paperback, 416 pages
Published Sept. 8, 2020 by Random House Large Print Publishing, Random House Large Print.
Beautiful and heartbreaking.
[b:Transcendent Kingdom|48570454|Transcendent Kingdom|Yaa Gyasi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1571925550l/48570454.SY75.jpg|73528567] combines science, religion, and a sad tale of addiction. I found the science part of it the most interesting, having long ago worked out any religion issues I may have had when I was young.
The ending felt a little tacked on to me, but as it's a happy ending, what the hell, right?
I’m told that as a baby I was loud and chatty, the exact opposite of the quiet, shy person I turned out to be. Verbal fluency in young children has long been used as a signifier of future intelligence, and while that holds true for me, it’s the temperament change that I’m interested in. The fact that when I hear or see myself on tape from those early years of my life, I often feel as though I am witnessing an entirely different person. What happened to me? What kind …
[b:Transcendent Kingdom|48570454|Transcendent Kingdom|Yaa Gyasi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1571925550l/48570454.SY75.jpg|73528567] combines science, religion, and a sad tale of addiction. I found the science part of it the most interesting, having long ago worked out any religion issues I may have had when I was young.
The ending felt a little tacked on to me, but as it's a happy ending, what the hell, right?
I’m told that as a baby I was loud and chatty, the exact opposite of the quiet, shy person I turned out to be. Verbal fluency in young children has long been used as a signifier of future intelligence, and while that holds true for me, it’s the temperament change that I’m interested in. The fact that when I hear or see myself on tape from those early years of my life, I often feel as though I am witnessing an entirely different person. What happened to me? What kind of woman might I have become if all of that chattiness hadn’t changed direction, moved inward?
There are recordings of me from back then, audiotape after audiotape of my fast talking, perfect Twi or, first, my nonsense babbling. In one of the tapes, Nana is trying to tell the Chin Chin Man a story.
“The crocodile tilts his head back and opens his large mouth and—”
A shriek from me.
“A fly lands on the crocodile’s eye. He tries to—”
“Dada, dada, dada!” I shout.
If you listen to the tape closely, you can almost hear the Chin Chin Man’s patience in the face of Nana’s growing frustration and my unreasonable interruptions. He’s trying to pay attention to us both, but, of course, neither of us gets what we really want: complete and utter attention, attention without compromise.
One of those that enforces regular reflexive breaks, cutting deep. If only the craft were as good as the soul, alas just four of five.
The juxtaposition of familial trauma and neurosurgery is crystal: sharp and clear. Not an easy read for a number of reasons. My main criticism is that there wasn't much light to break up the dark, but this book is beautifully written and devastating.
tl;dr I wasn't drawn into the central preoccupation with god v science and I just wanted to read a novel about the mom. --Longer: Nothing about the mouse research felt real--she glided through college and grad school in some sort of weird ease, without any depth other than setting her up to do the research that would let her meditate on religion and addiction. She just felt flat. But her mom and her brother--all the details about them hinted at huge rich stories about immigration and fitting in and economic mobility and sports fame. I just wanted to read about those things and not Gifty.
It just kept getting better the further I read. And by that I mean more uncomfortable but also more vulnerable, more poignant, and so much more relevant; infinitely so in this moment -- September 2020 -- when the future of humanity hinges on the votes of semiliterate barbarians. Gyasi writes with much more kindness and compassion and feeling than I ever could, but she has little good to say about the horrors of Southern U.S. religiofanatical culture: the lunatically backfiring idiocy of "abstinence" education and the stigmas of mental illness, the smug hatred it instills in the poor and ignorant, the flagrant hypocrisy. And, tragically, the permanent scarring it leaves even on those of us lucky enough to escape it.
But it's much more than that. It's a beautiful book dealing with growth, addiction, Grit, kindness, trust, loneliness, and The Big Questions of life. The first-person narration infuses it with …
It just kept getting better the further I read. And by that I mean more uncomfortable but also more vulnerable, more poignant, and so much more relevant; infinitely so in this moment -- September 2020 -- when the future of humanity hinges on the votes of semiliterate barbarians. Gyasi writes with much more kindness and compassion and feeling than I ever could, but she has little good to say about the horrors of Southern U.S. religiofanatical culture: the lunatically backfiring idiocy of "abstinence" education and the stigmas of mental illness, the smug hatred it instills in the poor and ignorant, the flagrant hypocrisy. And, tragically, the permanent scarring it leaves even on those of us lucky enough to escape it.
But it's much more than that. It's a beautiful book dealing with growth, addiction, Grit, kindness, trust, loneliness, and The Big Questions of life. The first-person narration infuses it with intimacy and authenticity: I felt all the feels, intensely. I related to the narrator, rooted for her, felt her fear and shame and resolve. And, it's a scientifically literate book! About a nerd! I mean, how much better does it get?
