I read some excellent books this year. I thought I’d share thoughts on just a few of them.
Aeschylus’ Oresteia, translated by Robert Fagles
There’s an interview with Fagles where he talks about studying Pope’s Iliad, being taught it was more than just an ad hoc translation; it was its own great, lasting work.
Fagles translation of the Oresteia easily fits that description. He was an incredible poet.
The Goodbye-Love Generation / Kori Frazier Morgan
I knew my friend Kori’s book would be good. It’s the best novel I read this year.
It follows the people of Kent, Ohio, from just before the era-defining KSU shooting to the present. There are many brilliant aspects of the book, one of which is that the shooting is not its focus. The people of Kent (those alive at the time and those born since) are the focus, and this elucidates the shooting in a way a history of the event itself could not.
Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul / James McBride
Part bio of the greatest entertainer and creator of funk, part history of the poor southern communities that raised him, and part biography of its author (McBride agreed to write the book, pitched by a huckster, after his wife left him and took their money with her. McBride needed the cash.)--this book should not work. And yet.
Finally, I’m reading some Ted Hughes and came across his poem “Childbirth”. There are interesting parallels between birth, as it’s described by Hughes, and the moment of Jesus’ death in Matthew’s gospel.
When, on the bearing mother, death's
Door opened its furious inch,
Instant of struggling and blood,
The commonplace became so strange
There was not looking at table or chair:
Miracle struck out the brain
Of order and ordinary: bare
Onto the heart the earth dropped then
With whirling quarters, the axle cracked,
Through that miracle-breached bed
All the dead could have got back;
...
