Jazz by Toni Morrison
Jazz by Toni Morrison ended up being an extremely challenging read for me. Even its moments of joy somehow carried such a weight, so oppressive it dulled all my emotions. That weight became the only thing I could feel in connection to the characters—a suffocating heaviness that refused to lift.
The story begins with an already unsettling event: Joe, a middle-aged man, shoots his teenage lover, Dorcas. Later on, Joe’s wife, Violet, attempts to attack Dorcas’ corpse with a knife during her funeral. As the narrative unfolds, we follow the characters grappling with these events, uncovering the layers of their pasts and the paths that led them here. Morrison reveals them through their internal struggles and the perspectives of others. Yet, despite this complex exploration, I found it almost impossible to connect with them emotionally. The pervasive heaviness seemed to smother every opportunity for empathy…
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing
Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone had been sitting on my to-read list for years. The topic intrigued me, but the blurb didn’t spark an immediate desire to dive in. I assumed it was just another story about a woman moving to New York City and starting over—been there, done that. But visiting New York this past summer, I stumbled across the book at McNally Jackson in SoHo and decided to give it a chance. It’s about New York, after all. How could I resist?
What I found within its pages was something completely unexpected—something profoundly moving. Instead of the straightforward narrative I’d imagined, the book unraveled as a deeply layered exploration of humanity and the fragility of staying (or becoming?) humane in a society often shaped by alienation…