![]() ![]() It knows as much about the strange extremes of food as Penumbra did about the dark latitudes of the book community. It pushes us to do something simpler, to wonder at the weird beauty, set down in Sloan’s matter-of-fact prose, of life - or at least marvel at the strange sights and tastes of a familiar world embellished by a particularly inventive mind. It is a beautiful, small, sweet, quiet book. And even then, the novel defies clear-cut analysis. Instead, whatever lessons we might draw from Sourdough are more personal, ambiguous and hard to extract: having humility, perhaps, or an open mind. What Sourdough isn’t concerned about are topical conflicts in food today - characters touch on the follies of industrialized food production, boutique organic farms and GMOs, but only briefly. ![]() sustenance-related tales resonate throughout the story until food itself comes across as a sort of grand, delicious imprint of humanity. But after Lois learns a thing or two about how to really live, Sloan’s story expands into something decidedly, and delightfully, weirder. The novel centers around Lois, a software engineer from Michigan who moves to San Francisco to work at a robotics company, where she works so hard, she ends up practically moving in. ![]() Lois’ turnaround is satisfying to watch - who doesn’t want all their problems solved by the simple act of baking? - but it goes down a little too easy, more like artificially flavored candy than a loaf of whole wheat. Sourdough by Robin Sloan went on my TBR list immediately, and within a few weeks, I’d finished it. ![]()
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