misfits

The quintessential book about misfits. Christian John Francis Boone, the narrator of this book, is the 15-years old autistic boy who walked into a crime scene one late night. Disguised as a murder investigation story, this truly compelling debut is, at heart, a triumph of empathy. Paraphrasing David Foster Wallace, good fiction is about what it feels to be a human being. This book is an exemplary evident of that assertion.

Introverts are sometimes characterized as misfits, nerds, loners, etc. These are misnomers. I would characterized introverts as people who are more attuned to the fact that other type of personality exists. (That was a joke, extroverts!)

QUIET is part neuroscience journal, part Chicken Soup for the Emo Souls (like, in a good way), part an op-ed about It's Okay To Be Different that I would've written had I been a more articulate and less self-effacing person.

Animal kingdom has always been a source of fascination to me, starting from the colorful illustrated storybook I read before bedtime as a kid, the documentary series I watched religiously after school, the story behind the latin name of each species...everything is a source of endless fascination to me. I think the crux of its appeal to me is this: the fact that we co-exist (since the beginning of time!) with strange creatures of which we know so little. Karen Russell seems to take this fascination and use her wonderful imagination to fill in the unknown blanks. This collection of short stories is also a rolodex of misfits: an alligator wrestler, a lady yeti, a minotaur, and fifteen girls raised by wolves.

Traveling could take you to a new, foreign place yet you feel like you've just arrived home, and in turn make you feel like a misfit when you arrived home. We travel to discover the 'difference' that a change of geographic location brings: different climate, different landscape, different language, different currency, different food, different side of the road to drive on, different power socket to charge your phone, different toilet flushing mechanism, the list goes on. Beyond the superficial, we also expect traveling to bring upon us a different perspective to look at life - the one waiting for us at home, one where everything is the same, too familiar to deserve a sense of wonder from the beholder. In this book, de Botton articulate with staggering precision so many ineffable feelings one might experience when traveling: that sinking calmness you feel when the plane just took off from the runway, that fascination that slowly turns into disillusionment once you stay too long at a new place, and that feeling of joyful 'smallness' you feel when standing in a larger-than-life, sublime places.

Brief Interviews was my first introduction to David Foster Wallace's work and to say that it left quite a first impression would be a huge understatement. As the title suggests, most of the chapters are structured as Q&A's but the Questions are all omitted - thus elevating the absurdity from the various exchange between the female (?) interviewer and the garden variety of 'hideous men' ie. misfits. This book is not only boundary-pushing in its format, but also content: it challenges us to understand or even empathize with those who deviate from the norm in the most outrageous and often grotesque manner.
Within this book about misfits, there's yet another misfit: "Forever Overhead" - a short story that in my opinion is the most heartfelt and/or least cerebral writing among DFW's body of work.

This story is told from 2 point of view - a boy moving away from home amidst an imminent war and his pet fox, Pax, who was sent back to the wilderness although technically he has never been a wild animal. Pax is a misfit no matter where he is. Back at home, the turbulent father-son relationship between the boy and his dad baffled Pax. As an animal, 'cause and effect' is the rule that defines how Pax think and behave. It is not that simple for the boy and his dad: how two human-beings communicate between each other is complex and sometimes contradictory - they pushed each other away in an attempt to feel closer, they express anger and hatred which actually stemmed from love. In the forest, Pax struggle not only to survive on his own volition (for the first time in his life) but also to fit in among his own kind: wild animals. Through this point of view, we are given the opportunity to experience what it might feel like to see humankind from the eyes of an animal - to question what we often too easily accept under the guise of 'that's the way life is'.

JD Salinger was a misfit, he wrote about misfits, and I'd like to think he wrote for misfits too. His most popular/notorious work "Catcher in the Rye" has earned its position in pop culture lexicon as a short-hand for 'angsty, misunderstood outsider'. However, I found "Franny & Zooey" to be a much more profound and rich portrayal of what it feels like to always stand just outside the fence, looking in - not with an air of faux superiority but with a longing to understand. Catcher's protagonist Holden Caulfield outlook to life was jaded and grandiose, Franny Glass's was exasperated yet wistful.

This short story collection is my first introduction to Adichie's writing. These stories baffled me with its unflinching bravery in addressing the ills of society - cultural appropriation, racism, xenophobia, and the pitfalls of identity politics - while being heart-breakingly honest and wise at the same time. Nigeria and/or Nigerian diaspora is the cultural backdrop of each story. Tragedy is a grey cloud that looms above each story : a tragedy that happened many generations ago and has entwined itself to the main character's genealogy & identity, a tragedy that is unfolding in the present right before the reader's eyes - one that leave us feeling helpless and gut-wrenched, or an impending tragedy lurking right around the corner. Adichie does not romanticize tragedy, rather she gives it a face and a voice - one that feels both strange and achingly familiar.