While Reading and Walking

In some ways, reading Silent Spring was a deep bummer. We as a society rose up against insecticides after reading Rachel Carson’s magnum opus, but we still have so much to learn in changing our outlook towards working with nature instead of against it, in refusing to allow corporations to run the world of scientific research where it can impact lives (and especially to allow them to run and influence the FDA and other consumer protection agencies), and in demanding more rigorous study of the chemicals unleashed into our environment and bodies.

But in other ways, that is precisely what makes it still so worth reading. Carson’s work is still intensely relevant. It also made me determined never to use another insecticide without full PPE on for the rest of my life, and to oppose their use all together unless there’s legitimately no other choice. She preempted the struggles we’re now having with forever chemicals and microplastics, writing poignantly about the permeability of the human body. (Warning that her section on cancer is a bit outdated with more modern research.) She also makes a fierce argument for respecting the natural intervention of nature and the ways that so many of our troubles are caused by our own disruption of natural checks and balances to the system. Like many climate activists today, she stressed that doom and gloom are not the answer, because humans have the ability to invent and innovate, if we just put money behind genuine science and don’t make drastic, unscientific decisions. It is still vividly relevant, beautiful, and worthwhile reading. I also got to read this in Silver Spring, Maryland, which is where Carson wrote it.

Let's start here: I was under the impression I'd read this book before. I had not. So that was a fun discovery. Slaughterhouse-Five, read for the first time, is fierce. I often don't go for the darkly comic, but it's just bleak enough and purposeful enough in Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s work to carry it for me. The anti-war thread, the way that trauma from the war unsticks the main character from time, and the way the sci-fi element works within these is vivid, good work. Such impactful one-liners, and of course the use of "So it goes" has had plenty of analysis elsewhere, but nevertheless is genius.

I'm going to take the unusual step of quoting a review on the back of the book, from Life magazine, as I found myself thinking of it often while reading: "a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears." A brilliant work about the hard task of looking back on tragedy that is impossible to lock down with words; a favorite line of mine was when the narrator says his war book was "written by a salt pillar"—written by someone who, though they know they shouldn't, though they know some kind of sin runs through them if they do, cannot help but to look back.

This book about the practice of diagnosis and the need for it to be better was a fascinating addition to my collection on the current state of healthcare. In The Elusive Body: Patients, Doctors, and the Diagnosis Crisis, Alexandra Sifferlin does really interesting work to unpack what the issue with diagnosis really is: why so many people get incorrect ones, the potential costs that can have, and how it might be able to get better.

One of the answers, naturally, is how much of our healthcare system comes down to insurance, which needs a clear diagnostic code for many tests to be justified, making it ideal to jump to the easy answer and stick to it. Various biases also encourage this—the easiest answer is the most likely, but when that's colored with fatphobia, misogyny, or racism, it can do damage. An astonishing 1 in 15 people will, at some point in their lives, have a rare health condition, and yet doctors are often too quick to dismiss the rare entirely. Partially due to time pressure and partially to the lack of hands-on medical education, the physical exam and listening portions of a doctor's visit are becoming lost arts despite being the most crucial pieces of the puzzle according to all data. There's also a marked lack of collaboration between kinds of doctors—even in good systems, your cardiologist rarely talks at any length with your primary care or dermatologist.

Canon by Paige Lewis is a wild ride. In a surreal, alt/near-future world, Yara is chosen by God to slay bad-guy Dominic. A trans nonbinary kid banished from her childhood home, the embroiderer with heavy OCD boards the back of a whale named HOWBIG! to make her way in her quest. Meanwhile, Adrena, one of God's prophets, tries to convince leader of the Good Guys, Harpo, to let her co-command his army. The novel parodies Christianity, its capricious God, and the tales of the Bible while giving an ironic, queer, and often heart-breaking story of expectation, the weight of guilt and destiny, and the desire to be granted some kind of purity or absolution.

An often metatextual book that is a self-declared "nonbinary epic" is lush with real-feeling characters who populate a strange, fable-like world. Yara struggles with who they are expected to be and become, first by their parents and later from God. Short chapters and multiple perspectives make the novel fly by. Occasionally a bit overdone, but that's the risk of a novel like this, and for the most part, the risks pay off. It's intensely original and interesting, and paced in a way that emphasizes the journey rather than the destination but has a convincing payoff. It's refreshing to read something so intensely new in fiction. The quirks and heartbreaking twists were worth the read, and HOWBIG! the whale was an instant favorite character. Canon is out from Viking on May 19.

Bread of the Ravens is a dream-like novella written in Tamazight, the language of the indigenous people of North Africa, the Imazighen people (known historically as the Berbers, although that term is considered outdated). The Imazighen have fought to keep their language and culture alive amidst the increasing influence and control of Arabic and Islam, as well as foreign powers, over the years.

Aksil Azergui, translated by Hamid Ouyachi, writes of a journalist determined to write the truth of what's happening to his people in the mountains even as a repressive government seeks to silence his voice. The narrative layers on top of itself, leaving the reader uncertain what is and isn't a dream, as our narrator tries to make it into the mountains to put oral traditions and stories into printed word, or as he is imprisoned and tortured by the military. Compelling and surreal while also a brutal work of adapting true stories into words, Bread of the Ravens is a fascinating read. It's accompanied by an overly academic introduction that might scare off some readers, but I encourage you to jump right into the text and enjoy its exploration of possibility and fear. Out June 2.

Snotgirl, written by Bryan Lee O'Malley and illustrated by Leslie Hung, is so delightfully absurd and campy. I reread the first three volumes this weekend so I could dive into the newest, Make It Make Sense!. Lottie is a deeply shallow, melodramatic influencer whose biggest secret is her very gross allergies. The (unable-to-die?) Caroline and her have finally hooked up. But Caroline's brother Virgil is on the case as his family's old enemies rise up on the sidelines, and as Lottie's ex Sunny tries to figure out what their secret is.

After many volumes of heavy mystery, some of the secrets are finally coming out and the plot is solidifying, at least a little bit. But the ludicrous humor and the social-media-based friend drama continues (what's happened to NormGirl, since her wedding literally went up in flames? will John Cho, former detective, go back to the force or continue to pursue fashion design?) and the art style continues to be bright, fun, and indulgent. On this reread, the characters and plot are fully together in my mind, and it was that much more entertaining for it.