Daniel Mendelsohn An Odyssey
Odyssey” – “the forward push of the plot, the backward pull of the flashbacks, of the backstories and digressions” – and echoed in Odysseus’s protracted wanderings, Penelope’s weaving and unravelling. Mendelsohn’s book employs the same kind of circling, penelopising
(an actual verb!) structure. The narrative, following the sequence of his seminar classes, is intercut with reflections on his upbringing and education, as well as casting forward to episodes from the Aegean cruise and his father’s sudden decline.
If An Odyssey charts a journey, it’s not just the obvious one: towards understanding, reconciliation even, between a son and father. Having his father as a student makes Mendelsohn a better teacher, in ways that his book makes movingly manifest.
BEST NEW TALENT Sally Rooney’s Conversations
with Friends is a feverdream of cleverness and youth, listless yet compelling.
GUILTY PLEASURE
Cindy Wang, Literary Yarns: Crochet Projects Inspired by Classic Books Tchotchkes of Lizzie Bennet, Huck Finn, Captain Ahab and the white whale. If only one could crochet!
MOST OVERRATED
The slew of penitent books autopsying liberalism and exculpating blue-collar America. Can’t we just go back to deploring the Trump-voting fuckers? (I know, I know…)
MOST DISAPPOINTING
Judith Brett, The Enigmatic
Mr Deakin If the book doesn’t disappoint, the life itself does. His crabbed existence fell short of his own, and this reader’s, expectations. FL