But there's no question, there's no doubt/ I said I'd stick it out and follow through

As 2015 rolls to a close (draws? stumbles? frolics?), I am thrilled to announce that, should I finish Mary Barton, I will have made it to 100 books. Ah, I amaze myself. Clearly this is seriously an eleventh hour finish, but still, it's a finish (maybe, if I get moving).

Moreover, we are approaching a pretty significant milestone. I'll be at 738 in two days (boy, I better be; why am I writing this and not reading Mary Barton RIGHT NOW?), which means that I'm about a month away from 750, the 3/4ths mark of the project. If this was a run, I'd have about equal distance from the furthest point out and the finish (if this was a run out and back, which it is in my head, and it's my project, so....). This feels so....... anti-climatic.

Maybe this is because I'm not there yet, but I suspect it reflects a general project ambivalence, project ennui if you will. I was re-reading my justification post recently (instead of Mary Barton, what is wrong with me?), and it's really worked. I've read so many books I wouldn't have read otherwise. I've fallen in love with so many of them, I've broadened my reading comfort zone (I was reading The Temple of My Familiar the other day, and it just felt so comfortable, magical realism, odd structure, etc., it all feels like home anymore), I understand the evolution of the novel better/I see novels as this huge and complex conversation, and I've now read most of the "biggies" that came out before ~2005.

And yet.....

Most of the list books are by white, heterosexual, middle to upper class men. Coming to this project because of Toni Morrison and Arundhati Roy is rather ironic. It is less the homogeneity of these authors, and more just their privilege and consequential narrow mindedness that starts to deeply grate. This comes up with race in absolutely horrific ways, though most often in a deep absence of non-white experiences. Gender, though, is what speaks most directly to me, and sometimes speaks to me in the most traumatic of ways (dear white men, why is it so hard to view others as full, real people whom you are so very capable of hurting?). Actually, just read this piece, she does a better job of explaining what I mean (yes, I realize I should have been reading Mary Barton instead).

I was so naive when I started this project. I had never read anything by Philip Roth, and I just didn't know what I was in for. I don't regret the project or the books I've read, but it's been more of an awakening than I had expected, and it does leave me feeling a bit sad.

That said, it's still a significant milestone, and I hope to have more of a 250 attitude than a 500 attitude.

I don't know how anybody survives in this life without someone like you

Circus engagement photos. Photo credit to Sarah Hluchan; choreography credit to William Reiff.