy reading!