Here are four novels that grandly challenge the notions of truth, perception, and objectivity. Great reading hours guaranteed.
Trust by Hernan Diaz
This new novel of Diaz is on the 2022 Booker list, and it’s got a Rashomon-effect structure that deftly plays with our notions of objective truth, history, and fact-finding. The first section of the book is taken up by a novel that was popular in the tailend of the 1920’s. Written by Harold Vanner, it purports to be a veiled biography of Benjamin and Helen Rask. Benjamin is a Gatsby-type figure who ruled Wall Street, was immensely rich, and smartly selling short, made a ton of money during the crash of 1929. The second section is authored by Andrew Revel who was the real life figure that Rask was based on. It’s an autobiography that depicts him as a patriot, and how his relationship with his wife, Mildred, was one of matrimonial perfection until her untimely death.
There’s a third section where Ide Partenza reveal she was the ghost writer of Andrew, and how he would anecdotes of her own life and turn them into reminiscences of his life with Mildred. And, finally, a section composed of fragments and musings by Mildred where she reveals how there really wasn't much love between her and Andrew, and how she guided him in his financial dealings and was behind his reputed prescience. Lesson here is how, depending on who is writing, our notion of the life of a single person can drastically change. Diaz turns this 1920 tale into a microcosm of our present day world of historical revisionism, fake news, and dueling versions of so-called "hard facts." It's really great reading here.
The Kingdoms of Savannah by George Dawes Green
Savannah is often perceived as a genteel Queen City of the South where beautiful gabled architecture and tree-lined avenues combine with a local populace of eccentrics and grand characters. George Dawes Green would have us park all those expectations and perceptions by the door and leave them there. The Savannah we discover in this book is the underbelly and the edges of desperation and poverty that also exist side by side with the moneyed families. We’re brought to the seedier neighborhoods, to meet those members of the community who’ll be behind the darker machinations that take place under the cover of night, and take full advantage of the weaker, more fragile segments.
Morgana is the Savannah doyenne that pretty much stands in the center of what goes on within the pages of this novel. And what jumpstarts the action are locals Stony and Luke dropping by the popular local bar, Bo Peep’s. There, for some inexplicable reason, Stony is abducted possibly for reasons connected with how she works as a local ur an archaeologist. Luke, on the other hand, is brutally cut down and murdered, and brought to the burning house of a local slum lord so that his death might look accidental. The wayward son of Morgana and her adopted African-American granddaughter are two of the more interesting characters we encounter in this tale of inner city secrets and criminal behavior. And Savannah looms as a character in its own right in this book.
The Cabinet by Un-Su Kim - First encountered this Korean author via his mystery novel The Plotters, which was a wonderful dark comedy. This one is actually an earlier-written work but now translated to English. Winner of the Minhakdogne Novel Award, which is reputed to be South Korea’s most prestigious literary prize, it’s a fascinating read that blends fantasy, science fiction, and humor. The premise is a Cabinet 13, which Mr. Kong, a beleaguered office worker with no real special skills, is in charge of. Filed in the mysterious Cabinet are the briefs on the "symptomers" (persons who possess weird abilities or have undergone bizarre experiences) and could just mark the beginnings and emergence of a new human species, the next stage of our evolution.
There’s a man with a ginkgo tree growing on his fingertip, a woman who has a doppelgänger that broke up with her boyfriend, people who skip time on a recurring basis, and even a man who insists that he be turned into a cat. What is extra special is how Kim fuses this strangeness into ordinary lives, so they’re still people who you’d walk by and encounter on the streets of Seoul. And you’ll appreciate how while 3/4 of the novel is whimsical, even light-hearted, Kim knows how to shift tones and turn the narrative into something darker and desolate. Would venture to guess that this talent to shift is partly what drew the judges of the Minhakdogne Award to give the prize to this novel, as it is a fascinating, reflective read.
The Life of Human by Ryan Wiggins
Here’s a futuristic fantasy novel that’s structured in a unique manner. The subject is an AI (Artificial Intelligence) world takeover, and how one robot, HumanPal (with the Pal scratched out, so the AI becomes known as Human) is the unexpected hero of the narrative. Human went against the AI horde and actually brought an end to the war by taking the side of humankind. What’s different though is how the novel is constructed. So we hear from nine different personalities, talking about the war, how it started, what transpired, and how Human came into their lives. Put together, these multi-strand narratives offer up an account of what came about, and helps us appreciate the story, and ‘life’, of Human.
Wiggins does an impressive job in creating these nine very different personalities. There’s the opportunistic self-proclaimed new President of the United States (Tourism Bureau), and there’s a Southern pastor whose sermons Human would come out of the closet he was stored in to listen to - thus forging a bond with humans or at the very least, giving Human some kind of empathy for the race. There’s the person who was out to ‘kill’ Human, believing that it’s listening to sermons was an abomination, a harbinger of trying to go beyond it’s reason for existing, and there are other individuals who took advantage of the "war" for pecuniary gain and undergo a transformation of sorts when they encountered human. It’s a tight juggling act by Wiggins, and while there's drama, it’s leavened by humor and irony.