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ToF 2024 - Zombie round - Wellness vs. Let Us Descend
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Wow, excellent judgment Marika! I would have gone the other way (much as I loved Let Us Descend), but you've given me a broader perspective for both books.
My favorite and my least favorite up against each other, and, well, my favorite didn't win. Ah well.
"Wellness" was also one of my (two) favorites, but ... unlike in the ToB, where I experience real sorrow when a favorite is ousted (and a different kind of sorrow, having spent, on more than a few books, considerable time I would much rather have allocated to my TBR pile), in the Tournament of Favorites I find that... I don't care what the outcome is, either of a matchup or the "tournament" overall.
What I feel instead is enormous gratitude for: (1) this gathering of thoughtful readers, whose recommendations I value; and (2) the incentive to pull from my TBR pile multiple books about which I turn out to be ecstatically positive ("Wellness", "North Woods"), or at least interested in while I was reading ("End of Drum-Time", "Trespasses, "Let Us Descend"). There was not a single book in this ToF that I regretted having spent time reading. (Even Birnam Wood, about which I ended up disappointed, had its good points and its moments.)
So, THANK YOU, my fellow ToF'ers, especially Chrissy for organizing, and the judges for Putting in the Work. I hope this venture continues. It has turned out to be the best thing that I have gotten from the ToB.
Totally agree - all of these books were good to great in various ways, and I’m glad I read them all and at least briefly wrote down my thoughts. The group did a great job choosing our bracket! It’s been a pleasure helping organize (thanks Emily!) as well.
Phew - I finally feel free to comment without fear of inadvertently spoiling things. I heartily agree with Risa - reading other judgements and the comments all the books has been a delight in and of itself and has given me an even deeper appreciation for both of these books. And apologies to all those who were cheering for Wellness to make the final; it was certainly a worthy contender!As always, I love the opportunity that the ToF provides to appreciate how unique each of us is as a reader and to reflect on how the ToB brings us together in a deeply thoughtful and insightful community despite our various resonances and preferences and straight-up quirks.
And finally this year I especially love the way that Rufi Thorpe's criteria have been the red thread connecting many of the judgements.
This judgement is certainly detailed in its honesty! Or honest with the details? Either way, quite the judgement. I'm not sure which book I would have picked here as I REALLY loved both. So now I hope 'Let Us Descend' wins the dang thing. :D
Also, both 'Wellness' and 'Let Us Descend' would have passed my personal Rufi Thorpe test, but I do see your points, Marika!
i was DELIGHTED to see this judgment from a reader with knowledge of The Placebo Effect who brought their own footnotes + that seems like the absolute correct spirit in which to judge this book...I was most struck by the judge's comment that Let Us Descend had novel insights and that struck me as one of the hardest and most subjective things about comparing books because I didn't really feel like LUD was showing me new insight or framing ideas I hadn't thought of before. That is nothing against the insights it did have but nothing really broke my eye open, whereas Wellness was full of ideas I hadn't encountered or new framings of familiar experiences (funny enough the non monogamy chapter felt to me MOST like something familiar + not particularly insightful.) And this is just the thing that's impossible to predict or control for, which is whether a book inspires a particular reader to think about something in a new way -- my experience seems to have been the opposite of the judge's + my judgment would have fallen the opposite way
Fantastic and thorough judgment, even if I’m sad to see Wellness knocked out again. Cheers to all the insights provided through this year’s ToF! This is an excellent literary group to be part of. :)
Thank you, Everyone. You all are so smart. Thanks for letting me hang out here. I very much preferred Let Us Descend but I don't think I would ever been able to explain why exactly. So I hang out with you excellent readers and insight sharers. This is the best book club.
Marika, excellent judgement!! I love your use of Rupi Thorpe’s criteria. We should write to her and tell her we all use this and it’s so helpful. It’s true I would have gone the other way with this one. If you remember way back when I judged Wellness and Birnam Wood, the latter just barely won. We agree on at least one of the slight shortcomings of Wellness; the secondary characters were portrayed as satire in my opinion which kind of grated. Anyway, thanks again for your write up.
"First, thanks very much to everyone whose effort has contributed to making this year’s Tournament of Favourites sing!
I came to both of these books consciously trying to avoid knowing anything about them in advance that might colour my expectations. I haven’t read either author’s previous works, although I was vaguely aware of them thanks to previous ToBs, and I stayed away from reviews as well as summaries and descriptions (although I’m looking forward to seeking out reviews once I submit this judgement!) And I started with Wellness because it was longer and it seemed prudent to take on the bigger task first.
I share several characteristics with the characters in Wellness. I work in academia with a focus on ethics in the health sector, I am a GenX parent, I grew up in the prairies, and I have been in the same relationship since the early 2000s - so there was a lot of the detail in this book that felt familiar and reflected my experiences.
I enjoyed Wellness’ focus on belief and its ability to shape our experiences of the world; my training is in philosophy so this resonated deeply (although it didn’t vibrate strangely - further application of Judge Thorpe’s criteria below). But I didn’t get any novel insights from reading the book - just confirmation of beliefs I have or thoughts that I’ve entertained from time to time.
As an academic I was impressed by the use of citations in the book, but one of the challenges that I had is that a major plot point involves the claim that the placebo effect disappears once you know it’s a placebo. But this is not supported by evidence which would have been available to the author (Shafer 2015, Shafer 2024). And this, along with a lack of nuance in the discussion of the ethical challenges of using the placebo effect to generate benefit, took me out of the book and generated irritation that diminished the reading experience for me, although I also recognize that this is very particular to me as a reader.
Wellness contains some nice passages - for example, “And the only thing she was certain of was this: that between ourselves and the world are a million stories, and if we don’t know which among them are true, we might as well try out those that are most humane, most generous, most beautiful, most loving.” Overall, though, the writing is a means to an end and not an end in itself.
There are several extended excursions into the characters’ histories and I found myself tolerating them on the assumption that there would be payoff at some point. Ultimately, though, I didn’t feel that they warranted the digression from the main path of the narrative.
I also became increasingly less invested in the characters as the book went on. Many secondary characters were not portrayed with much nuance, particularly the radical-turned-real estate developer and the local Karen, and I much prefer a strong supporting cast. By the end of the book I was deeply ambivalent about all of the characters and where they would land.
Overall, I found Wellness largely forgettable, although there was an interesting and narratively relevant sub-plot related to non-monogamy; the conversations that the characters have in these scenes are what has stuck with me the most. But the characters didn’t seem to take as much from it as I did. Similarly, there was a missed opportunity to do some reckoning with respect to the characters’ experiences of privilege.
The end seemed somewhat trite, almost as if the book had lost the courage of its convictions and veered instead into a fairly conventional “happy ending.”
On the other hand, I was recommending several books to a friend and she opted to buy Let Us Descend on the strength of the opening line: “The first weapon I ever held was my mother’s hand.” I was also immediately taken by the writing as well as by the story, even as the content of the narrative was often brutal.
Let Us Descend successfully walked some fine lines. Its writing was vivid and lyrical without becoming wordy. It also evoked understanding and appreciation of the horror of Black women’s experiences during slavery without sensationalizing these experiences or desensitizing the reader. It reflected Black agency without ignoring the cost of resistance. And it used magical realism without falling into a deus ex machina ending.
I especially appreciated the way in which Let Us Descend highlights the complexity of racism and the range of options available to Black women in the face of systemic oppression. As the protagonist, Annis, says, “I want to lead. I want to find my own way through this knot of woods, drying toward their winter sleep. I want to choose where to put one aching foot, where to sink into the mud, ankle-deep in mosquitoes, before pulling it out to step again. I want to raise my head to the bee. I want to choose.”
I especially loved Let Us Descend’s ending for what it states about freedom and about connection to a lineage while also making independent choices. This passage resonated with me both as the daughter of a mother and the mother of a daughter: “Aza rumbles to stillness. Thunder beats through her breath. Still, her words are quiet. ‘I delivered you here, to this place.’ ‘No, I say.’ I hold up my hands. I marvel at my arms, little more than bone wreathed in skin when I came here, but now wormed through with muscle. ‘I delivered myself.’”
There was one moment that pulled me out of the book, when the term “pregnant person” was used in a way that struck me as understandable but anachronistic. But otherwise Let Us Descend was an extremely rewarding reading experience.
In summary, to use Judge Thorpe’s criteria from the play-in round of the 2024 Tournament of Books:
Subject:
Wellness - I started out interested in what it had to say about the power of belief and became less so as the book went on.
Let Us Descend - The topic of women’s experience of and resistance to oppression will always get me to pick up a book.
Drugs:
Wellness - No.
Let Us Descend - No but somehow it feels like a book dealing with slavery probably shouldn’t be drugs.
Gay:
Wellness - No
Let Us Descend - Yes, incidentally.
Cerebral:
Wellness - Yes but with factual errors.
Let Us Descend - Simultaneously visceral and cerebral, with novel insights about women’s choices related to enslavement.
Characters:
Wellness - Caricatures.
Let Us Descend - Rendered with nuance.
Plot:
Wellness - Key plot point unfounded.
Let Us Descend - Magical realism used with appropriate discernment.
Vibrate Strangely:
Wellness - No.
Let Us Descend - No.
Advancing today:
Let Us Descend
I look forward to the discussion and to hearing about others’ experiences of these books!
References:
Schafer SM, Colloca L, Wager TD. Conditioned placebo analgesia persists when subjects know they are receiving a placebo. J Pain. 2015 May;16(5):412-20. doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2014.12.008. Epub 2015 Jan 22. PMID: 25617812; PMCID: PMC4424173.
Schaefer M, Enge S. Open-label placebos enhance test performance and reduce anxiety in learner drivers: a randomized controlled trial. Sci Rep. 2024 Mar 20;14(1):6684. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-56600-6. PMID: 38509101; PMCID: PMC10954622.