Kakutani’s guide a gift to booklovers
Michiko Kakutani, former chief book critic for the New York Times, was long one of the most influential voices in the book world, reviewing for the newspaper from 1983 to 2017. In 2018 she published her first book, “The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump,” a clarion call warning about Russian misinformation, the loss of faith in objective reality and susceptibility to authoritarianism that was brilliantly ahead of its time.
Now comes her gift to all book lovers: “Ex Libris: 100 Books to Read and Reread,” a miraculous volume, illustrated and designed with loving attention to detail. Released in October, it might be the physically most beautiful book I’ve ever held, its cover designed by Dana Tanamachi, known for her illustrative work for the U. S. Postal Service and Time magazine, among many others.
The Chronicle chatted with Kakutani in a recent email exchange about why we could all really use a book right now, and she even shared what’s on her reading list.
Q: In your introduction, you write about books mattering more than ever. Could that feel more true than ever now?
A: Yes! I think books do matter more than ever in today’s increasingly fragmented and polarized world. As I write in the introduction to “Ex Libris,” books can surprise and move us, challenge our certainties and goad us into reexamining our default settings. Books can jolt us out of old habits of mind and replace reflexive usversusthem thinking with an appreciation of nuances and context. Literature challenges political orthodoxies, religious dogma and conventional thinking, and it does what education and travel do: It exposes us to a multiplicity of viewpoints and voices. ... As Jean Rhys once observed, reading “makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.” Q: Do you think reading books — including “Ex Libris” — can catalyze empathy in any reader?
A: Empathy — the ability, as the saying goes, to walk in another’s shoes — can help bridge divides, enable people to engage in conversation ( as opposed to confrontation), and bring people from very different backgrounds together with a shared sense of purpose. As Pope Francis put it: Empathy can help bring about “a true human dialogue in which words, ideas and questions arise from an experience of fraternity and shared humanity.”
James Baldwin has also pointed out that books can alleviate isolation and loneliness: “You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discovered it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important.”
I hope “Ex Libris” introduces readers to new books — or spurs them to reread old favorites — that catalyze such feelings of empathy and enthusiasm.
Q: Yeats’ famous poem “The Second Coming” shows up at least twice. Does it sometimes seem in 2020 as if we are all Joan Didion, “sleepwalkers” stumbling through “dread and emotional vertigo”?
A: Yeats’ “The Second Coming” — which was written in the wake of World War I and the Russian Revolution, and which anticipated the horrors of the 20th century — is a poem, alas, that seems perennially relevant, as one calamitous event after another seems to overtake recent history.
The poem was alluded to during World War II, Vietnam, the post9/ 11 years, the Iraq war, and after the election of Donald Trump. Despite being one of the English language’s most quoted poems — referenced not only by Joan Didion and Chinua Achebe, but also by countless rock bands and movies — “The Second Coming” retains remarkable freshness and ferocity: thanks both to Yeats’ indelible language and to his ability to capture the anxieties of the modern age, an era in which old certainties and beliefs gave way to an existential sense of dislocation.
Didion saw the turmoil of the 1960s — the rapid social and cultural changes, accompanied by feelings of rootlessness and confusion — reflected in Yeats’ poem. 2020 often feels like a cartoon ( but deeply unfunny) version of such emotions — fears of chaos and fragmentation and things coming undone, and ( depending on the outcome of the election), a real threat to our democracy and the world. Q: You evoke the massive importance — and beauty — of T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” in two exquisite pages. Do you still hear that poem echoing in your head? A: I was fortunate to have a wonderful seventhgrade English teacher, Mr. Adinolfi, who had us memorize a lot of poetry — including Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and parts of “The Waste Land.” I can still quote some lines from memory.
Memorizing poetry can be such a magical exercise — it not only teaches you about language and imagery, but if you’re young enough and in love with literature, I think it imprints itself on your imagination, giving you a lasting appreciation of how writers use words and the music of verse to create works of art that endure for generations.
Q: I love the eclecticism of your choices. Did you try to be sparing in including books by lesserknown authors?
A: I tried to include a mix of wellknown and lesserknown writers — to introduce readers to some authors and books they might not have otherwise come across. When I was a critic at the New York Times, I tried to do something similar: In addition to reviewing much anticipated novels ( by established authors like Toni Morrison, Philip Roth and Gabriel Garcia Marquez) and political books containing breaking news ( by writers like Bob Woodward), I attempted to find debut novels, short story collections and memoirs by talented new writers.
Q: What books do you plan to read soon?
A: As soon as the election is over, I’m hoping to catch up on such recent books as “Homeland Elegies” by Ayad Akhtar, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson, “Missionaries” by Phil Klay, “The Lightness” by Emily Temple, “Here We Are” by Graham Swift and “The Searcher” by Tana French.