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what i'm reading wednesday 12/2/2025
Feb. 12th, 2025 05:10 pmWhat I finished:
+ Julian Abele and the Design of Duke University by William E. King. A brief account of the career of a Black American architect in the first half of the 20th century who ended up mostly designing both campuses of Duke University but whose contribution was (unsurprisingly) forgotten for decades. This was almost certainly written as a kind of marketing push by Duke to look more inclusive--they seem to really be pushing the whole "Look! We were designed by a Black man!" while ignoring the whole, "At a time when Black students were not allowed to attend the university." It feels like they're using Abele in the way that tokenistic way that a lot of institutions do. But I guess it's better to talk about him than not to.
The subtitle is "an extended essay," and that's what this is: an essay accompanied by some excellent visuals. If, like me, you're looking for an in-depth look at Abele's life and work, you will be disappointed. But for a very brief overview of his life and career with an emphasis on his work for Duke, this works as an introduction. The pictures include photographic portraits of Abele and others, blueprints and studies of his architectural works, and many historic photographs of various buildings he was instrumental in designing. It's a very well-put-together little volume, and while I hope a full biography of Abele will be written sooner or later, I'm glad to have at least this much information about him.
+ Nanette's Baguette by Mo Willems. As some of you may remember, my mom’s part-time job in her retirement is spending hours on the library catalogue, putting books on hold, going to the library to pick books up, reading them to my niblings over facetime almost every day, then taking them all back to the library.
The other morning, she read one to them that she liked so much that when I, her 30-something daughter, called her in the afternoon afternoon, she read the entire thing to me over the phone. And she was right. It was delightful.
Mo Willems is one of those children's book authors like Dr. Seuss or Sandra Boynton who delights in silliness and language and seems to have been destined to write children's books. I am glad he found his way to his vocation.
+ Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction - Read for an online book club. This was a very hit-or-miss collection with honestly more "mehs" than hits. I really liked the first one by William Tenn ("On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi"), the one by Robert Silverberg ("The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov IV"), and the last one by Harlan Ellison ("I'm Looking for Kadak"), the former more than the latter. For some of them, I'm looking at the names of the stories right now and even though I read them last week I can't remember what they were about. Which probably says enough on its own.
A couple of observations:
1. This was less "Jewish fantasy and science fiction" in general than it was "second gen Ashkenazi Americans write fantasy and science fiction" but honestly it was interesting as a time capsule for that reason. Quite a bit of it hasn't aged well, but what can you expect from stuff that was written (mostly by men) from the '50s-70s? (Though one of the worst offenders was written by a woman.)
+ One of the great joys of the collection is that so many of the writers leaned into recreating the dialects of their Yiddish parents/grandparents and so the voices were wonderful. I just love the way the sentences are put together! It was such fun!
+ Any time we got into Talmudic arguments and digressions I was THERE for it. My jam.
+ It's really interesting how many of the stories grapple with the perennial "Who Is a Jew?" question through the lens of "Look! Aliens who say they're Jews!" I did really enjoy that a lot. We all seem to take it for granted that if we encounter other intelligent life, sooner or later some of them will end up being Jews. Which I adore.
+ It also provides an interesting reflection on the way Ashkenormative culture kind of freaks out when it encounters Jews who don't look like what Ashkenazim think Jews should look like or Jews who do things differently (I'm thinking of Bene Israel and Beta Israel specifically, but of course there are others).
All in all, glad I'm read it, I think it's got an A+ title, but only a few of these will stick with me in any way.
+ "Exterminate All the Brutes": One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide by Sven Lindqvist.
To start with, two quotes:
"Auschwitz was the modern industrial application of a policy of extermination on which European world domination had long since rested."
"And when what had been done in the heart of darkness was repeated in the heart of Europe, no one recognized it. No one wished to admit what everyone knew."
Lindqvist powerfully argues that the Holocaust was proceeded by a policy of genocide enacted by European imperialists around the world. Centuries of unspeakable brutality and domination abroad were justified by scientific and philosophical works by Europeans back home--the consensus, by the end of the 19th century, became that "lesser/weaker/darker" races would naturally be exterminated by "greater/stronger/whiter ones." Hitler just appalled the world by applying that same logic to Europe, marrying it to existing antisemitism.
Lindqvist patiently lays down layers of European thought and intellectual tradition to show how, by the 20th century, these ideas were at the heart of European culture itself. Keeping Conrad's Heart of Darkness as a touchstone, he presents ideas and atrocities not in chronological order but topical order, which makes it a bit confusing to keep a timeline in your mind. But he builds up the evidence brick by brick until it is, in my opinion, undeniable that he's getting at a real truth.
I'm less convinced of the utility or necessity of the interwoven travelogue, but perhaps it works better for other people than it does for me.
+ Eternity Ring by Patricia Wentworth, a Miss Silver mystery. Pretty good! I have nothing else to say because these books are, as I've said before, the literary equivalent of one of those personal-size bags of potato chips. And I mean that in a good way.
What I'm reading now:
I started Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages by Phyllis Rose and I am really enjoying it so far.
+ Julian Abele and the Design of Duke University by William E. King. A brief account of the career of a Black American architect in the first half of the 20th century who ended up mostly designing both campuses of Duke University but whose contribution was (unsurprisingly) forgotten for decades. This was almost certainly written as a kind of marketing push by Duke to look more inclusive--they seem to really be pushing the whole "Look! We were designed by a Black man!" while ignoring the whole, "At a time when Black students were not allowed to attend the university." It feels like they're using Abele in the way that tokenistic way that a lot of institutions do. But I guess it's better to talk about him than not to.
The subtitle is "an extended essay," and that's what this is: an essay accompanied by some excellent visuals. If, like me, you're looking for an in-depth look at Abele's life and work, you will be disappointed. But for a very brief overview of his life and career with an emphasis on his work for Duke, this works as an introduction. The pictures include photographic portraits of Abele and others, blueprints and studies of his architectural works, and many historic photographs of various buildings he was instrumental in designing. It's a very well-put-together little volume, and while I hope a full biography of Abele will be written sooner or later, I'm glad to have at least this much information about him.
+ Nanette's Baguette by Mo Willems. As some of you may remember, my mom’s part-time job in her retirement is spending hours on the library catalogue, putting books on hold, going to the library to pick books up, reading them to my niblings over facetime almost every day, then taking them all back to the library.
The other morning, she read one to them that she liked so much that when I, her 30-something daughter, called her in the afternoon afternoon, she read the entire thing to me over the phone. And she was right. It was delightful.
Mo Willems is one of those children's book authors like Dr. Seuss or Sandra Boynton who delights in silliness and language and seems to have been destined to write children's books. I am glad he found his way to his vocation.
+ Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction - Read for an online book club. This was a very hit-or-miss collection with honestly more "mehs" than hits. I really liked the first one by William Tenn ("On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi"), the one by Robert Silverberg ("The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov IV"), and the last one by Harlan Ellison ("I'm Looking for Kadak"), the former more than the latter. For some of them, I'm looking at the names of the stories right now and even though I read them last week I can't remember what they were about. Which probably says enough on its own.
A couple of observations:
1. This was less "Jewish fantasy and science fiction" in general than it was "second gen Ashkenazi Americans write fantasy and science fiction" but honestly it was interesting as a time capsule for that reason. Quite a bit of it hasn't aged well, but what can you expect from stuff that was written (mostly by men) from the '50s-70s? (Though one of the worst offenders was written by a woman.)
+ One of the great joys of the collection is that so many of the writers leaned into recreating the dialects of their Yiddish parents/grandparents and so the voices were wonderful. I just love the way the sentences are put together! It was such fun!
+ Any time we got into Talmudic arguments and digressions I was THERE for it. My jam.
+ It's really interesting how many of the stories grapple with the perennial "Who Is a Jew?" question through the lens of "Look! Aliens who say they're Jews!" I did really enjoy that a lot. We all seem to take it for granted that if we encounter other intelligent life, sooner or later some of them will end up being Jews. Which I adore.
+ It also provides an interesting reflection on the way Ashkenormative culture kind of freaks out when it encounters Jews who don't look like what Ashkenazim think Jews should look like or Jews who do things differently (I'm thinking of Bene Israel and Beta Israel specifically, but of course there are others).
All in all, glad I'm read it, I think it's got an A+ title, but only a few of these will stick with me in any way.
+ "Exterminate All the Brutes": One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide by Sven Lindqvist.
To start with, two quotes:
"Auschwitz was the modern industrial application of a policy of extermination on which European world domination had long since rested."
"And when what had been done in the heart of darkness was repeated in the heart of Europe, no one recognized it. No one wished to admit what everyone knew."
Lindqvist powerfully argues that the Holocaust was proceeded by a policy of genocide enacted by European imperialists around the world. Centuries of unspeakable brutality and domination abroad were justified by scientific and philosophical works by Europeans back home--the consensus, by the end of the 19th century, became that "lesser/weaker/darker" races would naturally be exterminated by "greater/stronger/whiter ones." Hitler just appalled the world by applying that same logic to Europe, marrying it to existing antisemitism.
Lindqvist patiently lays down layers of European thought and intellectual tradition to show how, by the 20th century, these ideas were at the heart of European culture itself. Keeping Conrad's Heart of Darkness as a touchstone, he presents ideas and atrocities not in chronological order but topical order, which makes it a bit confusing to keep a timeline in your mind. But he builds up the evidence brick by brick until it is, in my opinion, undeniable that he's getting at a real truth.
I'm less convinced of the utility or necessity of the interwoven travelogue, but perhaps it works better for other people than it does for me.
+ Eternity Ring by Patricia Wentworth, a Miss Silver mystery. Pretty good! I have nothing else to say because these books are, as I've said before, the literary equivalent of one of those personal-size bags of potato chips. And I mean that in a good way.
What I'm reading now:
I started Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages by Phyllis Rose and I am really enjoying it so far.
