A closet of ghosts
December holidays mean extra reading time. I’ve lost track of the number of unfinished books set aside or returned to the library this year. It’s been a hard year–one with too many losses–and sustained attention for pleasure reading is a scarce thing. I’ve taken to filling up the ereader with semi-random selections from the library and every once in a while, one of the books will grab and hold my attention.
Today it was Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues. It’s gotten a lot of positive press following multiple literary awards and award nominations. Edugyan’s account of a group of African American and African German jazz musicians in Berlin and Paris in 1939 is compelling but what grabbed me and held me was the language, the beautiful turns of phrase and the shifts in tone as the narrative moves between 1939 and 1992. I’m kicking myself for returning it so quickly since I travelled too quickly over sentences like this one: “A grim little room, more like a closet of ghosts than any joint for music, the cracked heaters lisping steam, empty bottles rolling all over the warped floor.”
A rereading in conjunction with Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter–a novel about Buddy Bolden, New Orleans, art, and loss–would be a fine thing.
Here’s an interview Edugyan gave the morning after she won the Giller.
