Two Days by the Sea

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 

Boston : Mariner Books, [2005], c1955.

xii, 209 p. ; 21 cm.     

I decided to read To the Lighthouse during the stay at home time this spring since I haven't read Virginia Woolf in a long time and it seemed like a short read and a chance to catch up on a "classic." 

This is not a novel you read for the narrative.  Most of the book happens on two single days separated by an interval of ten years. Within those ten years Europe is ripped apart by WWI and one of the central characters of part one dies.  However the novel is more interested in the impressions of various characters and the complex inner life of the characters. Instead of narrative being the engine of the novel, the movement of the novel is driven by impressionist and poetic writing.

There is much to admire in Woolf's writing, but I have to say it took me longer to read than I expected.  It's a book one savors for its stylistic accomplishments.  I think reading it during the pandemic, made it harder to truly enjoy the rich artistry of the writing.  With all that said, it's not really a book I would recommend to a student, unless they are really interested in literature as an art form.  In that case, I would recommend it as a significant milestone in English fiction, one that charted new territory for the genre.

Cruel School

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

New York : Doubleday, [2019]  

213 p. ; 22 cm.

 

After reading Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, I knew I wanted to read his latest novel - The Nickel Boys.  Underground Railroad was brutal at times, but the fantastic nature of the novel helped me as a reader keep it's terror at bay - there is no such consolation in Nickel Boys, especially when you realize that the novel is firmly grounded in the real-life horrors that occurred in the Dozier School for Boys in the Florida panhandle. 

Whitehead's novel is set in the mid-60s and involves a stand-up African American high school student - Elwood- who is headed for college near Tallahassee.  But being a young black man in Jim Crow Florida lands Elwood in a reform school for boys that is run with sadistic cruelty, racism and corruption.  There, the idealistic Elwood faces the barbarism of the school and becomes friends with the more savvy Turner who is willing to help them both survive (boys in the school are sometimes killed by the staff both in real-life and in the novel). The novel is a taught and terrifying story of survival in the cruelest of environments. The reader never knows what will happen to the characters right up until the shocking ending. 

As I mentioned in my post about The Underground Railroad, Whitehead is a superb writer and - if you can endure the cruelty of the events - the novel is well worth reading.