Between Here and the Yellow Sea

Between Here and the Yellow Sea
by Nic Pizzolatto
read: 2014

I've been watching the first few episodes of True Detective on HBO, and I thought I'd track down some of creator / writer Nic Pizzolatto's writing. Between Here and the Yellow Sea is his first published work, a collection of short stories. I'd liken it to Flannery O'Connor's short stories in terms of weight and style, as well as the Southern setting. He doesn't do neat or happy endings. Every character seems to be chasing something he can't find, usually a void produced by a death or abandonment.

In a recent interview about True Detective, Pizzolatto talked about his interest in "memory and the idea of an objective truth." That theme permeates Between Here and the Yellow Sea. In "Two Shores," a man learns he may be the father of a child, but the mother and baby are both dead. "It's a truth that can't do anything for you," his girlfriend admonishes him, asking why he pursues paternity tests. "Because it's the truth," he responds. In the title story, the narrator travels across country to find a girl he once knew, only to be stunned when he realizes her eyes are a different color than he remembers in his mind's eye. Pizzolatto's characters are haunted by their false memories, and when they try to fill the voids in their pasts with present substitutes, it predictably ends in tragedy.

Gone With the Wind

Gone With the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell
read: 2014
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels, Pulitzer Prize

Scarlett O'Hara is maybe the worst mom in literature. Here's a typical quote:

Babies, babies, babies. Why did God make so many babies? But no, God didn't make them. Stupid people made them.

She's an interesting character, though. It was hard not to admire her courage even as I was disgusted by her Machiavellian tactics and lack of maternal instinct.

This is a book that draws criticism for being racist. One can make an argument that Mitchell wasn't espousing a racist viewpoint but rather showing her characters' perspectives on blacks, slavery, and race relations, but she certainly doesn't give any of her black characters equal time.

The Good Earth

The Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck
read: circa 1994
Pulitzer Prize

This was the first assigned reading book I had for high school English. I remember two things from the book:
1. the women's feet were bound to make them attractive, which makes it sound awful to be a woman in China during that time period.
2. the main character made it his mission in life to acquire land and valued land above all else.