All this talk about the death of the author is dishonest anyway. There’s absolutely no chance Wahala, for example, would have been published if the author were white. If anybody even attempted anything like it, there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not a word of the text needs to be different for the text to be unpublishable just because of the identity of the author.

Here, by the way, is an article in the National Review bemoaning the belief that literary criticism shouldn’t care “what the writer intended to say with this book.”

I’m one of those critics who don’t care. Because it’s a waste of time to wonder about what anybody intended and how that intent translated into action. I suspect that Nikki May, the author I discussed in the previous post, wasn’t trying to write about horrible, mean bitches from hell in her novel. She probably finds her characters endearing. Or maybe she’s deeper than I credit her and actually intended to portray them as irredeemably nasty. I have no way of knowing but why does it matter? Whatever she intended or didn’t intend won’t change my perception of these characters as horrid and the novel as highly entertaining.

My goal in writing, teaching, and talking about books is to get people excited about reading and engage them in discussing what we read. This is so much more interesting than trying to psychoanalyze authors. If a writer didn’t intend to be funny but I find a book hilarious, why is my laughter less important than his intention?

Also, it really cuts both ways. If we divorce the writer from the product of the writer’s talent and don’t ban books because their authors were imperfect human beings, then how can we remain obsessed with authorial intentions?

Wahala was one of the New York Post books of the year, so I had to check it out and it didn’t disappoint. It’s a great mommy-lit novel about four mixed-race women in London. The women are daughters of despicable Nigerian fathers and white mothers. And they are all messed up about men.

The problem that the female characters of Wahala encounter is that black men are deadbeats and crooks while white men are doormats and wimps. And the women themselves are entitled, horrid brats. If you ever felt a bit down on yourself, read this novel. Whatever your faults are, you’ll feel like a saint compared to these characters.

As the women in Wahala abuse their pathetic white husbands and miserable children or are abused by shifty black boyfriends or fathers, they consume boatloads of interesting Nigerian foods. There are even recipes included at the end of the book!

This isn’t high art, of course, but it’s great entertainment. However, the phenomenon the novel points to is true. I have no idea why it’s so but women from unfortunate countries do tend to exist only in two modes: being eagerly mistreated by compatriots and acting like total bastards toward kind, earnest men from more civilized places.

Leaving aside the racial angle (which is hard to do because the author makes sure you never forget about it), the novel shows us how ugly the life of uncontrolled consumerism is. If you don’t have some limiting factor – be it religion or an intense intellectual life – unchecked wanting turns you into a horrid person. The female characters of Wahala are so nasty because there’s no organizing principle in their lives, no moral code, no purpose. They do atrocious things and never even realize it. This is what living in a moral vacuum looks like, and it’s scary.

Raising a child means having the most mundane actions lit up by a glow of magic.

You know you’ve been overusing your phone when your index finger twitches in a swiping motion during every long pre-Christmas toast.

And guess what? In exactly a week it’s going to be +18°C here. From -36°C to +18°C. And it’s always like this.

A friend came by to visit today and stuck a bundle of fabric into my arms. I thanked her mechanically, thinking that it’s nice to know somebody whose present-wrapping skills were even poorer than mine. But it turned out the bundle wasn’t a gift but her 11-month-old. The kid was wrapped top to bottom so it took me several minutes to find which side her face was. I don’t blame the friends, though. They are from Africa and this weather must be to them. . . what the normal weather around here is for me.

On the positive side, I tried having tea with milk and realized that my life was about to change for the better.

Can anybody recommend a nice Christmas movie to watch with a kid? We’ve done the Grinch, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the Wizard of Oz. I tried suggesting Home Alone but when I described the premise, Klara got scandalized.

What else do people watch on Christmas that’s kid-friendly?

I got the best Christmas gift ever, folks. It’s a gift that murdered all other gifts once and for all.

It’s a paint-by-numbers kit (my new hobby) of one of my favorites photos of Klara. It turns out you can turn any photo into paint-by-numbers! Truly, capitalism is great. I can paint a portrait of my father now!

I have waited for this for so long:

I will think about this moment in the endless bleeding summers, knowing that bliss is possible.