Zazen by Vanessa Veselka

FYI: Zazen is zen meditation, usually performed in the lotus position. It's preferred you do this meditation facing the wall.

I read Zazen by Vanessa Veselka for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge for a book with a one-word title you had to look up in a dictionary. I didn't know what zazen was and I had never heard of Veselka, so I learned two things for the price of one. This is Veselka's debut novel.

Regardless of whatever I say from here on out, I want you to know that I think this cover is amazing. The photo. The author's name in the tiniest font. The title design. I just can't stop thinking about it and what it means.

Della has a doctorate, but is working in a restaurant as her country falls further and further into civil war. Bombs are going off; revolutionaries, including her own parents, are fighting the government; and no future is certain. Soon Della is involved in a terroristic plot she never intended to be the leader of.

This book is...probably too smart for me? Five-star reviews call it a biting satire, an unflinching coming of age novel in a tumultuous time, an unusual and important voice. Maybe it is all those things, but to me it felt like a muddied message. Are we supposed to agree with terrorists? Think the government is one big conspiracy that's out to get us? And what of Della? She can't use her education for anything better and more useful to society than perpetuating violence?

This was published in 2011 and I don't think it's aged well. It seems to promote political violence and in light of assassination attempts and an attempted coup of the US government, I cannot get behind it. But, again, maybe I am missing the point. 

But that cover, right?

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

That's the problem with symbolic gestures. People never take them far enough. They don't see them as a system. They blow up something right in front of them, like the bathroom of the New Land Trust building, and then caper around like monkey. They might as well throw bananas at it. (page 111-112)

Jules reminded me of Credence, so convinced he was smarter than everyone that whatever he said came out like he was teaching you how to tie your shoes. Watching that habit slip, I saw how similar he and I really were. Only I had stopped trying to communicate with anyone at all, patronizingly or otherwise. My attitude was fuck you and your myopic mental laziness, tie your own fucking shoes. Under examination it wasn't a more enlightened stance. (page 193)

Things I looked up:

laccolith (page 37) - a dome-shaped intrusive rock formed by magma pushing apart the host rock strata

Lagerstätte (page 111) - Sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

In her hand she had a plastic firefighter's hat. (page 10)

She swung up onto the back of the truck, put her fireman's hat on and smiled back at us...(page 10)

The cumulative weight of a dense culture mesh that prevents us from understanding whether the foundational problem is really race, class or gender? A hat?

Me: A hat.

Mr. Tofu Scramble: Well, it does kind of look like a hat. (page 21)

IN AN ANCIENT LAND...(Women in cowry shell hats enjoying re-colonization on green) BEAUTY IS ETERNAL...(page 55)