Have Words–Will Write 'Em

As usual, Clegg’s prose is simple and graceful, his third-person character portraits precise, but his plotting, with its intricate, keen-minded twists give his writing the cumulative effect of poetic ambiguity and mystery. Clegg’s first novel was a novel of grief; this is a masterly story of an attempt at righting the misunderstandings of the past that is resonant and true to life’s inherent uncertainty.

You can read my review of Bill Clegg’s The End of the Day in The Boston Globe by clicking the image below.

You can buy Bill Clegg’s The End of the Day at Barnes & Noble.

Still, Gifty admits that at “a certain point, science fails. Questions become guesses become philosophical ideas about how something should probably, maybe, be.” Gifty (and, I think, Gyasi) believes that science and belief in religion can coexist. That’s a philosophy shared by many real scientists like Carlo Rovelli and Mario Livio. Gifty even says, “Both [science and religion] became, for me, valuable ways of seeing.” For the fictional neuroscientist Gifty, though, both have failed to fully satisfy in their aim: to make clear, to make meaning.

You can read my review of Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom in The Brooklyn Rail by clicking the image below.

You can buy Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom at Barnes & Noble.

The allusions and the quotations, the sociopolitical philosophy and the implied and actual violence move the story along at a bipolar pace, alternately restrained and frenzied, but Kunzru adds elements of humor that lessen the horror of reading about a man’s tumble into breakdown and insanity, and his eventual recovery, at least, up to the November 8th election results.

You can read my review of Hari Kunzru’s Red Pill in The Brooklyn Rail by clicking the image below.

You can buy Hari Kunzru’s Red Pill at Barnes & Noble.