Just in case you need it:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Rebecca
The Kite Runner
Life of Pi
Pride and Prejudice
Little Women
Beloved
A Suitable Boy
I had mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it’s something of a guide for people who don’t know where to start with pleasure reading, or who’ve never really wanted to read novels for their own enjoyment. For those who feel somewhat intimidated by books, it has some great ideas about how to approach reading, as well as tantalizing details about the books involved (after years of going back and forth on it, I now very much want to read The Kite Runner). I could see it as an excellent book club entry for those types of readers. It’s also a celebration of libraries, which apparently are as under fire in the UK as here in the US. On a more trivial note, it made me much more curious about Indian food.
Then Aleisha met Scout and Jem’s father. The narrator, Scout, just called him Atticus . . . it made sense only because he was important. “Dad” seemed too generic for Atticus. He was a lawyer. Wise, kind, fair . . . She turned to Leilah, her face pulled into a grin. “Mum! He’s a lawyer!” she whispered. “A bigshot one in this little town, it sounds like.” She could see Atticus through Scout’s eyes – a large man, powerful, someone to be respected. She remembered thinking of her own dad in that way before, a long time ago. It was strange how, once childhood left, your parents became simply human, with fears and worries just like your own.
“Mum,” she said in hushed tones. “I think I’m getting the hang of this.”
The primary characters are new readers: Aleisha, about to enter University to study Law, really wanted to work at a clothing store (for the discounts!) but couldn’t get the gig. Her brother Aiden suggested she work at the local library instead. She goes from grumpy to invested with the help of a reading list someone left in a book, and a needy old man who’s just as uncomfortable in the library as she is.
“From the first moment you meet Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth, you know that they’re meant to be together. The rest of the book is just the author trying to keep them apart for our entertainment.”
Mr. P was right – she wondered if her own reluctance to be honest and open with Zach, who was trying so desperately to help her open up, was actually the main thing keeping Alicia shut off and alone . . . Just for the sake of it, for the entertainment of her imaginary readers.
The man, Mukesh, is a recent widower. His wife was a big reader, and he discovered a library book she’d been reading when she died – The Time Traveler’s Wife. He reads it, and enjoys it, compares it to his experience of imagining her throughout the day, at different times in their marriage. He goes to the library to return the book, but finds he just doesn’t want to let it go quite yet. Instead, he asks the teenage Aleisha to recommend a book. She’s clueless, and gets a bit short with him.
This relationship, and its development fertilized by the reading list, is the core of the novel. Other characters who’ve found the reading list in various books – there seem to be multiple copies – begin most chapters, but they become background as Aleisha and Mukesh teach themselves to read, and to make changes in their lives.
Throughout the book, two questions keep recurring: Who wrote the list originally? And, What’s wrong with Aiden? There’s also the problem with the library: it’s constantly under threat of being shut down.
The list wasn’t just a distraction for her anymore. She learned how to fight for something you believe in from Atticus Finch; She had learned how to survive with a tiger like Pi; she’d learned never to stay in a creepy house in Cornwall, maybe just go to a B&B or something instead; and from Amir in The Kite Runner she discovered it was never too late to do the right thing. Pride and Prejudice . . . That was more like a guilty pleasure read, but she liked aspects of it – especially the parts that reminded her of Zac.
One of the central points is that books don’t need to be read as puzzles to figure out, as tests to see if you read them correctly. Books can be read and enjoyed for how they relate to your own life. For the reluctant, or insecure, reader, this can take a lot of pressure off.
On the down side, I found it a bit too saccharine, too wildly optimistic, for my taste. The tragedy that set up the climax seemed unexplained, giving it less impact than it should have had. It’s highly rated on Goodreads. I can understand that; there were moments that I loved. One of the points brought out in the book is that you don’t necessarily connect with every book you read. As Aleisha says when she thought Rebecca was creepy but Mukesh thought it was about remarriage and saw it as central to his recovery from grief: “I guess books say different things to different people.” I value reading books as literary objects, finding patterns, techniques, symbols and allusions; but I also like just reading for the joy of it, for what it says to me in the moment, whether or not it fits into someone’s syllabus.
I put this on my reading list when someone mentioned it in the January 2023 “What are you reading” thread run by Five Books. I chose to read it now because I was a bit worn out from the examination of quixotic exceptionalism in 18th century literature, and the medieval allegorical poem about grief, and needed something to decompress with. This fit the bill.
A Just Recompense 