Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

Taylor Branch, in his formidable three volume biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., poses a question that another Pulitzer Prize winner, Isabel Wilkerson, (The Warmth of Other Suns), asks her readers to ponder in her wonderful, accessible new book “Caste, the Origins of our Discontents.”

“If people were given the choice between democracy or whiteness, how many would choose whiteness?”

Let that sit with you for a while. You might be shocked at your own answer. And that’s what I most appreciated about Wilkerson’s new book. She forces the reader into the shoes, no, the hearts and souls of the perceived lower castes, comparing the systems that created the Dalits, the so-called untouchables in India, the non-Aryan (Jewish) citizens in Nazi Germany and throughout Europe, and the African Americans brought to the United States in chains.

Did you know that the infamous Nuremburg Laws instituted by Hitler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws)  in Germany in 1935 as a means to separate the races, were modeled on or influenced by the Jim Crow laws already in use here in “the world’s greatest democracy?”

I worried, when I started reading this book for the Diane Rehm book club on public radio, that it would be too academic. I should have known better from the experience of reading her first book. Wilkerson is, first and foremost, a journalist, not an historian, and this is all to the good as Dwight Garner, the New York Time book reviewer who was on Diane’s panel opined. Because she interweaves her own experiences into the story it is that much more shocking and personal.

The ugly truth, as stated by Harvard Law Professor Kenneth Mack, is that for societies to function it seems that someone must be on the bottom of the economic and political hierarchy. The original sin of slavery was embedded in our capitalistic creed so that, even when it was outlawed, the damage was done. Sure, with education and good luck, many African Americans rise to prominence and stature in the United States but when they are driving their cars or walking their dogs in their own neighborhoods, they are still perceived by those in authority as lower caste. Witness Henry Louis Gates and his arrest for trying to enter his own home.

Harvard scholar Suraj Yengde added his own spin on the caste system when he spoke of Brahmin Indians he knows who, relocating to America, are shocked to discover that they are, simply because of the caste of their skin, demoted from their esteemed level in India, to the bottom rung here in the states. Then he calls out their hypocrisy.

I cannot recommend this book enough for its clear, concise, sometimes graphic, and disturbing picture of the horrors of the various caste systems in use around the world and the devastating psychological, physical, and economic effects they have. This would make a superb high school textbook for students whose lack of imagination, experience, and knowledge keep them ignorant of their own histories. And for your next book discussion? Reserve more than an hour. You will need it.

Fredrik Bachman's Anxious People

Lately I find that I often feel slightly out of touch with my fellow man. What do you do with a book that opens with the author stating, “This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots.”? I felt slapped in the face and had an immediate and visceral reaction that pre-disposed me to dislike the novel called “Anxious People.” My parents would have punished us kids for even thinking about calling someone else an idiot. The bottom line though is that I genuinely enjoyed this novel even as it broke my heart. Why? Because it is overwhelmingly full of human beings, not so much anxious, as fearful of what life has in store, fearful of failing, fearful of loneliness, fearful of abandonment. In other words, a book for our times.

Touted as a comedic tour de force, there is little that I found funny in this novel. Poignant? Yes. Ironic? Sometimes. The premise is that a desperate robber with a toy gun tries to hold up a bank employee at a cashless facility. As the teller threatens to call the police, our thief, in a panic, runs through a back door, up a set of stairs, and walks right into a real estate open house in a small condominium complex. Before a word is uttered, assumptions are made, and our hapless robber suddenly has a hostage situation on his hands. The hours drag by, journalists, TV vans, cops, and onlookers gawk at the building as the folks inside settle in for an awkward meet and greet.

A retired couple who fill their days flipping properties and making money rather than do the hard work of communicating, a young couple expecting their first child and terrified that they won’t be good parents, and elderly woman waiting for her husband to park the car, an aloof banker, this disparate group spar, practice avoidance, and slowly open up over the course of an afternoon while Jim and Jack, a dysfunctional father/son duo of local police officers waiting for the big guns from Stockholm to arrive, decide to take matters into their own hands and learn wonderful new things about each other.

Author Fredrik Bachman makes no secret of his own high anxieties. A friend and I saw him present at a panel discussion in New York City and it felt painful to watch. For this reason, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that perhaps the gentleman doth protest too much. He may say he thinks they are idiots, but he loves his characters, each and every one. By the end of the novel, readers will love them too, for their insecurities, their frailties, their lack of self-awareness, but their willingness to face their demons.   

Our discussion group last night was plagued by Zoom problems but in-between the annoyances we agreed on a few things. If you have never read Bachman before you may be put off by his choppy writing style and penchant for interspersing his own opinions into the tale. One member of our group made the spot-on recommendation that “Anxious People” would be better served if presented as a play. We all agreed though that the joy of this book is that, though written in Sweden about Swedes, the struggles of the characters, dealing with grief and possible self-harm, have universal reach, and we loved the way Bachman forced us repeatedly to face our own biases and assumptions.

Spring Book and Author Festival

This past week Penguin/Random House, Library Journal, and School Library Journal hosted a fabulous day of book chats and panel discussions featuring hot titles coming out for avid readers this spring. I could sign up for as many or as few hour-long sessions as I liked. I did not want to be too greedy with the virtual LJ Day of Dialog looming in May.

The morning session “Illuminating Book Club Picks”, two memoirs and two novels based on memoir, led to a timely investigation of the fine line between fiction and truth and why certain authors choose one mode over the other in which to interrogate their pasts. Moderator Migdalia Jimenez from the Chicago Public Library pointed out the themes that each book shared that would force book groups to look deeper than the average reader might. Among these are:

Point of View – multiple characters who have very differing perspectives and make alternate choices in their lives that others may not approve of or understand.

Coping with Grief – illuminating the myriad responses people have to grief and recognizing the validity of each person’s individual reaction.

Trauma and Loss – investigates how people’s lives are changed by historical events, WW II, 9/11, Brexit, etc.

Childhood Connections – the best and the worst parenting and how we cope, growing up in multi-generational homes, sibling rivalry, and mother/daughter conflict.

These four diverse authors shared their stories with us and each sounds unforgettable. Keep your eyes peeled for Danielle Henderson’s “The Ugly Cry, A Memoir,” a reckoning with her fractured family using humor and grace.

Michelle Zauner also chose the memoir format for her new book “Crying in H Mart,” about re-discovering her Korean identity and her relationship with her mom as she helps her face a cancer diagnosis.

Vietnamese American debut author Eric Nguyen chose fiction, and a glorious title, “Things We Lost to the Water,” to examine the lives of two immigrant boys and their homeless, jobless mother as they relocate and try to forge a life in New Orleans, always waiting for their father to join them in their strange new world.

 And then, “Rainbow Milk” by a British debut novelist, Paul Mendez, tells the story of nineteen-year-old Jesse, a gay, Black man raised in a Jehovah Witnesses household trying to come to terms with his sexuality, the color of his skin, and the lack of means to support himself in a country that will always see him as different.

 

The afternoon session was all about the so-called “Big Summer Reads,” all novels and all sounding fascinating. I’ll tell you all about them tomorrow and follow that up with a blow by blow of our neighborhood book discussion on “Anxious People” by Fredrik Bachman.