Mouth to Mouth v. The Book of Goose
The 2023 Tournament of Books, presented by Field Notes, is an annual battle royale among the best novels of the previous year.
MARCH 21 • QUARTERFINALS
Mouth to Mouth
v. The Book of Goose
Judged by Summer Farah
Summer Farah (she/her) is a Palestinian American poet and editor who serves as the outreach coordinator for the Radius of Arab American Writers. Known connections to this year’s contenders: None. / summerfarah.com
As a voracious reader of poetry and a nonfiction editor, I always welcome an opportunity where I have to read a novel. My most consistent New Year’s resolution is to read more novels—sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, but the desire is always there, but novels are long and always have terrible library e-book wait times. It is only when I am faced with “best of!” lists and awards that I realize just how disparate and separate my fiction-reading habits are both from the commercial mainstream and the celebrated literary sphere. This is all to say, after both of my titles arrived, my first impression was Oh, wow, literally never heard of this. Cool!
Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson arrived first. I was delighted by how short it looked. I knew The Book of Goose, by Yiyun Li, en route, was much longer. Already, I could feel my opinion of the two books start to form—absurdly, considering I hadn’t even read the description for either yet. But one was short and one was long, and every year I read 40 poetry collections because I can do most of them in one sitting; I am an all-or-nothing kind of recreational reader.
Mouth to Mouth is a conversation: Two men speak to each other in an airport lounge. Our narrator listens to an old acquaintance, an art dealer, recount an “extraordinary” story with gossip and twists, and drama. This is different from basically everything in my library, shelves and shelves of poetry by women of color, and even more specifically mostly Arab women; what started as a teenage pseudo-rebellious act in prioritizing reading works by women just became a general habit.
It felt more like reading a play, or what it must be like to be the live-studio audience member at a sitcom.
I found the book difficult to get into, at first not really finding myself immersed by the conversation nor the memories the narrator was being pulled into. But then I decided to read it aloud! I am a fast and uncareful reader at times and the brevity of chapters and the saturation of dialogue only makes this worse. I had to start the book over when I realized I did not know who Francis Arsenault was, fully missing a key character description. I am immersed best when given interiority, an opportunity to shut off my own thoughts—I found for this book to be successful, I had to go all in on the premise. If this was a dialogue, I would participate, and perform deliriously alone to myself.
Despite my skepticism with the premise, the form of this book worked. It felt more like reading a play, or what it must be like to be the live-studio audience member at a sitcom, with the briefness of chapters and impressive page turns echoing stage directions or comedic jump cuts. Chapter 17 takes us to a memory, unassuming in its delivery, truly a short two pages—immediately followed by the even-shorter chapter 18, just a few lines of dialogue that serve as interruption and reaction to the story. It was great! There are so many moments like this throughout the book, in which I felt so attuned to the form of the novel; these sudden narrative shifts added a lightness and self-awareness to the narrative that felt necessary for a reader like me. It’s not the characters or the story itself that propels this book, but the rhythms its ins-and-outs create. The bottle episode, the clip show—sitcom staples I could not stop thinking of as I read through—work because of the trust and attachment an audience has already built with the characters who are producing story in a single room, or reminiscing instead of pushing the story forward. Most importantly, these conventions are born of necessity—budget constraints! To reproduce this constraint instead as an intentional restraint was almost confusing. Why choose this way to tell the story? Near the end, our narrator says of his companion: “What was more, in that moment, at least he seemed to believe it himself.”
Restraint, then, perhaps intentionally crafting that captive audience—a conversation partner who needs you to believe his performance. I won’t spoil the ending, but it did make me go, Oh, haha, whoa!
FROM OUR SPONSOR
For the effort it took to fall into Mouth to Mouth, reading The Book of Goose was the opposite. The narrative is interior, it's languid, it's luxurious prose. The characters replaced my constant inner monologue immediately, exactly the way you want historical fiction to. Of course I was going to care about these two aspiring writer girl best friends. Told in recollections, we are pulled through a postwar small French town, through the birth of a partnership, through sad and stressful things. For as rich as the writing felt, interestingly, the chapters in this book were also super short! Rather than pushing the plot the way it did in Mouth to Mouth, here the brevity felt gentle—more like a natural conclusion of thought as the reader spends time in this world. These brief chapters did the opposite of what they did in Mouth to Mouth: They made me slow down. I think the mark of a good reading experience for me is a sense of simmering urgency—I want to know where we will go, in tandem with But in this moment I want to stay.
“Every story has an expiration date. Like a jar of marmalade or a candle.
“Does marmalade have an expiration date? Yes, marmalade only makes fruit live longer, not forever.
“Does a candle have an expiration date? It may not come with one, but once past a certain point in its life, it is corrupted, even if it still burns.
“Time corrupts. And we pay a price for everything corruptible: food, roof beams, souls.”
I’m turning this write-up in a little late because I was sick, and so these books lived in my head a little longer than expected.
Both of these books are about the act of storytelling. There is a sorrowful sentimentality attached to what it means to tell a story well, in The Book of Goose. Both books attempt that Scheherazade relationship to storytelling and survival, but here it felt more genuine, more resonant, more earned, more successful.
I honestly felt pretty apathetic toward both of these books when I finished them. It’s in the act of writing about them that I feel a fondness I didn’t realize was there. When I review poetry collections, I read them through three times and do not start my draft right away if I can help it. It’s good to let books percolate. I’m turning this write-up in a little late because I was sick, and so these books lived in my head a little longer than expected; it’s almost like writing and finishing and publishing a book is really hard and wonderful work, and if you spend time with almost anything proficient and inoffensive, it’ll turn revelatory and beautiful? I used to review chapbooks and found at the end of my 1,000-word write-ups, I was always grateful the book existed even if I was underwhelmed on my first read. The closeness and attention reoriented my read. In reviewing my notes about both of these books before I sent in my decision, I realized how many times I had actually underlined or tabbed moments in The Book of Goose, and how much more those moments were staying with me, how much I wanted to write about them to fully understand why they steeped in my head.
And so, despite my tendency toward shorter reads, The Book of Goose won out. I love a lush narrative, I love a beautiful and tender interior. When I read fiction, I want to be taken elsewhere, and the place The Book of Goose took me to was the preferred one, one I want to revisit and think and think and think about.
Advancing:
The Book of Goose
Match Commentary
with Rosecrans Baldwin, Meave Gallagher, and Alana Mohamed
Rosecrans Baldwin: Alana, Meave, let’s start here: Judge Farah writes “I honestly felt pretty apathetic toward both of these books when I finished them. It’s in the act of writing about them that I feel a fondness I didn’t realize was there.” Has this happened to you, you finish a book feeling meh, but later think otherwise? For me, it’s only been when I’ve reread a book that my ideas or feelings about it might shift.
Meave Gallagher: I’ve changed my opinion about a book before, for sure, but usually that came after a longer time than our judge had. I hated Henry James in undergrad, couldn’t get through three pages without dozing off. A couple years after graduating, I checked out The Turn of the Screw on one of those library trip whims (it must’ve been October) and found I loved it. I think the key for me is motivation. I’m not moved to reread a lot of books; unless I feel I owe it another chance, I’m pretty content with my first impressions. Though further reflection can be fruitful! Judge Farah had to choose between two books and found some gold while sifting through her thoughts. Or maybe you learn something about a work or its author that demands its reconsideration, and you reach your hand back into the jar to find the contents spoiled. Maybe they were always spoiled but you were so used to eating poison you didn’t notice the first time.
Alana Mohamed: Grim! We are eating a lot of poison these days, friend.
Meave: It’s certainly not lotus.
Alana: I try my best to practice gratitude for a book, as Judge Farah does. I appreciated her mention of poetry because learning to read poetry made me a better reader overall. I had a difficult time processing shorter texts, which I’d often speed through for the sake of it. Meave, does that ever happen to you?
Meave: I have trouble reading a lot of things? Usually excitement to find out what happens next causes speed reading and missed details, length of text regardless. As far as poetry, I prefer listening to it, even though I cannot focus on audiobooks at all.
Alana: I have finally made my way into podcasts and my attention span can barely handle it! You’re totally right that different conditions influence how you relate to a book. I like that Judge Farah talked about reading Mouth to Mouth out loud, but that made me wonder if it stood a chance. Would you ever choose a book that made you modify your reading habits over one that didn’t?
Rosecrans: That’s a great point.
Meave: Well, The Book of Goose actually changed my mind while I was reading it, if that counts. Was it really so much longer? It didn’t feel that way.
Alana: Don’t judge a book by its thickness, is that the saying?
Meave: Gross! Maybe? I was so sure it was another fetishization-of-childhood-friendships stories, where a best friendship (…or more?) between two girls is warped into some mystery of femininity/adolescent girls—incipient lesbians???/Heavenly Creatures folderol. I’m leery of adult characterizations of childrens’ relationships with each other—like, of course children have complicated friendships—but it so often comes off as reductive and overblown. I have engaged with my gender identity, but being cisgender always felt right. And having had some Intense inter-girl friendships of my own, I found the passage Judge Farah highlights, about every story having an expiration date, felt truer than most depictions of those relationships in whatever medium. To paraphrase our judge, I also found The Book of Goose more genuine, resonant, earned, and successful as the story unfolded.
Alana: That quote neatly illustrates her point about the “sorrowful sentimentality” of storytelling and its relationship to survival. From her comments likening Mouth to Mouth to a sitcom, it seems like that gravity wasn’t as present. Based on the premises put forward, the stakes do seem higher for two girls navigating postwar France than two men chatting in an airport lounge. Both judgments we’ve read about Mouth to Mouth portray it as a breezy book about men. Is that because Mouth to Mouth is trying to accomplish something The Book of Goose is not?
Meave: Speaking librarianly, I wouldn’t sort The Book of Goose with the young adult novels, but I would absolutely recommend it to young adults. How would you categorize it, if you were working at BookOps?
Alana: My inclination would be to file this away as historical fiction, but I am struggling to articulate why I’d wouldn’t choose YA. I suppose the story tackles some of the gruesome topics we shy away from when recommending books to kids. Then again, the most memorable books from my tweenhood dealt with terrible things. I’d certainly want to recommend a book like this to a young patron.
Rosecrans: As librarians, you must think a lot about categorization, about genre. Can you expand on that?
Alana: I wonder how genre affects how someone reads a text. If you picked The Book of Goose off the YA shelf, does that impact your concerns about the depiction of a complicated friendship? Meave, did the long-suffering genre Assigned by a College Professor affect the way you read Henry James?
Meave: I would’ve been more trepidatious for sure, but probably because so much YA-classed fiction has underwhelmed. Just like lots and lots of adult fiction! Most of which I have, returning to the original question, been too underwhelmed by to bother with a second time.
Rosecrans: At the end, the judge talks about wanting to feel transported. As librarians, what’s the most common reason you see for why people read fiction?
Alana: I thought it was really interesting that Judge Farah spoke about being transported to a world she wanted “to revisit and think and think and think about.” The most invigorating patron interactions I’ve had were the ones where they’re hunting for a book from their youth. It’s clear that something about the book in question has stuck with them, but that thing is rarely filed away in the library catalog.
Meave: I had this exact experience with Kathryn Lasky’s Pageant so many times that I eventually just bought it. And then I married an ethnically Jewish atheist who was forced to attend Catholic high school. Can’t wait to foist it on my 10-year-old nieces.
Alana: The making of a literary tradition! That said, transportation is certainly something people prize in fiction. Science fiction, romance, and historical fiction titles were all well-represented in the top 10 library checkouts in New York this past year, many of which seem to flirt with escapism and eschew the “sorrowful sentimentality” Judge Farah enjoyed in The Book of Goose for the “gossip and twists and drama” of Mouth to Mouth. Meave, I wonder if you see transportation as key to what readers look for. I know that in 2020, some of the most top checked-out books included weightier stuff like Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility and Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys. I wonder if the many book bannings and challenges across the nation will prompt patrons away from escapism.
Meave: Apologies for another cliché, but “escapist” genres tackle plenty of weighty subjects. E.g., the Earthsea Cycle; Octavia Butler’s experiments with relationships, consent, hierarchies; Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy; the Murderbot universe; A Country of Ghosts. Becky Chambers appears to be building an anarchic post-apocalyptic utopia in her Monk and Robot series. Colson Whitehead has taken on weightier topics through “genre” fiction, too, as has Tournament bestie Percival Everett. I mean, is it not a truth universally acknowledged that books can provide an escape from our immediate reality while addressing real struggles? Sometimes recontextualizing problems does help us solve them, right?
Alana: Of course! When I equate escapist with lighter fare, I am being specific to the titles on the list, as opposed to speaking about genre generally. To me, it looked like the 2020 uprisings fueled interest in nonfiction books like White Fragility and fiction like The Nickel Boys, indicating a desire for something less escapist or transporting. Though I suppose there is a sect of readers who consume stories about oppression as if they were on a safari (insert shiver here).
Meave: That’s a self-check that I—a white cis woman—do a lot. But I’d love to read some “gossipy, twisty drama” without doing any wealth veneration. To my mind, the most interesting writing in that genre is uncovering crypto scandals, sex-toy Nazis, and, er, George Santos, which is depressing.
Rosecrans: Santos is a great, surreal note to end on! In the next match, join us for love triangles and tragedy, as Calvin Kasulke (author of 2022 Tournament contender Several People Are Typing) dons his judge’s robes to preside over Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance versus Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
Kevin Guilfoile: Just dropping in here to update the Zombie results. Mouth to Mouth is not able to take a bite out of the current leaders. If the Zombie Round were held today, Babel and Mercury Pictures Presents would still be our reanimated reads.
Today’s mascot
Today’s mascot, Mason, comes to us from Andrea G. Mason is a long-legged, orange tabby cat who came to live with Andrea a few short weeks ago. Mason is getting his bearings after spending a couple of months in a shelter, and he has learned to slide down the terrazzo hallway, watch squirrel TV through the windows, and wake Andrea up at night with cat toy bells. Mason loves Japanese novels about cats, such as The Travelling Cat Chronicles and The Guest Cat, but here he has only found vintage sci-fi or cartoons, and he guesses those will do.
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