two DNFs

Borrowed from the public library.

Going Remote: a Teacher’s Journey

by Adam Bessie, illustrated by Peter Glanting

150 pages, 2023

This book just did not hold my interest. I thought I would find it unsettling, because it takes place during, and is largely about the pandemic. Mainly its effects on the student body of a community college, and this professor who has to teach remotely. His wife is also doing remote teaching (for a high school class) and his son is taking his own class- each in a separate space of the home, apart from each other yet attempting to connect elsewhere- and how difficult that was. Especially for the college teacher (whose memoir this is), when he no longer saw his students’ faces, when many of them didn’t respond well online, some he never saw again. He felt he was dealing more with the technical difficulties of keeping them connected online, than the actual teaching. Draws a lot of parallels between the sci-fic literature he was teaching, and their present situation. Especially the stories that had dystopia subjects, machine learning overwhelming humanity. More than that, the narrative keeps discussing social inequalities, and waxing philosophic on everything. And through all this the author was battling cancer, a large part of the story.

Unfortunately, I just couldn’t feel connected to any of it (ironic, I know). I don’t know if it was the philosophical bent that put me off, or the oddities in the artwork- all the people had perfectly round heads and three-fingered hands with arms a tad too long- I’m sure it was an artistic choice but it added to the unsettled feeling and made it seem too comic, contrasting with the seriousness of the subject matter. I only got halfway through before just getting tired of it.

Photographic: the Life of Graciela Iturbide

by Isabel Quintero, illustrated by Zeke Peña

96 pages, 2018

About a famous Latina photographer, whom I had never heard of. I’m glad that the book included some of her actual photographs among the artwork that tells the story- they really are quite stunning, beautiful, and deeply pensive. She grew up in a very large family, followed tradition and got married young, but then lost her daughter- and after the tragedy immersed herself in photography. Traveled all over Mexico to photograph indigenous cultures, especially their rites and ceremonies- as far as I could tell. This book also failed to hold my attention, but for opposite reasons than the prior. It has very lyrical prose- that holds everything at an abstract distance, or at least so it seemed to me. I felt that I was just glimpsing everything, and barely had any comprehension of what really happened to her, what she was doing or why her artistic vision. I could not grasp it. The images are wonderful, though.

I think partly it is all my state of mind. I need things written very straightforward, still. I attempted these books on 7/7/24.