Perhaps the best indicator of how uninspiring this year has been can be found in the fact that 2020 saw my fewest number of blog posts since I began this project; and not all of that can be blamed on the fact that I read and reviewed the fewest number of books since starting here in 2013. And, really, how sad is that? The pandemic forced me to be off work from March to September, and in those long months, I neither read more than ususal, nor spent those hours in contemplation and explication of this ordinary (and therefore examinable) life. Living through a pandemic hasn't made me feel particularly sad or scared or depressed with my existence; everything has just felt paused and I found myself reacting to that without enthusiasm or inspiration; this was not a "gift" or chance to "reset". I did not declutter my house; I did not learn a "quarantine skill"; I did not improve myself at all. And when I did return to work - in the decidedly nonessential role of "bookseller" - I was delighted to be around my coworkers again but found myself emotionally drained by my interactions with the customers; we literally had people saying they would go home and get guns and come back and shoot us if we didn't let them into the store without masks. People yelled at us about their rights, people employed nonsensical talking points that sounded like they came out of internet chat rooms ("this isn't private property if the company is publicly traded", huh?), people demanded our names and took videos of us explaining company policy. And while that didn't make me feel particularly sad or scared or depressed with my existence, it certainly made me feel disconnected from the community at large: No matter what anyone believes about the coronavirus or how serious it is, we can't get out of this stalemate, this paused existence, if we don't all work together to make it go away; and I don't trust everyone to work together. So, now I find myself in another month (at least) of lockdown, I finally feel recovered from the added stress of COVID rules at Christmas in retail, and while I still don't anticipate me using this break for anything life-altering, I do intend to approach the new year with some bright-faced optimism; as The Beatles once sang:
I have to admit it's getting better
A little better all the time
(It couldn't get much worse!)
So, as in previous years, I'll begin with a recap of my top reads:
Top Ten Fiction Released in 2020
Apeirogon
I wish this had won the Booker; the kind of read that could literally change the world. (Especially poignant as I had read this immediately after a trip to Israel.)
Absolutely meshes with my tastes.
Between its gritty material and surreal language, this was a mind-altering read.
Shuggie himself was such a bright light that he elevated this story (based on the author's own childhood) above what could have been mere misery porn.
Engaging story but I was probably most affected by its setting in the years of my own early adulthood; just so personally relatable and enjoyable.
This poetic book must have really snagged something in my subconscience; I keep thinking about and recommending this one.
Another book that was more about the language than the plot (although its mythical qualities also spoke to me).
Love the nature writing and what I learned about the Scots (and especially around Brexit).
I especially liked how this wrapped up Ali Smith's Seasonal Series, and in that same spirit -
I was impressed by what this novel added to Marilynne Robinson's Gilead Series.
I felt very fortunate that while in the first lockdown - with libraries and bookstores closed - we were encouraged (by a company-wide email) to take advantage of NetGalley, as they represent many publishers who automatically approve ARC requests from booksellers. I had tried to request a few books from them over the years - always denied - so it was very satisfying to make a new account as a bookseller and have so many books available to me before their release dates; and while I've never really been a fan of reading on electronic devices, I am happy that there's no physical waste left over from the forty-five books I've read this year through NetGalley. One of the consequences of choosing so many of my books through their website, however, is that I read quite a bit more science-related nonfiction this year (most of my nonfiction in previous years tended to be memoir and I wasn't much drawn to the life stories I saw on the website) and that's a bonus too because I found so many reads that felt mind-expanding. And so:
Top Five Nonfiction Released in 2020
The book that most filled me with awe this year, and isn't that the point of living? And reading?
A persuasive and engaging read; why is this controversial?
Not just the latest on Neanderthals but why their story matters to modern humans.
(Honourable Mentions in the NetGalley Science Category: Underland: A Deep Time Journey and The Book of Unconformities: Speculations on Lost Time (so many rocks in each!); Vesper Flights and When Birds are Near (so many birds!); Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality (even if I push back against Frank Wilczek's insistence that there's nothing special about human consciousness) and in counterpoint, Synchronicity: The Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect. )
Another NetGalley find, this felt like an essential addition to my knowledge base.
Because who didn't need some laughs this year? (And I genuinely laughed.)
I read more books in translation than usual this year (mostly through NetGalley) and I thoroughly enjoyed: The Slaughterman’s Daughter: The Avenging of Mende Speismann at the Hands of Her Sister Fanny (from Hebrew, coincidentally read in Israel); Olav Audunssøn : I. Vows (from Norwegian); The Discomfort of Evening (from Dutch); Tyll and Qualityland (both from German). I think what I learned is that if I find myself bored of reading the same North American MFA-generated fiction over and over again, I ought to look for something new from other countries. (But didn't I already know that? What's most surprising about my reading this year is how little effort I put in to reading the nominees for the big literary prizes; disappointed too many times in the past, I guess.)
When we first went into lockdown, I went to the list I generated last year from 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List and ordered a few older books from it, and for the most part, I found myself enchanted by: Eyewitness to History; The Worst Journey in the World; Independent People : An Epic (translated from Icelandic); The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography and Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse (two books that linger linked and similar in my memory). And five more honourable mentions for older fiction: Butcher’s Crossing (such a pity John Williams only wrote three novels and this was the last I needed to read); Possession : A Romance; Madame Bovary; A Country Road, A Tree (elevated by following up with Waiting for Godot); and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (surprised myself that I liked this so well; book club is tonight and most people have already said that they didn't bother reading it, sigh.)
*****
While looking at my farewell to 2019, reminding myself how I like to format these things, I noticed that all my pictures from last year are messed up - I don't know if that's a Blogger problem, a me problem (likely), or because I don't host my pictures on some third party/cloud-related site and they're no longer "found" in my laptop's memory, but since I can't be arsed to go back and fix that, I won't be arsed to add photos here this year; and that's just so 2020.
I will acknowledge that this year started with a bang: the trip that Dave and I took to Israel and Jordan in January was simply amazing. Humbling historical sites, wonderful guides, and friendly fellow travellers, we knew that we were incredibly lucky to have had another "trip of a lifetime" and we also knew that we would be going on more in the future. Slightly ironic that it was in the executive lounge at Heathrow on the way home that the BBC news channel first made me aware of this new "coronavirus"; some health crisis in China that didn't have much to do with me; we continued to talk about where we should go next. Over the next month, we made some plans (Kennedy was going to do the Mud Girl Run with me and her Aunt Rudy) and bought tickets (we were all going to see Ringo Starr at Casinorama; I got tickets for Ella and a friend to see Kinky Boots) and made reservations (we were going to go white water rafting in August; stay in the seaside oTENTik Kennedy always ogled in Cape Breton) - and a month after that, everything shut down and all of our plans got cancelled. Mallory and I were furloughed from our jobs, Kennedy and Zach continued to work from home, and Dave never stopped going to the office (their plant would eventually have the biggest COVID outbreak in the Region - which the local news made a huge deal out of despite Dave and the rest of the management team putting industry-leading protocols into place and despite Public Health having zero recommendations for industry at the time; no one died from the coronavirus at the plant, although no one could have known how that whole awful situation was going to play out) and we all soon set in to our new reality.
I made one brief post in May about how (lightly) quarantine was affecting me and those around me, and incredibly, that's all I wrote about the pandemic or anything else that happened this year? Because something else BIG did happen. In my Halloween post this year, I briefly mentioned the fact that since we couldn't go down to Nova Scotia to visit my parents this summer (incidentally, Kennedy, Zach, and I did drive down there in February for a weekend visit, which even pre-pandemic, I apparently didn't think was interesting enough to write about here), we rented a cottage outside of Delta, Ontario for a week (we would usually go to Sauble Beach, but the mayor was asking people from out of town to stay away). We had a lovely, cottagey time - kayaking and card-playing, campfire singalongs and boot camp in the isolated yard - and on our last day there, I opened the real estate listings website because I knew this place was afor sale and we were enjoying it, and as was my habit, I also looked at the cottages at Sauble Beach. I have written many times about the cottage at Sauble that Dave grew up with - and the villainous role that his aunt played in selling the cottage out from under his parents - so I was shocked to discover that that property (now with a four bedroom house built on it) was also for sale. I walked into the cottage, where Dave was cooking breakfast, and I said, "So I found the real estate listing for this place online. Wanna guess how much it is?" He guessed, I told him the right answer, and then I said, "Oh yeah, and your family's property at Sauble Beach is for sale." His jaw dropped. "How much?" he asked. I told him. "Too bad the timing just isn't right. I guess that wasn't meant to be," he said. Dave had just paid cash for a new car the week before - pretty much as soon as we realised that there was no point in looking for a cheap cottage at Sauble because there was just nothing for sale - and we knew the "cottage" wasn't meant to be. Except it was.
We said, "Why not?" and made an appointment to go see the place the following Sunday (as a vacation rental property, viewings were only scheduled for Sundays and we were the first people to go through it; even though we had rented this house before and knew exactly what it was), and despite having no idea what the bank would say to us, we said, "Why not?" and immediately made an offer conditional on financing. And when we went to the bank, they said, "Why not?" and fronted the entire mortgage and now Dave and I own two homes; the one at Sauble Beach to be used as a vacation rental property (and family retreat) until Dave retires and we move up there. I didn't write about all that here, but this was my facebook announcement:
Well, that’s retirement sorted: Dave’s family had a cottage at Sauble Beach when he was growing up and he spent many glorious summers there. The cottage eventually left the family, as cottages do, and a house was built on the property. We happened to notice recently that this house was for sale, and we bought it. The place where Dave grew up, at the beach where our own kids made many happy memories of their own, is where we will grow old together. We are ecstatic to bring this full circle and look forward to making new memories at everybody’s “happy place”.
(There are plenty of great pictures with that post, but like I said, I'm not going to be arsed to reproduce them here and then have them disappear. My only concession: The picture at the top is of the house.) Dave is not a religious man - although he is spiritual in his own way - but he absolutely believes that his dead grandparents - who originally owned this property and built the small cottage that has been moved to the backyard as a bunkie - have been karmically righted. The night we were waiting to see if the offer would be accepted, Dave went out back of our house, looked up at the night sky, and wondered if they knew; and Dave, my unreligious husband who would swear that nothing survives death, knows he felt a light pressure on each of his shoulders, as though his grandparents were laying their hands there in approval. The most remarkable part of this story is that the bitterness he had harboured against his aunt for the entire time I've known him - the cottage was sold just the year before we met; this was not only Dave's tragic origin story as presented to me but the seed of spite he raised our children on; I can not overstate this - that bitterness is gone. Dave has been reaffirmed in his belief that everything happens for a reason and he has been forced to acknowledge that, being the path that led to us owning this property (and especially while that bunkie still stands), everything that has gone before has been inevitable and the path that led to us. Dave forgives his aunt. This is a fairytale ending.
Looking through my index of posts for this year, it's incredible to me how little I wrote about what was going on - but there was really not much going on. I know I wrote in my farewell to 2019 that I was generally happy, feeling more social connection than usual with boot camp every morning at the gym, monthly book club meetings, and socialising with my coworkers; all of that was a vast improvement over where I was when I started this blog, but I lost all of that this year. I haven't been to the gym since March (but do daily boot camp videos at home), we do our book club meetings by Zoom call and they sure aren't the same, and even though I did eventually go back to work, policing anti-maskers was never the job I signed up for. Every day during the quarantine was much like the day before, and other than feeling bad for my mother-in-law (in a nursing home and unable to have in-person visits - other than some distanced ones in the home's parking lot during the summer months), and then Rudy was able to get essential caregiver status and go in for a few visits, until Dan and her Dad both tested positive for COVID just before Christmas. Now, I was feeling pretty sad about Christmas this year - sad about distanced porch present drop offs with my brothers, no parties, no big dinner - but I absolutely cannot imagine how Rudy was feeling. Dan got very sick, could hardly get out of bed and was labouring to breathe, and her Dad was short of breath and had zero energy, and on Christmas Day itself, now in quarantine as well and not able to go visit her Mom in the home as she had planned, Rudy was taking care of both Dan and her Dad, not knowing if they would live. I pictured that scene pretty much as Rudy would later describe it to me, and while I wanted to tell myself that I had very little to be sad about - I have had remarkable things happen for me this year and have (so far, knock wood) avoided COVID-related tragedy - it's still hard to shake the sadness, the feeling of living on pause (priveledged problems, I know, but this feeling of being paused is the only thing that feels real to me right now). Another fairytale ending: Dan and my father-in-law are both now symptom-free, and Rudy got negative results for the COVID test she took yesterday. And that's a very happy thing and what can fuel the kind of optimism I want to bring into 2021.
“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.”
