The Committed – Viet Thanh Nguyen
I read, and loved, Nguyen’s The Sympathizer in 2015. His sequel did not quite meet the original’s standard.
The Committed picks up a few years after The Sympathizer, with the main character living in Paris in the early 1980s, and attempting to start a new life in the Vietnamese ex-pat community. Once again he must play the different factions of the community off of each other to maintain his safety. He falls in with criminals, corrupt French politicians, and must hide his work for the Communists from his best friend, an ardent anti-Communist.
The story is rich and complex, but as it is less moored to real events, it lost some of the magic that made The Sympathizer such an enjoyable read.
The Plot – Jean Hanff Korelitz
A buzz book from last year, this novel wades into the world of meta fiction. It does a pretty good job.
Jacob is a once-promising writer who learns that a former student has died without ever publishing a brilliant story he had worked on while they were at a writing workshop together. The student’s story featured a unique plot that he believed could not miss. Jacob takes the bones of that story, writes his own novel based upon it, and becomes the hottest writer in the world. Soon, though, someone is harassing him for stealing the plot.
Korelitz lays out the story in two tracks, one focused on Jacob and his life, the other sharing pages of Jacob’s novel. The two tracks, of course, come together, each with big twists. Both are are supposed to be big shockers. I would say the double fictional one is, but that lessens the impact from the single fictional one (If that makes any sense).
The Plot is a fun read, perfect for summer, but falls just short of matching the hype it arrived with.
The Lords of Easy Money – Christopher Leonard
I don’t know shit about economics. I should put that out front. Despite that ignorance, I have some theories, thoughts, and concerns about our economy, capitalism in general, and how our government allots its resources in keeping the economy healthy. I don’t know if they hold up to scrutiny from anyone who actually knows a little about economics, but thoughts I have.
I heard Christopher Leonard discuss his latest book on No Laying Up’s The Trap Draw podcast. Leonard is from Kansas City, one of people he builds this book around is from Kansas City, and his general topic was the state of our economy and his fears the Federal Reserve has greatly overstepped its role over the past decade. Throw those all together and I was very interested to read this.
I was expecting a fairly dry book that was difficult to get through. There were plenty of times when the econ jargon got laid down so thick that it was hard to keep up. But Leonard does a fantastic job breaking down complex concepts into more easily understood examples. It’s my stupid brain’s fault I can’t keep them all straight.
His central argument in that the Fed, since the 2008 housing market collapse, has transitioned from a body that was supposed to quietly guide the economy with an eye on the long term, to a much more active agency more concerned with the short term at the expense of widening the prosperity gap by constantly securing the interests of the richest people and corporations in the country. The Fed has created trillions of dollars out of thin air to shore up nearly every part of the financial system over the past 14 years. It has made it nearly impossible for large banks, massive investment firms, and hedge funds to be punished for making bad financial decisions. They know no matter how riskily they behave, if their bets fail, the Fed will be there with billions of dollars to bail them out.
But if you start talking about universal healthcare, forgiving college debt, establishing a living wage, or even simply increasing the minimum wage – all programs that would cost much less and more directly affect the lives of many more Americans – cries of “SOCIALISM!!!” erupt and the plans get torpedoed before they ever come to vote.
Sorry, I’m inserting my opinions into Leonard’s.
Bottom line, our economy is probably fucked. The Fed has done a lot to try to un-fuck it, but in the process have only helped the richest people/entities and created an unsustainable new system that will eventually fuck everyone.
I should read a book about climate change next to improve my mood.