Reading in Public No. 20

Reading the world when the world is broken

Typically on Fridays I share Friday Mood Recs with paid newsletter subscribers. I have some really great things sitting in my draft folders right now: part two of my Book Lists for Every Taylor Swift Era series as well as a delightful post matching classic novels with fall sweaters. It didn’t feel right to me to share one of those today so instead I’m sending you an adapted version of something I’ve been thinking about and wrestling with all year.

FictionMatters began as a project dedicated to demonstrating how fiction builds empathy and examining what fiction can teach us about the world. Today, I want to offer some thoughts on reading the world when the world is broken.

I’ve had notes on this topic sitting in my Substack drafts folder for months. Every time the world has broken into a crisis this year, I’ve thought about how that impacts the books I read and the books I share. Is it wrong to promote Russian literature and settings while Russia invades Ukraine? Is it wrong to recommend beachy vacation reads when Maui is burning?

I don’t have answers to those questions, and I continue to take seriously my role as a public reader and someone who influences the books that others purchase and consume. But I also have concerns about over politicizing reading to the point that it interferes with our humanity, our connectivity, and our capacity for empathy.

Over and over in the book space we hear that reading is political. That statement is true and important to acknowledge. Belittling the political impact—the political existence—of books is a surefire way to shroud ourselves in ignorance and can lead to censorship and propaganda. Books are political. The choices we make about what we read, what gets taught, what gets marketing dollars…these are all choices influenced by political context, and I am certainly not here to say that reading is or should be an apolitical pursuit.

BUT, I worry that when people say “books are political,” what they’re often saying is “books humanize…and I have opinions about who is worthy of being humanized.”

I know this is an oversimplification. Choosing what to read is an act of prioritization, and we all know that some voices have historically been prioritized while others have been silenced. We have been saturated with novels that explore the humanity of some while others have to fight for their humanity to be noticed at all. As a reader and former teacher, I value prioritizing stories and experiences that have been marginalized, but I don’t want to lose my capacity to see the humanity in anyone. I firmly believe that reading is a way to practice that.

Because books do humanize. And that is political. But it is also simply, well, human.

It is an essential part of our humanity to try to empathize with perspectives, experiences, and lives outside of our own, as well as to more deeply understand our own humanity. It can also be deeply uncomfortable to see and acknowledge someone else’s humanity. So today, because I know it to be true that I can value the lives of both Palestinians and Israelis, because I know it to be true that people are not their governments, and because I know it to be true that this community of readers values seeing the humanity in all, I’m sharing books that I love from both Palestinian and Jewish authors.

I won’t pretend that these books cover the vast breadth of Palestinian or Jewish experiences. It is also the case that some (all?) of these novels contain bias. That doesn’t make them propaganda; it makes them human. Because we all have biases, and that is true for authors as well as their characters. I’m presenting these books to you not as truth or as lessons in history and current events, but as opportunities to see the humanity in another person who you may or may not understand or agree with.

Here’s my list, alphabetical by author:

• Salt Houses by Hana Alyan. A stunning multigenerational family saga that explores Palestinian displacement.

• The Postcard by Anne Berest. A heartbreaking novel about the Holocaust and antisemitism in France today, inspired by the author’s family history.

• The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. A funny and moving detective novel set in an Alaskan post-WWII Jewish enclave.

• Enter Ghost by Isabel Hammad. A powerful story of art and resistance set in contemporary Israel and Palestine.

• The Parisian by Isabel Hammad. A sweeping work of historical fiction that follows one man from Paris to Palestine in the mid-twentienth century.

• The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. A tender novel about loneliness, loss, and identity that follows two Jewish families in New York City.

• The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah. The story of a Palestinian-American woman who faces the unimaginable when a gunman enters her school.

• The Book of Gaza: A City in Short Fiction ed. by Atef Abu Saif. A series of breathtaking short stories that explore the lives of everyday people in Gaza.

• Maus by Art Spiegelman. The only graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize—this is a beautifully rendered and extremely important historical retelling.

• The Tunnel by A.B. Yehoshua. An aging Israeli man literally and figuratively uncovers his family’s history and future.

For my own reading, I’m currently in the middle of Minor Detail by Adania Shibli and And the Bride Closed the Door by Ronit Matalon. Adania Shibli is a Palestinian author who was set to be honored at a prestigious literary festival which then rescinded her invitation in the wake of the October 7th Hamas attacks. Many book purveyors are giving away free copies of Minor Detail so more readers can experience her work—a wonderful initiative that I took advantage of with a free download from Libro.fm. I purchased And the Bride Closed the Door earlier this year soon after finishing Enter Ghost and realizing that while I’ve read quite a few wonderful books by Palestinian authors, I’d only ever read one novel by an Israeli author. Matalon is described as “a giant of Israeli literature: not of the bombast of grand political statements, but rather a master of the private, the intimate, the ambivalent, the human.” It is a really lovely book to be reading right now.

I’d love to hear what you’re reading now and what you’d add to my list above. Please be kind in the comments and remember we’re all just people trying out best to move through an impossible moment.

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-Sara