My reading list was varied this month. I finally finished Nick Cave’s Faith, Hope and Carnage, which I’ve been reading slowly over the course of several months. It’s the sort of book that needs you to take your time with it. The same goes for Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals. And I finally got around to reading Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice after all these years! Thanks, book club!

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Fiction

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Breq is a soldier on a mission of vengeance on a frozen planet at the edges of the Radch, the galactic empire that has conquered much of the galaxy.

Breq is also one of many ancillaries — victims of the empire that have had their minds wiped and been replaced with a collective artificial intelligence that is Justice of Toren, the ship the ancillaries serve.

Only Justice of Toren has been destroyed and Breq is the last ancillary.

Ancillary Justice is not only a stunning first novel, it’s also an instant sci-fi classic. The book mixes history, politics, class, tech and philosophy — and throws in some action as a bonus!

Largely told in two storylines, it’s initially confusing as we see Breq in the present contrasted with the multiple POVs of countless ancillaries in the past. There are wonderful scenes in the past in which the narrative POV bounces from one ancillary to another and even the ship itself, telling part of a larger story. The scenes set in the present are a compelling counterpoint to these scenes, where we are confined to the POV of the surviving ancillary, who has much more agency and is driven to get payback for what happened to her ship.

The storylines begin to fuse together seamlessly as the book goes on, until readers are caught in a tale of political intrigue and covert warfare that leads Breq all the way to the head of the empire — or heads, in this case, as it is run by a cabal of clones that have their own agendas.

This is not your standard space opera with big ship battles and heroics. Instead, it’s an interrogation of humanity itself and thus one of the most compelling sci-works in ages.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17333324-ancillary-justice

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World War Jake by Brad Dehnert

Jake works for an alphabet agency (think CIA but more tech) helping to edit the world order through use of misinformation and AI bots. When his work to install a Russian puppet goes wrong, Jake has to figure out a way to undo the nightmare he has created. A clever and timely look into how AI and disinfo is changing our world.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/227005603-world-war-jake

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Non-fiction

Faith, Hope and Carnage by Nick Cave and Sean O’Hagan

I’ve long been a fan of the musician Nick Cave because, well, he’s Nick Cave. If you like your music dark, with blends of twisted romance/lust, poetic songwriting, biblical and literary themes, sheer irreverence and gospel meets rock meets punk, then Nick Cave is your musical fallen angel.

But I never really expected Cave to also become a sort of modern-day prophet of uncertain, contingent faith and perhaps the most important philosopher of grief alive today.

Faith, Hope and Carnage is a must-read for any fan of Cave, but it’s also an important read for anyone concerned with spirituality in our troubled age, the role of music in an increasingly sterile society, the mysteries of artistic creation, how to grieve and live at the same time — and how all of these things come together.

The book chronicles a series of phone conversations between Cave and journalist Sean O’Hagan to record some of Cave’s thoughts on life. Much of it focuses on the tragic loss of Cave’s son Arthur, and his ghost very much haunts these conversations. How does one cope with such an event? In Cave’s case, he turned even more to music and spirituality.

“Things happen in your life, terrible things, great obliterating events, where the need for spiritual consolation can be immense, and your sense of what is rational is less coherent and can suddenly find itself on very shaky ground,” he says. “We are supposed to put our faith in the rational world, yet when the world stops making sense, perhaps your need for some greater meaning can override reason. And, in fact, it can suddenly seem the least interesting, most predictable and least rewarding aspect of your self. That is my experience, anyway. I think of late I’ve grown increasingly impatient with my own scepticism; it feels obtuse and counter-productive, something that’s simply standing in the way of a better-lived life.”

In his interrogations of spirituality, Cave has parallels with poet Christian Wiman’s meditative essays collected in My Bright Abyss. Both seem to share a sensibility that rejects any concrete truisms about spirituality while embracing the impulse toward it.

“Maybe the search is the religious experience,” Cave says in an echo of Wiman. “The desire to believe and the longing for meaning, the moving towards the ineffable. Maybe that is what is essentially important, despite the absurdity of it. Or, indeed, because of the absurdity of it. When it comes down to it, maybe faith is just a decision like any other. And perhaps God is the search itself.”

Cave sees a similar wonder in artistic creation: “You have to operate, at least some of the time, in the world of mystery, beneath that great and terrifying cloud of artistic unknowing. The creative impulse, to me, is a form of bafflement, and often feels dissonant and unsettling. It chips away at your own cherished truths about things, pushes against your own sense of what is acceptable.”

And then there are the conversations on grief, which connect many of the strands of the book and are sure to offer something deeply personal to every reader. “In grief, you become deeply acquainted with the idea of human mortality,” Cave says. “You go to a very dark place and experience the extremities of your own pain – you are taken to the very limits of suffering. As far as I can see, there is a transformative aspect to this place of suffering. We are essentially altered or remade by it. Now, this process is terrifying, but in time you return to the world with some kind of knowledge that has something to do with our vulnerability as participants in this human drama. Everything seems so fragile and precious and heightened, and the world and the people in it seem so endangered, and yet so beautiful. To me it feels that, in this dark place, the idea of a God feels more present or maybe more essential. It actually feels like grief and God are somehow intertwined. It feels that, in grief, you draw closer to the veil that separates this world from the next.”

I couldn’t help but think as I read these conversations that Cave has become as much a sort of prophet as a musician — a prophet of creativity, a prophet of spirituality, a prophet of grief. The church of Nick Cave is a church that more of us should attend.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59851730-faith-hope-and-carnage

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Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey

Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals gives a glimpse into the working habits of pretty much any historical creator you can think of. Franz Kafka, Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens — if you can name them they’re probably in this book. There are many interesting insights into these creators collected here — and many anecdotes of sheer eccentricity! For instance, Currey describes Jonathan Franzen writing while wearing earplugs, earmuffs and a blindfold and Ayn Rand as going on writing binges fuelled by Benezdrine. (Substance abuse is a common theme among artists found in the collection.)

If you’re looking for tips to help you develop your own rituals, however, Daily Rituals will be of limited use. Often the creators featured here tend to be driven by some psychological quirk, addiction or even madness — hardly something to cultivate. Many others are able to lead a life of creativity because of family wealth — more desirable than madness, perhaps, but also more difficult to cultivate. The book is more interesting as a collection of trivia than a how-to guide.

If you’re curious about the lives of famous artists, though, Daily Rituals is worth the read. Think of it as a Lifestyles of the Eccentric and Famous.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15799151-daily-rituals

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Poetry

Northerny by Dawn Macdonald

I was delighted to read Northerny by poet Dawn Macdonald because I was in the same writing group with her back in my university days. Dawn has always been one of the most unique souls I’ve ever met, and I urge all poetry lovers to read her book. It’s part examination of myths of the north, part memoir, all genius.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/183935565-northerny

See also Dawn’s interview with poet rob mclennan about publishing her book in the midst of chaos, both cultural and personal: http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2024/06/12-or-20-second-series-questions-with_0623544362.html