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Listing

 
Listing
 
Dear Brandeis community,
 
I have recently gotten away from the tradition of writing annual year-end “best-of” lists—one that I did in various public formats over a stretch of years—but over the winter holiday I was inspired by a stray tweet by a basketball writer I admire to restart the practice of sharing. So, without further ado and in my own particular order, here are ten books that made memorable dents in my mental space in 2017, each with a brief glimpse into why.
 
The Story of Hebrew, Lewis Glinert
It would be a fair criticism to note that I might occupy a unique niche at the center of this book’s Venn diagram, which would have circles for linguistics, Jewish history, and the role of text in cultural preservation. But the awe with which Glinert approaches his subject is infectious: as he puts it, “the restoration of Hebrew was an act without precedent in linguistic and sociopolitical history.” This story, in his hands, is exciting no matter who you are.
 
Suppose you do change your life.
& the body is more than
 
a portion of night—sealed
with bruises. Suppose you woke
 
& found your shadow replaced
by a black wolf. The boy, beautiful
 
& gone.
 
“Torso of Air”
 
In which Perestroika is given human (and animal) form—a glitteringly harsh non-fiction hunting trip into the Russian tundra, the stalking grounds of the otherworldly Amur tiger.
 
Life on Mars, Tracy K. Smith
            I didn’t want to wait on my knees
            In a room made quiet by waiting.
 
            A room where we’d listen for the rise
            Of breath, the burble in his throat.
 
            I didn’t want the orchids or the trays
            Of food meant to fortify that silence,
 
            Or to pray for him to stay or to go then
            Finally toward that ecstatic light.
 
            “The Speed of Belief”
 
Sarmada, by Fadi Azzam
Gender-bending postmodern fiction from Syria? Yes, please. I was transported, uncomfortably at times, to an oversaturated desert both familiar and not.
 
Here I Am, by Jonathan Safran Foer
“So much of Judaism today—regarding Larry David as anything beyond very funny, the existence and persistence of the Jewish American Princess, the embrace of klutziness, the fear of wrath, the shifting emphasis from argument to confession—is the direct consequence of our choice to have Anne Frank’s diary replace the Bible as our bible. Because the Jewish Bible, whose purpose is to delineate and transmit Jewish values, makes it abundantly clear that life itself is not the loftiest ambition. Righteousness is.”
 
            All day men shout like lizards, sharp-tongued
            in the desert for salty flies. The sky’s the boss
            of us: I can’t spit when I try. In the heat, less
            is everything: respect, power, mouths, sex.
            All of it is taken from me. I step into a volcano
            & melt like the witch I am. I want to be flawed
 
            all the way to bed. Wake up, flawless.
 
            “It’s Getting Hot in Here So Take Off All Your Clothes”
 
The Changeling, Victor LaValle
A novel of fatherhood and fairytales, trolls and our relationships to them. No one mixes genre fiction with African American literary tradition like LaValle—any year with a new book from him is a good year for reading.
 
Illocality, Joseph Massey
            A kind of dream language
            attenuates our per-
            ception. How
 
            the landscape lists
 
            into chain-link,
            parking lot, objects
            barely held onto their names.
 
            “January Sheaf”
 
The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, edited by C.T. Onions
I’m not going to link this one because its physical form is what is so important—its heft and density, the wonderful 1960s graphic design of its cover. I have been finding my way in the world via etymologies for some years now, but took a new pleasure in 2017 in the materiality of the work thanks to this tome. Even now my finger wanders across the page to wonder why we speak of “listing” as a slow falling to one side… Ah, I see: “list” once meant desire, and was connected to “lust,” and when one lusts after something (like a book!) there is a tendency to lean in its direction… (Side note, for the fellow word nerds—that early meaning of “list” is the origin of our phrase “listless”: without zest or spirit!)
 
Wishing you all zestful, spirited weekends, my friends—and 2018s widened and enchanted by reading!
 
Warmly,
 
Dan
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