THE BOOK OF FORM AND EMPTINESS by Ruth Ozeki

Fourteen-year-old Benny Oh and his mother, Annabelle, both have a problem with inanimate objects.  Since the death of Kenji, Benny’s father, Benny hears the voices of things like a table leg, which tells him the story of a toddler being tied to it.  Annabelle’s hoarding of useless stuff could result in their eviction and in Benny’s removal to foster care.  Benny’s issues lead him to do some really asinine things, and I felt for Annabelle as she struggles to keep her job and her sanity while Benny becomes increasingly more unmanageable.  At its heart, this book is an attack on the materialistic world in which we live. However, it also makes a statement on the inadequacy of our mental health system, although Benny’s problems would be a challenge for any doctor trying to diagnose and treat them.  I found this book to be a relatively fast read, despite its length, but I found some aspects of it to be unnecessary and confusing.  At times, the narrator is definitely a book or books, and sometimes Benny is the narrator.  It also contains snippets from a book called Tidy Magic, which Annabelle is reading, although her adherence to its advice is haphazard at best.  Whereas objects speak to Benny, Annabelle speaks to objects, as suggested in Tidy Magic, thanking them for their service before disposing of them.  Despite all this conversation with inanimate stuff, the only objects that actually come to life are the tidying-up book itself and a collection of words on refrigerator magnets that periodically rearrange themselves in a different order.  Then there’s the author of Tidy Magic, who lives in a Zen monastery.  She comes into the picture because Annabelle voices her frustrations to the author via email with no expectation of a reply, and I guess that’s why we need to know her situation.  The good news about this side plot is that the Zen author’s aide offhandedly offers a welcome explanation for Benny’s behavior.