Universal Harvester - John Darnielle

I mentioned it in brief last post and will again in this one but my grandfather just passed away. I have had an exhausting time not feeling anything about it because I knew he would go soon and when I arrived that day - called by mom in the McDonald's drive thru before a COVID test - that he was not doing okay and things were getting progressively worse. His voice broke as he asked me to take my mask off and I refused him. That's the last cognizant moment I really had with him, talking about how Jack Black on this episode of the Price is Right was "wild" and that my job continues to disrupt stability from me.

Nana is clearly not doing great but will be fine but was not ready. She has lived for him for years now. I gave her some books on Friday to read because she needs something to keep her invested in life again. I gave her One Hundred Years of Solitude, A Letter to My Daughter, The House on Mango Street, and Wolf in White Van. Knowing her, I think only the latter three are going to be things she likes and I'm happy to hear that so far she's really enjoyed Wolf in White Van. The complexities it does bring up are the things I feel the most apt to want to talk about with her and see the understanding that her and Grandpa had when I try to enter this topic with them. It is very different to trying to talk about this with other family or friends, probably because of some basic understanding of Catholicism and a larger life grounding in pre-neoliberal work environments.

Universal Harvester went fast for me - audiobooked of course - and yet, I had to reread and readjust to the halfway point several times, as I tried to finish it in the midst of everything. There is also the necessary critique - the way this story is told is unique narratively but ultimately to me is jarring. Several narrator perspectives appear but traverse time in a way where the story becomes decentralized to itself as a single narrative. The first part - far longer than the rest - is almost cut off to do the stylistic changes that follow it. I found myself completely lost after the next section - which tells the backstory of another character who hadn't been personalized yet, but then jumps back to the present action of the section before - removed of its importance - then jumps completely out of the situation again.

What is interesting about this is that the ending parts of the story are not told in flashback but in rediscovery - through new characters and abstraction. The end returns to part two's intention but more sensibly serves an ending where it happens and it's that penultimate bit that almost tries to create a new book. Organizationally, I don't think being jarring is necessarily a kill of the book, but it certainly does not keep logic in motion too easily. If anything, this is almost akin to the way you would sell a short story collection in a shared setting more than a novel with a linear plot point.

I definitely didn't like this as much as Wolf in White Van and a friend had actually said they felt the opposite. Interesting, and not something I think I need to think on. Oddly enough, the other book I wrote about today is similar to what I said in the critique here but I don't feel the same critical space on it. I also just don't feel much about this book at all. I'd like to, though.