I just finished reading ‘If I Had Your Face’ a debut novel by Frances Cha. I very much liked it. It’s an interesting introduction to the lesser-known sides of South Korean culture.
It’s the story of four young women trying to make it in the brutally competitive world of modern Seoul. Covering everything from the unwritten rules of the country’s “room salons” to the excruciating pain one must endure following jawline surgery, the novel depicts South Korea’s oft extreme culture and obsessions through the lives of four young women in contemporary Seoul.
The story is narrated by the four women and is a fascinating introduction to the situations these women find themselves in as they try to find a life, and love, in a hyper-competitive world dominated by men. Rather than try to describe the book myself, here is a link to a NYT interview with the author. Give it a try – you’ll enjoy it! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/us/author-frances-cha-on-achieving-the-feminine-ideal.html
I’m reposting here some of the book reviews I originally posted on Facebook. I’m trying to pick out those books that I loved the most and this is certainly one. I said in the original interview that it’s not an easy read but, upon reflection, I don’t think that’s true. Once you get used to her style, the book moves right along. Here’s my original review…
I just finished reading “Milkman” by Anna Burns, winner of the 2018 Man-Booker Prize (awarded annually for the best original novel written in English and published in the UK.) It’s a wonderful book that I really liked but it’s not for everyone. It’s told in an digressive, ruminative manner with repetitions and explanations that jump around in time – a bit like stream of consciousness but easier to read.The narrator is an unnamed young woman in an unnamed city in Northern Ireland during ‘The Troubles’ in the 1970s when sectarian violence threatened to overwhelm everything. Not only is the narrator unnamed (she’s referred to as ‘Middle Sister’) but so is everyone else. the city in which she lives is unnamed, England is referred to as ‘the country-across-the-water’ and characters are referred to by their habits or their relationship to the narrator (First Sister, Maybe-Boyfriend, Tablets Girl). The people who run her ‘area’ are the ‘Renouncers of the State’ or just Renouncers who wear balaclavas or masks, identify and execute informers and battle the police and the soldiers of the country-across-the-water.The namelessness is superstitious and futile. The idea that if you don’t name something it won’t have power over you. But everything about you gives away your allegiance even to the tea you drink: “There is “[t]he right butter. The wrong butter. The tea of allegiance. The tea of betrayal.” Middle Sister tries to hide from all of this (or merely survive) by shutting it out – reading only 19th century books because she hates the 20th century. Her life changes when she is approached by The Milkman who is a high ranking person in the Renouncers and though she tries to ignore him, he keeps showing up and everyone thinks she is ‘with him’. Her paranoia grows as does the gossip around her but she keeps going and her sense of humor and wry observations of the people and customs and goings-on around her keep us going. The author’s use of words is wonderful – they are wonderful words, piled on top of one another in glorious heaps. Her dad’s depressions were “big, massive, scudding, whopping, black-cloud, infectious, crow, raven, jackdaw, coffin-upon-coffin, catacomb-upon-catacomb, skeletons-upon-skulls-upon-bones crawling along the ground to the grave type of depressions.”The whole plot is compressed into the novel’s first sentence, but it’s such an enigmatic declaration that we won’t understand it for more than 300 pages: “The day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died.” I loved this book but it takes some time and a bit of effort. You should really read this book. It’s available on the Maryland Digital Library.
I see that the Metropolitan Opera has cancelled their entire 2020-2021 season which could be a bad sign for a lot of other live arts venues and organizations. I don’t consider myself an opera aficionado but I do enjoy a lot of the music and find some of the opera ‘flashmobs’ particularly fun to watch. This one is ‘The Drinking Song’ from La Traviata which seems to be particularly popular with flash mobs.
I missed the birthday (September 18, 1838) of Anton Mauve – Dutch Realist painter. He painted a whole lot of paintings of animals and peasants in the fields and I kind of like much of his work. Apparently, his paintings of sheep were very popular in America, so much so that a price differential developed between ‘sheep coming’ and ‘sheep going’. Here’s one called ‘The Return of the Flock’.
Mauve was married to Vincent van Gogh’s cousin, Arriette, and Mauve was a major influence on Van Gogh. He helped teach Van Gogh the use of watercolors and oils and later lent him money to rent and furnish a studio. Mauve later turned cold to Van Gogh over the latter’s relationship with a prostitute, ‘Sien’. Van Gogh continued to revere Mauve, though and, upon Mauve’s sudden death in 1888, dedicated one of his most iconic paintings to him – this painting of peach trees in bloom which he titled ‘Souvenir de Mauve’. You can see it in the Kröller-Müller Museum the next time you are in the Netherlands. I like it a lot.
When the CARES Act passed in April, it was an historic step by our government to mitigate the effect of the COVID pandemic on our people and economy. The $2.2 billion provided by the act supported enhanced unemployment benefits, stimulus payments to individuals and families, the Payroll Protection Plan to allow businesses to keep employees on the payroll, funds for state and local governments to cover COVID-related costs and support for students and renters to suspend student loan repayments and many kinds of evictions.
While the CARES Act was successful in many ways, most of the benefits have either expired or are about to expire even though unemployment continues at very high levels, business bankruptcies are growing, economic activity remains depressed, state and local governments are suffering from increased costs and decreased revenue and the threat of further bankruptcies and more economic and health damage continues.
FILE – In this May 21, 2020 file photo, a man looks at signs of a closed store due to COVID-19 in Niles, Ill. U.S. businesses shed 2.76 million jobs in May, as the economic damage from the historically unrivaled coronavirus outbreak stretched into a third month. The payroll company ADP reported Wednesday that businesses have let go of a combined 22.6 million jobs since March.AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
In light of this, the House of Representatives passed legislation two months ago to provide additional stimulus and relief totaling almost $4 billion for individuals, families, businesses, healthcare providers, state and local governments and others. the Republican-led Senate, however, has been unable to pass any corresponding legislation and the Senate leadership and the White House oppose most of the initiatives included in the House bill. This is creating a severe hardship for many Americans which can only get worse with further layoffs and business closings in the future and evictions and homelessness in the future for many of those whose unemployment benefits have been cut or the newly unemployed.
So I was heartened to see that a bipartisan group of representatives called ‘The Problem Solvers Caucus’ had proposed a framework for a COVID 19 relief package that might help move things along. I’m cautious because this group hasn’t really had much of an impact until now but perhaps this will go somewhere.
The package being proposed represents, of course, a compromise between the administration position and the legislation passed by the House. In my view it’s far from perfect but better than nothing. Here are the basic elements:
$100 billion for testing and healthcare, primarily for providers
$316 billion in support for families and individuals including increases in WIC/SNAP, direct stimulus payments as in the CARES Act, Rental assistance for the most needy and Student Loan forbearance through December.
$120 billion for unemployment assistance including $450 weekly supplement for 8 weeks followed by up to $600 but not to exceed previous salary for 13 weeks.
$290 billion for small businesses and nonprofits including a second PPP program with a focus on small and community banks and $50 billion for employee retention tax credits
$145 billion for schools and childcare including $15 billion for childcare providers, $100 billion for K-12 schools and $30 billion for higher education
$500.3 billion for state and local governments, most of it to make up for general revenue shortfalls.
I think in some of these categories there is not enough money but, as I said before – it’s better than nothing and nothing is what we will get if the current gridlock continues. I will keep my fingers crossed.
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