Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Vol #21
Dear friend,
How are you?
I have been well and life’s the usual routine mess.
I am learning to acknowledge the strength in acceptance. When I accept that some amount of highs and lows are part of the flow of life, I can imagine myself as a surfer riding the waves. I am also accepting that most hard things always remain hard, and don’t necessarily get easier with time, if not harder. For example, having a difficult conversation with a colleague or showing up to the gym. Yes, consistency is great and helps form a habit, but this kind of acceptance helps in bouncing back when it feels like all is lost. It is strangely energizing and takes the pressure off.
I feel I have grown in this area and I can see its benefits. It’s helping me have more realistic expectations and be ok with messing up.
As the book reminds us, “You try again. You fail better.”
Love,
Tvisha
About the Author (via wiki):
Gabrielle Zevin (born October 24, 1977) is an American author and screenwriter. Zevin was born in New York City. Zevin's father, who is American-born, has Ashkenazi Jewish, Russian, Lithuanian, and Polish ancestry. Her mother was born in Korea and emigrated to the United States when she was 9 years old. Zevin enrolled at Harvard University, where she studied English with a concentration in American Literature. While at Harvard, she met her partner and graduated in 2000.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was released in 2022 as Zevin's fifth novel for adults. It won the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fiction.
About the Book (via Goodreads):
In this exhilarating novel, Sadie and Sam, two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.
Memorable Quotes:
To allow yourself to play with another person is no small risk. It means allowing yourself to be open, to be exposed, to be hurt. It is the human equivalent of the dog rolling on its back—I know you won’t hurt me, even though you can. It is the dog putting its mouth around your hand and never biting down. To play requires trust and love.
Maybe it was the willingness to play that kept one from despair.
There is a time for any fledgling artist where one’s taste exceeds one’s abilities. The only way to get through this period is to make things anyway.
“No,” Sam said. “We’ve never … It’s more than romantic. It’s better than romance. It’s friendship.” Sam laughed. “Who cares about romance anyway?”
If Sadie and Sam had been lovers, Sadie was certain she would have been seen as Sam’s helpmate, and not as an artist in her own right. Many people saw her that way already.
Throughout his life, Sam had hated being told to “fight,” as if sickness were a character failing.
It isn’t a sadness, but a joy, that we don’t do the same things for the length of our lives.
She had thought after Ichigo that she would never fail again. She had thought she arrived. But life was always arriving. There was always another gate to pass through. (Until, of course, there wasn’t.)
It’s so funny you should say this, because if you were one of my students, you’d be wearing your pain like a badge of honor. This generation doesn’t hide anything from anyone. My class talks a lot about their traumas. And how their traumas inform their games. They, honest to God, think their traumas are the most interesting thing about them.
Questions that arose:
What is the significance of Sam's mother, the jumper and Marx's mother all having the name Anna Lee?
Throughout the novel, the main characters suffer devastating losses. How do you think gaming helps them cope with their pain? Is it different for each or are there similarities?
There is a mention that if they made Ichigo in today’s world, it would be considered cultural appropriation as none of the developers were Japanese. Thoughts?
"IX Pioneers" was 28 pgs. of detailed game play...what was your reaction to this section? If you figured it out, when/how?
What do you think about Sam’s injury? How did the injury mentally, emotionally and physically inform him? Do you think it was an apt way of showcasing a person who has been through all that? Were you able to sympathize or empathize with him?
Both Sadie and Sam use games to explicitly memorialize their loved ones and process their losses. If you could design a game to change or preserve some part of your reality, what would it be like?
Recap: Our last read was Come as you are by Emily Nagoski, a book that was full of essential yet less known knowledge about women’s sexuality.
Currently Reading: Tvisha has been alternating reading Masala Lab: The Science of Indian Cooking and Homegoing - two extremely different books catering to her varying moods.
Miti just finished reading Lessons in Chemistry and is now reading Book Lovers by Emily Henry now.
SHELF INDULGENCE PICK:
Aug-Sep: Late Bloomers by Deepa Varadarajan
Happy Reading!
Warmly,
Miti and Tvisha
P.S. If you’re interested in being a part of Shelf Indulgence, write to us!