But are such narratives predetermined by race, ethnicity and language? Who qualifies as an “authentic” author? The demand for “authenticity” – within literary culture, in particular, and postmodern culture in general – has become a problematic, paradoxical idea. Authors are now expected to depict an authentic experience – and yet the form of such authenticity is pre-determined on their behalf.
Perhaps the question of free will is not so momentous. Philosophers have been debating about it for thousands of years, Mitchell observes. “That these debates continue today with unabated fervor tells you that they have not yet resolved the issue.” Indeed, they haven’t. Perhaps they should take a break. Perhaps it is a controversy without consequences. Perhaps whether we are free or fated, morality and politics, science and medicine, art and literature will all go their merry or melancholy ways, unaffected.
The promise of the author’s past accolades has indeed been kept with the high caliber of her recently published third novel, “Her Best Self,” a literary mystery which explores how we make memories and meaning, and how untethering one can also upend the other.
We limit our understanding when we narrow the frame, when we see ourselves, individually or plurally, as the main character. These delicately worked and impressively patient stories show us what other visions might reveal themselves when we are not in too much of a hurry to get to the end.
The Earth still being the Earth, there’s a certain amount of familiar ground, so to speak, in Bjornerud’s newest book, “Turning to Stone” (Flatiron). But it is also a striking departure, because it is not just about the life of the planet but also about the life of the author. In its pages, what Bjornerud has learned serves to illuminate what she already knew: each of the book’s ten chapters is structured around a variety of rock that provides the context for a particular era of her life, from childhood to the present day. The result is one of the more unusual memoirs of recent memory, combining personal history with a detailed account of the building blocks of the planet. What the two halves of this tale share is an interest in the evolution of existence—in the forces, both quotidian and cosmic, that shape us.
Why read popular science? The best books manage to entertain, educate, astonish and even galvanise the reader, bringing an appreciation of new realms of knowledge. They expand awareness, not just of the beauty and complexity of the universe, but our place in it as human beings. They serve as celebrations and warnings, challenges and pleas. Traditionally, the genre tends to garland hard data with lashings of anecdote and well-turned, elegant metaphor. With Becoming Earth, Oregon-based journalist Ferris Jabr achieves all of these aims and more.
Are the queen’s critics right that there was little more to her than met the eye, or was she in fact a master of psychological jujitsu, turning the gaze of the outside world back upon itself? Perhaps she is speaking to us between the lines of what others say about her. This might just be her story, as told to Craig Brown.