The Anomaly, by Hervé Le Tellier: This was fine. I think I might appreciate it more on a reread, but I also don’t think I want to reread it. The formatting – each of the first twelve or so chapters focuses on a new character – was fine, but the central idea wasn’t especially interesting. It seems like Le Tellier was working with a specific set of self-imposed constraints, which I admire but didn’t necessarily enjoy.
And the Band Played On, by Randy Shilts: I’m still amazed that this was written in 1987, when HIV was known but it would still be a decade before there were drugs that could lower viral load to undetectable. Heartbreaking, frustrating, compelling, occasionally dated (eg the labeling of Gaetan Dugas as “patient zero” and scenes involving Dugas that may or may not have actually taken place) – a feat of journalism even if by no means definitive or comprehensive (ie focuses primarily on Shilts’s own community and America).
How to Survive a Plague, by David France: This seemed like necessary reading after And the Band Played On; it was interesting to see some of the same characters from a different viewpoint and to read the perspective of someone primarily looking back (from 2013) on an event rather than still being in the midst of it. That said, it was not as compelling as And the Band Played On, possibly because it covered a wider expanse of time.
What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan: I enjoyed this, though there were times it felt too self-charmingly clever. I’ve heard it described as a book about AI or a book about climate change, neither of which really fits (climate change is much more of a focus and inciting event; AI is barely mentioned) – it is, as it states, about what we can and can’t know. There’s a sense in which it reminded me of Trust, in framing rather than style. Part II was effectively galling; Part I could have been a fair bit shorter.
Human Acts, by Han Kang: Absolutely brutal portrayal of one death – and those affected by it in the moment and years or decades later – among many during the Gwangju Democratization Movement in Korea in 1980. Haunting.
