Jo Hawke > Recent Status Updates

Harrowingly beautiful. Real and raw.

I can’t believe I put off reading this book for so long. The title put me off… but I do not advise judging this book by its title. An(other) Appalachian epic by one of the most gifted writers of our time.

I’m mapping my read with Google Maps: Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky · Jo
https://maps.app.goo.gl/zjui7npuYYt5J...

“A certain percentage, they tell us, must every year go... that way... to the devil, I suppose, so that the rest may remain chaste, and not be interfered with. A percentage! What splendid words they have; they are so scientific, so consolatory.... Once you’ve said ‘percentage’ there’s nothing more to worry about. If we had any other word... maybe we might feel more uneasy....”

Only a fraction in, but... Saying this book hasn’t aged well is a huge understatement. Twain is so overtly and hatefully racist toward the “swarthy, noisy, lying, shoulder-shrugging, gesticulating Portuguese boatmen” he meets at their very first stop in Faial in the Azores Islands that I just can’t keep going.

https://twitter.com/johawke/status/13...

“Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.”

That’s a lot to unpack.

Until near the end of chapter 2, I wasn’t quite sure what I was reading. (I try to avoid reviews and detailed summaries if I can, at least until after I’ve gotten into a new book.) I actually checked to make sure it was fiction, as I’d originally thought. Only a minute later, though, I was locked in.