As we head toward the end of the year, we have something of a transitional reading list. There’s still a little baseball on it. But, at the same time, I’m also reading a few things that are a bit cozier.
Read on to find out what. And, as always, let me know what you’re reading these days!
Robert Coover – The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.
In theory, Coover offers us a baseball novel. In practice, he delivers a postmodern classic about ennui and the white-collar world. Given the overall themes of this blog, you’d think I would love it.
Maybe.
As a pomo classic, the novel flips back and forth between fantasy and reality. Henry Waugh, the main character, creates a dice-based baseball game featuring an entire fantasy world. And he uses that fantasy world to escape from his office job.
Waugh sinks deeper and deeper into his fantasy world. But when his favorite character is killed by a wild pitch, it pushes him over the edge. His real world begins falling around him, and he sinks further into the fantasy one.
Is it a good novel? Yes, and I’d even call it a great example of pomo of its time and place. Did I enjoy reading it? Honestly, less so. I’m not a huge fan of the style.
Bobby Duffy – The Generation Myth
Duffy wants to bust myths around the idea of ‘generations,’ but he also wants to use social science and policy to trace behavior over time. He reconciles these things reasonably well, though we may need to forgive him for mostly writing things that should be obvious to anyone paying close attention to the issues.
Duffy claims that, contrary to ‘generation theory’ that posits generations (e.g., Baby Boomer, and so on) as rigid cohorts, change over time also happens as a result of specific social events or life cycles. For example, events like 9/11 affect everyone alive at the time. And events like graduating from school or becoming a parent affect different people at specific life phases.
Duffy applies this point to many of the various things generations supposedly explain. He looks at education, marriage, culture war issues, environmental issues, and so on.
In some ways, Duffy fails to go far enough in his criticism of generation theory. It mostly came about as a marketing tool rather than serious scientific proposal. And it largely came about in the description of one particular generation – the Boomers. Since the day of the Boomers, cultural analysts struggle to consistently name or describe anyone else.
So, yes, we should talk about how people change over time. But it’s unclear what appeal to a ‘generation’ gets us.
Emily St. John Mandel – Sea of Tranquility
I mostly know Mandel as the author of Station Eleven, a book about a pandemic. Here she gives us…another book that features a pandemic. And one she wrote during the Covid-19 pandemic, that also involves time travel.
Honestly, it didn’t sound promising. But much like Station Eleven, I found it a pleasant surprise. Perhaps I should stop being surprised by her good books and just enjoy them.
This story gradually reveals the exploits of a time traveler on Earth between the 20th and 25th centuries. Along the way, we see how humanity unfolds at a broad level from isolated early 20th century islands to Moon colonies.
Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz – The Good Life
These two authors run a decades-long longitudinal study into happiness. They wrote this book to document their most important insights about how we build, maintain, and lose happiness over the course of our lives.
The short version? We build and maintain happiness through our relationships with others. Not just close, intimate relationships, but also casual friendships, acquaintances, and work relationships. We lose happiness when we allow these relationships to fall away and fail to replace them.
Points all well taken. I especially appreciate the attention to everyday, casual relationships. I’m less convinced by the focus on work, where they go much lighter on research and heavier on the ‘engaged employee’ lit. Why not instead advise people to build relationships by, e.g., forming unions?
Overall, I appreciated the book. Especially as I’m entering my 40s and reflecting on my own relationships. I’ve let too many friendships sag or drift apart. But I’m probably doing better than most people on casual friendships. I feel better off for having filled my day with some of these moments.
