The Aspern Papers by Henry James
Plus Soft Science by Franny Choi and The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
For the Never News Short Book Club, Colin reads novels under 250 pages each week; readers are encouraged to read along at their own pace and check back when they’re ready. Paid subscribers get to vote on the books read each month. This month’s book is: The Aspern Papers by Henry James.
Reading a book this old, one that is about poetry one hundred years older than itself, puts a person in the frame of mind of legacy, of the lasting force of literature. It’s interesting to consider a scholar like our awful protagonist here writing so passionately about the writing of today some hundred years from now; if all things go without conclusion, that will no doubt be the eventuality. Noteworthy (and even unnoteworthy) work being published right now will be the subject of consideration for as long as their texts are available, and that continues to be outright bonkers to me.
The Aspern Papers is a unique little novella, particularly as experienced by a guy who has only read The Turning of the Screw; it’s a story where nothing much happens except an unsettling obsessive man benignly bothers two old women. Sure, that’s a simplified summary; it is not an inaccurate one.
As is the case whenever I read a book of a certain vintage, what strikes me is its language: a book written in this style now would almost certainly be disregarded by the reading community. He is a man of overwhelming clauses; they pile up and up and up in one sentence. Each paragraph has twenty different, tangentially connected thoughts within it, and yet it is so smooth. There was never a moment where I felt as if I had hit a linguistic sticking point, some wordy barb that I had to pause to work out.
A lot of people aren’t trained to read books like this anymore (of course, one could argue that a lot of people aren’t trained to read, period), and I had some anxiety before beginning that I would be one of those people. I worried that, somehow, my four decades of obsessing over the written word had failed me in my abilities; I worried that my ADHD would make me bounce off the book, hard.
In reality, it came easily. The book didn’t thrill me; it’s a book where James all but yells at the reader that scholars are assholes and should just leave writers (and their legacies) alone. I understand that urge; I also don’t necessarily agree with it.
Did it do what so many of my recently read books have done and lengthened my to-read list? Will I diligently work my way through Henry James because I was so impressed with this language? Unlikely; if his other works come to hand, so be it; I’m not going to turn them away. I’m also not rushing out after them. ★★⯨☆☆
January’s Never News Short Book Club:
01.10.25 - The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş
01.17.25 - Passing by Nella Larsen
01.24.25 - The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western by Richard Brautigan
01.31.25 - The Aspern Papers by Henry James
02.07.25 - Bitter Water Opera by Nicolette Polek
I don’t recall exactly why I got a wild urge to finally see what the poet Franny Choi was all about — I think I saw her picture on one of the writing workshop circulars I get in the mail all the time? She’s a poet whose books have been on my periphery for a few years (but those were years when my poetry diet was lean).
Soft Science was the book at my local library, and in sitting down with it I realized that I’m just going to have to go out and buy a copy — and copies of all of her other collections, probably.
She applies science fiction fandom to her startlingly deep poetic aesthetic, weaving anime, cyborgs, and Star Trek into revealing and insightful gems of verse. In a series of poems, “Turing Test”, that runs throughout the volume, she imagines herself as the machine the Turing Test is attempting to reveal and, in doing so, reveals incredibly vulnerable and jarring aspects of (ostensibly) herself. First the Test’s question, and then her answer:
"// how do you know you are you and not someone else they said a word & touched me / that's how / i learned / anywhere it doesn't hurt / that's where / i end"
In ‘Chi’, a poem named for a character in the manga Chobits, she writes
" who dimmed you
when you stopped
reflecting a man's
sweetest name back
to his grin?"Creating a manga-influenced moment that feels so fundamentally world-changing in emotional scope.
But I’ve got a soft spot for a set of Moon-themed poems near the volume’s end. An example:
Snow Moon
The magic where the streetlights turn the snow pink lasts only
for the first night, the same way, maybe, a blanket loses track of
its scent when it's been touched by too many hands, or the way a
body grays when too many feet have dragged their cigarettes and
complaints through it. But for that one first night, everything
cold-flecked and whispering was ours, the pink light ours, sent
from some other world so we could, for a night, feel untouched.
So we could feel like sugar -- crumbling, and perfect for it.It’s a poem that captures so much longing, a feeling so unique but somehow familiar: this is a moment we all could have lived if only we had been so insightful. ★★★⯨☆
It seems insane to read The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates and write only a handful of paragraphs at the end of a Reading Roundup; it’s a book that clearly deserves its own full consideration. But it’s also only one of four books I finished this week, and this is what the column is: a roundup.
Here’s the thing, though: you don’t come out of one of Ta-Nehisi’s books without feeling wholly changed. Each one is a revelation filled with such heartbreaking insight that it both scrapes you raw and lifts you up.
Directed at his Howard University writing students, the book covers a lot of ground: writing, the inherent political nature of writing (particularly for Black Americans). Insight into his own life, and into his journeys to culturally significant places; the whole final third of the book concerns Palestine and its myriad racial trip mines.
One issue with writing about it right now is that I finished its final pages a half-hour before writing this column; my brain has not yet begun to process besides this: it’s a deeply affecting, deeply insightful, and deeply informative book. My copy is chock full of pencil marks, and I’m eager to go back through and see what felt alive to me in the moments of my reading. ★★★★⯨
This was a busy week for me over at AIPT, putting out the most pieces in one week than I have in months and months:
-As of this week, I’ve officially taken over the longest-running column at AIPT: Judging by the Cover, wherein I spotlight the coolest new covers. Which is to say that I look at every single cover of every single comic and then I use my superb judgement to show you what the absolute coolest ones are. Know that I am flawless and omnipresent in my task.
-I appeared on the AIPT Comics Podcast this week, doing my due diligence to over-consider the finer points of things. I had a lot of fun, and every time I go on a podcast I feel marginally less like I’ve done something terribly, terribly wrong.
-My first review of three (!!!) was for Sniper Elite: Resistance, a game where you shoot Nazis and then watch in X-Ray Vision as they are exploded by your bullet. It is very satisfying, politically.
-My second review was for Marvel Two-in-One Epic Collection - Remembrance of Things Past, wherein the curmudgeonly Thing of the 1970s starts to become the begrudgingly friendly Thing of the 1980s.
-I got a chance to interview the editor of what I hope will become a Wyoming staple, the Strange on the Range: Zine, which has set itself up to be the premiere (if only) Wyoming-based comics publication.
-Finally, I reviewed the new Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector. I loved the whole package of the first game, and this one does a lot to expand every ounce of it — and it really stresses me out (in a good way).
Awesome reviews, Colin. I have some catching up to do!