Weekend reading

[troisoiseaux]

Read Still Life With Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains by Alexa Hagerty, nonfiction about the work of forensic anthropologists exhuming mass graves to identify victims of state violence and armed conflict in Guatemala and Argentina. Thoughtful, thought-provoking, and frequently difficult to read due to the sheer scale of the horrors that led to this work being necessary. In a way, I think Hagerty (a social anthropologist who did forensic fieldwork in both countries, but didn't make it her career) successfully pulls off the style/structure that wasn't working for me in Caroline Fraser's Murderland, weaving together snippets of different "plot" (for lack of a better word, as both books are non-fiction) threads to build up to a larger point— ping-ponging between then and now, in Hagerty's case, and meditations on grief, memory, mourning rituals, the balance of science and emotion in forensic human rights work, the cultural perception/hierarchy of senses (how touch is viewed as "base" compared to, say, sight vs. the vital role of touch in forensic practice - articulating skeletons, "tactile inspection"), myths and folklore, etc.

Currently reading The Book of Love by Kelly Link, and if I loved this less, I could talk about it more, but the gist of the plot (so far) is that three (four?) teens return from the dead to find that, as part of the magic, they are the only ones who remember that they were gone and the world has shifted to scar-tissue over the gap of their almost-a-year's absence. Reminds me, in more or less abstract ways, of Genevieve Hudson's Boys of Alabama and Katherine Arden's The Warm Hands of Ghosts.

Comments

[skygiants]

I LOVED THE BOOK OF LOVE. what a big weird sprawling loving book

[troisoiseaux]

I think I originally heard of it because you posted about it a while back?? I either did not read or do not remember any spoilers, through, and so I'm curious to see where this goes.

[regshoe]

Abstractly like The Warm Hands of Ghosts sounds good!

[troisoiseaux]

Something in the overall folkloric vibe feels similar to me??

[lunabee34]

I've only read two of Link's short story collections, but I bought a third for Josh for father's day, so I'm going to read it when he's done. I really enjoy her writing.

[troisoiseaux]

I haven't read any of Link's short stories, but I can see how she'd be really good at writing evocative ones.

[lirazel]

That *does* sound like it works a lot better than in Murderland. I'm going to have to read both of these. Thanks for writing them up!

[troisoiseaux]

I will eventually circle back to Murderland....... probably. Someday. I optimistically spent actual money for an e-book copy on the strength of Fraser's Prairie Fires, unfortunately.

[lirazel]

If I didn't know that the books were written by the same person, I never would have thought they were written by the same person. What a shame!

[chestnut_pod]

I've read such a lot of Argentinian writing on the memory/memorial work that goes on there, and it never fails to hit me to the very heart. The current situation of Milei reinstitution state forgetfulness is so tragic.

I wonder if you might get something out of Nostalgia de la luz, a documentary along the same lines, but taking Chile as its focus? I think it's sort of the film answer to this kind of interpolated book.

[troisoiseaux]

I've read such a lot of Argentinian writing on the memory/memorial work that goes on there, and it never fails to hit me to the very heart.

Do you have other recommendations?

[chestnut_pod]

Do you read Spanish? In English, First and foremost I recommend Elizabeth Jelin, who has translated work and English-original work, including her opus, State Repression and the Labors of Memory. Wonderful insights, truly one of the foundational scholars in this area — and a very kind person.

Then Natasha Zaretsky, who is another of these academic/artistic blenders — Acts of Repair/1000 Mondays respectively.

[troisoiseaux]

Thanks! I can't read Spanish, unfortunately, but I'll have to see if I can find the English language ones.