Salka
The voice of the narrator, her character, sense of humour, worldview, & her connection to & love for her community are so strong in this tale of Gandhian satyagraha & Congress' efforts at swaraj come to small-town South India. Our narrator - an older aunty of the village of Kanthapura - is the perfect voice to communicate the experience of this time for everyday rural Indians, and her story unfolds as if she is relating a series of events to us, perhaps acquaintances or family of a neighbouring village. Those with an interest or familiarity with the history will perhaps get more out of it, as there are many layers of tradition, cultural practice, & politics to process, but there is a handy glossary of cultural terms for the less familiar. An immersive & wonderfully captivating read.
Meh, I enjoyed Brene Brown's talks more I think. Her style definitely suits more of an in-person presentation/video than written. I did like the way she introduced/adapted Maria Popova's note-taking/reflective framework. I guess having seen her talks via TED and Netflix, this was nothing new for me.
Four and a half stars.
This is a gorgeous, gorgeous book that feels so personally relevant to me.
It is a story of healing, and place, and identity, and family.
Davidson is a wonderfully engaging writer, introspective and descriptive, evoking the familiar (to me) landscapes I myself grew up in, and travelled to, and with similar approaches to life and living.
When I watched the film adaptation of Davidson's Tracks and later read the book, I felt an incredible representation of myself onscreen and on the page that I had not felt before, and I had this feeling again in this memoir.
For those with maybe less personal common ground with Robinson's life, you will still find plenty of value here. Literature lovers will be drawn in by Davidson's accounts of her experiences living with and being mentored by Doris Lessing, her acquaintance and influence on Bruce Chatwin, her tumultous relationship and influence on Salman Rushdie (who is never mentioned by name), and her decades long relationship with Rajput political figure Narendra Singh Bhati.
The book jumps between time and place, but these movements are not stilted, but rather fluid, and adept and somewhat evocative of the dynamics of memory - a testament to Davidson's narrative skill.
I also loved Davidson's way of speaking about and evoking generational attitudes and zeitgeists in Australia, and I felt this contributed to my understanding of these generational shifts and differences in a way that added insight into my own family and experiences as someone of a younger generation.
Highly recommend!
Loved it. Jansson's typically understated brilliance evident. So much going on beneath the surface. An incredible psychologically-aware study of human relationships. Two formidable small-town enigmas meet. Who is using who? Manipulation & erosion or growth? Loss or gain? Together or separate? Arghhh! So much to analyse
This book definitely lives up to the hype. Well written, engaging and balancing pith with pathos, it really is more of a psychological journey of healing than a comedy. There is wit, but it was the insight that grabbed me.
This book is about the toxicity of white fragility. It's about white fragility as denial, as egoic defence, as individualistic selfishness. And its genius is that it gets in the head of white readers and shows them a mirror.
As a white reader, Yellowface had me subconsciously constantly comparing myself with Juniper, as if to reassure myself I could see and understand her racism and wasn't as racist a white woman as her. In other words, by writing from a white villian perspective, but a white villain that is JUST relatable enough to lower middle class/working class white “sjws” like myself, the book perfectly situates itself to calibrate your internalised norms and learn what racism looks like from your perspective AS THE PERPETRATOR.
As a child of parents who were essentially neoorientalists who idealised and fetishised Asian cultures, I have spent time trying to unlearn. As I child I would relish attention and validation from others when I was able to astonish them with my understanding of other cultures. This white person's understanding of non-white culutral information became a vehicle for ego gratification. I think I'm doing better now. But as an adult who retains interest in global cinema and literature, as well as being a BTS ARMY, I am in intercultural spaces where I am constantly questioning myself to find what else I need to unlearn.
I have a pretty constant internal dialogue which compares my behaviours to those of weiboos, koreaboos, white Geoffs with yellow fever, anime enthusiasts, white Buddhists, and my parents, to make sure I am nowhere near what they represent. In other words I do what many of us do, I engage in analysis of degrees of racism, problematic behaviour, and political appropriateness in a process that appears infinite. To assume it's not an infinite iterative process is to accept a level of internal failure or harm to others of which you are prepared to be ignorant of, or ignore and tolerate. I guess that's where the white fragility comes in. White fragility assumes there are boundaries to racism, assumes the process of self-reflection is discrete, and that discomfort does not need to be ongoing, does not need to be personal.
I have had to check myself when writing tweets, when I realised my twitter account didn't have any clues to my ethnicity and I was going on antiracist rants in a way that other accounts might assume I was a POC. Context is important. Authorship identity is important. This is the most obvious message of Yellowface. I see my adult desire to do the right thing battling with my childhood desire for validation in a way that is scary sometimes, and also scarily not unlike June's. This gets at the point of Kuang's book, or one of them.
I found the character of Juniper an ugly soul - cold, selfish, oblivious, almost a caricature. Juniper is an objectively terrible person, BUT at the same time she retains elements of familiarity.
I could relate to Juniper's experiences of financial hardship/frustrated envy at the seemingly arbitrary wealth of others, feel the dismissal of powerful people who assume you are boring, physically unattractive white porridge. As a white woman who is not sexually attractive, you have no value. As a well-educated white woman you were used to throwing around your privilege in highschool and university and now as you've aged, you've become invisible.
Juniper is ignorant, and ignores racism, while assuming its boundaries. And this assumption is in the service of a deep reflex of self-preservation against insecurity and anxiety. Juniper is messed up. But her narration contains gems like “My heart's pounding so hard I can feel it in my boobs” and can simultaneously mock references to Barthes and Baudrillard for dated faux-literati schtick. Like I said, Kuang retains that skerrick of relatability in Juniper. Kuang somehow manages to bring Juniper back from the brink of caricature while retaining the horror that will provide the perfect aversive conditioning for its readers to maybe do those subconscious internal calibrations required to undo their own white fragility. I guess this is the power of good satire.
One very effective way Kuang appears to do this is by illustrating the process of Juniper's internal doubts which she then buries and dismisses through excuses and external validation often with the popular self-help self-actualisation girl-boss attitudes and white feminist platitudes common to women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. The book shows how Juniper is capable of identifying the racism, but buries her knowledge with greed, envy, fear of her own distress and anxiety and incapacity to sit with that anxiety and discomfort. Juniper hates other people because she finds herself lacking and hates herself for it, but lacks the courage to embrace the discomfort of growth. That's white fragility right there.
Aside from its depiction of white fragility, another confirmation this book is targetted at educated white millennials (ie: me): the plot occurs on twitter and Kuang's Juniper refers to the “babies” on tiktok. As an aside, reading this book during the death throes of Twitter (X?) makes it feel like important documentation, a timecapsule if you will, of the zeitgeist of cultural discourse on adult social media for the last 15 years. Seeing this era distilled on the page so accurately is a sure-fire sign the discourse has chewed through the life of a cultural phenomenon, is ready to excrete it out, and get is teeth on the next thing. Although we are witnessing its end as I write this, Twitter is a vivid and dynamic part of the heart of this novel. Kuang aptly understands that to depict the call-out culture of universal culpability, that of “no-one is above accusations of prejudice, racism, homophobia” without Twitter, would be like describing alphabet spaghetti without the soup.
What else about Kuang's choices did I appreciate? The genius double-bluff on queer-baiting.
What did I not like? The brief inclusion of the horrific ghost stories of necrophilia and women sexual slaves. What did it really add? Juniper's perverse fetishistic voyeurism had already been established.
Kuang is fierce and scathing in this book. You can see her taking aim at plenty of real-life literary names if you're at all familiar with literary discourse of the last 20 years. Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates are the most obvious examples, but you can sense Kuang channeling years of personal experience in the cultural and literary elite as an Athena Liu-esque writer and being self-aware about her own flaws, privileges, and failings. She's received criticism for writing about East Asian history outside her scope of personal experience as an American, as well as coming from a massively financially privileged background. It's meta!
I recommend watching Youtubers WithCindy, The Poptimist, and BooksandBao for a deeper exploration of the above.
This is a FANTASTIC pick for a bookclub and would be amazing on a school or college curriculum because there is just so much to talk about with this book.
Such an enjoyable read. Sea of Tranquility surprised my with its plot, its sci-fi but literary sensibilities and the beauty of its writing.
This is a book involving time travel, and a sci-fi novel for people who don't like traditional sci-fi. There's something reminiscent of Ursula Le Guin or Ted Chiang but of course there's a contemporaneity that can only come from a Covid-19-era publication. There's a humanity and philosophical beauty to St John Mandel's prose that is quietly moving and deeply satisfying.
This is the best book I've read to-date on trauma - particularly complex/relational/developmental trauma.
Foo generously and eloquently interweaves her own lived experience with a fairly comprehensive summary of contemporary trauma discourse and industry consensus. This deft memoir literary nonfiction hybrid is greatly enhanced by Foo's journalistic efforts to interview professionals and researchers as well as documenting her own varied experiences with trauma therapies from EMDR, psilocybin, Internal Family Systems, and attachment-based talk therapies.
The book considers what trauma looks like in school systems, intergenerational trauma and epigenetics, microaggressions and minority stress, ACEs, trauma-related inflammatory diseases, and healing through relationship.
It really is something special and I would say essential (but highly enjoyable and accessible!) reading for anyone in the profession or with an interest in trauma (most of us?!).
I didn't get past the second chapter. While I do want to continue reading this someday, I'm not really in the right headspace for it now, and am fairly over-familiar with the themes. I'm going to preference Yellowface to get to first as I think it will appeal more to me at this point
Solid book. I've put 4 stars here but I think it's more 3.5 for me.
Quite immersive but the plot took a long time to get going and then felt resolved too hastily.
Characters were really well drawn and the best part. Definitely worth reading!
Looking forward to reading more from Xochitl Gonzalez.
Gave me Zadie Smith vibes I think but Gonzalez could learn from Smith's pacing & nuance.
A fantastically well crafted story that blends contemporary realism (mental health, neurodiversity, grief, poverty, inequality, politics, authority) and spiritual insight, with lashings of knowing literary and philosophical references. Somehow it's fun and entertaining whilst also being heartwrenchingly real. It walks the tightrope of drama well, always hopeful and grounded, without plunging into despair, even while our charcters themselves may be wavering.
I loved the really obvious & playful allusions to Marie Kondo & Slavoj Zizek, and to writer Ruth Ozeki herself (the typing woman in the library). Just when it feels it's teetering into didactic pontification, the cleverness of the narrative device slips in. The beauty of the different narrative voices changing and challenging throughout the story is a great metaphor for Benny's auditory hallucinations, bildungsroman, and progress towards integration and wellbeing.
The insight into the nexus of the health, housing, employment, consumerism, public services was not quite gritty or revaltory but I've never read such a realistic, insider perspective in fictional form that was this accessible in communicating to readers how these systems compound to fail those struggling.
It has an earnestness to it that's simultaneously a little cringe & clumsy, but brilliant in its warmth, and poetic in its vision. A little like Annabelle, a little like The Bottleman Slavoj, a little like Aikon. I guess they're ultimately all parts of Ozeki herself.
Extremely disappointing. Maybe there's some comfort in the thought that a Man Booker prize winner can write terribly? Polemical, not fully thought out in terms of plot. No editing evident. Fumbling attempt to write female characters that just end up being unreal cold phantasms of an out-of-touch male mind that can't reach beyond its cishet male gaze. It's amazing how transparently male writers reveal all their complexes around women in their writing of female characters. I really tried to find something I liked about it & all I could think of was that the hardback cover (underneath the weird male gazey dustcover) is a close up of a green parrot's wings. So yeah.
A humanoid AI tells the story of her life from department store to her role as service companion to a young adolescent. Klara's relationship with the Sun is central to the story but remains enigmatic, almost spiritual. I was waiting for more technical explanations but Ishiguro appears to prefer to leave the reader with philosophical and spiritual questions.
This story muses on what it means to be human, to have hope and reminds me somewhat of the Simone Weil phrase that “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”.
This story reminded me a little of the Kogonada film After Yang, which has a similar premise.
I felt Klara and the Sun had potential to embrace and explore greater complexity, but I also appreciated Ishiguro's focus on simplicity.
A simple story based on a young boy's experiences navigating friendships & life. His uncle writes him letters & notebook pages of sage life advice which help him learn to act on his feelings in a way that respects himself & others.
The story explores collectivism, class, values, ethics, and what it means to be a good friend.
A little preachy at times, but always relatable & mostly down-to-earth, it's surprising this book can still feel fresh and current almost 90 years after it was written.
Think of it in the vein of Rilke's Letters to A Young Poet, with a moralistic intent of something like The Alchemist or The Little Prince but with the classroom & schoolfriends as protagonists.
I'm curious to see how Hayao Miyazaki will adapt it for a feature length animation; whether he will flesh the story out or add to it, or keep it simple. There is no magical or folkloric element to the story so I suspect it will be more in the realist interpersonal style of From Up On Poppy Hill in contrast to films like Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, or Howl's Moving Castle.
Bibliotherapy at its best.
The premise and plot of this book are a simple yet unexpectedly effective literary device to reframe the experience of the protagonist and reader from despair, suicidality, and depression, to hope.
It's no literary marvel, but it is accessible and has a hugely positive message.
Beautifully written, Latitudes of Longing is really a series of interwoven generational love stories, strongly embedded in, but simultaneously transcending, place and time. The stories traverse South Asia from the Andamans, to Yangon, to Sagaing to the Kachin border regions, Kathmandu, & Ladakh/the Karakoram. Threading through them all is a fluent & beautiful prose that evokes weather, climate, seasons, & embeds relationship in trees, earth, creatures of all kinds, rain, ice, snow and sea. You would think the characters would get lost in this vastness, but they are grounded in it and brought alive.
Newlywed lovers navigate ghosts, incessant monsoonal downpours, & earthquakes, a student is imprisoned in one of the world's most notorious gaols, a smuggler learns to tell stories, all against the backdrop of the century's South Asian narrative: colonization at the end of the crumbling empire, Japanese occupation, military junta rule, postcolonial border disputes. It sounds tedious but the brilliant thing is that these events do form just a backdrop while relationships & inimitable eternal weather & climate are the central focus.
Gorgeous writing. The only thing that keeps this from 5 stars is that the characters via Swarup's writing, skirt & elude meaningful discussion of trans & queer experiences of love. The passing comments of character Thapa hint at transphobia/homophobia as well as pedophilia but the writing does not allow the reader to see how Swarup as narrator perceives these attitudes. This apolitical/amoral approach disturbed me. I wanted to know, is she condoning these attitudes, does she as a writer excuse these attitudes? There is also some subtext that Rana is queer, but exploration of his experiences of queer love & longing are kept almost imperceptible, & are eschewed in favour of a poetic reverie whose affections are only specific for other more traditionally accepted forms of affection. I felt these choices demonstrated a lack of courage & conviction in Swarup, & broke my suspension of disbelief, uncharacteristically for Swarup's writing is otherwise all-engrossing. My favourite relationship was probably between the bidi smoking Kashmiri septugenarian Ghazala and the lovestruck octogenarian Tibetan Apo. But the first half of the book focusing on Girija Prasad & Chanda Devi is definitely the most well-wriiten, engaging, & vivid.
So worth reading. Can't wait to see what Swarup writes next. Definitely on my list of favourite reads of the year.
I'm SO glad I read this. I think any Australian will find Roach's story utterly gripping & help them to make sense of their own society & experiences
I enjoyed this novel up to a point. It's definitely 4 stars for the writing and the way it brings the protagonist's inner world to life so beautifully. It felt a little like reading a novelised version of a BBC period drama set in the 50s - a cross between British dramas The Hour, Mrs Wilson and Call the Midwife.
I did find it a little predictable, and I wanted the explanation for the mystery to be a little more revolutionary to be honest.
Below is why it's overall a 3 star for me, though:
WARNING SPOILER
I felt like the protagonist Jean's attitudes to queerness were generally likely in keeping with 1950s attitudes - befitting to the time the story is set, but I felt like this book preferenced the heterosexual relationship whilst not caring if the queer relationship was doomed or not. In the end, it didn't really care about or describe the outcomes for one of the most interesting main characters whom the story revolved around (Gretchen). It felt like the protagonist Jean, and the writer just did not care about Gretchen once it was revealed she was queer.
Once Gretchen was lost, she was lost. It was unnerving to see how quickly Jean turned and didn't care about her. The ending made clear that Jean's interest in Gretchen was as an object of curiosity rather than a friend.
And Gretchen's queerness was somewhat described as a deficit (she can't like men) and a source of weakness (she can't look after her child effectively). Martha's queerness was painted as a deficit too - her queerness implicitly associated with negative character traits - manipulative and brash, narcissistic, uncouth and dirty.
In terms of resolution to the story, all that was described was what was interesting and important to Jean (not Gretchen!): an intellectual explanation for the mystery and what would happen to the child.
I wanted to know what Gretchen was feeling and thinking in the end and whether she was going to get a happy ever after!
It also felt weird to end the novel in the uncertainty of whether anyone died in the accident. That uncertainty didn't add anything to the story.
Beautiful. Reminded me of a more vivid & fantastical version of David Malouf's An Imaginary Life. A beautiful allegory of connection with the natural world, & the subjectivity of “sanity”. Evocative & singular with moments of awe, wonder, & peace
The topic of this book is intensely relevant. I did not enjoy this book for its writing or structure- it seems hastily put together & needed a restructure, re-write & research with more depth. Its publication does, however, hopefully signal an opening up of the issue of how we discuss, research, diagnose, & treat women's health. In this sense it attempts to make a critical contribution to the gender equality and public health debate. Ask any woman about the themes in this book and it will resonate with their personal experience or the personal experience of a close female relative/friend.
I really enjoyed parts of this & solnit just has such a readable style so often poetic, but there were parts where relatability faded into thoughts and turns of phrase that were revealing of her age & belonging to a generation who cannot comprehend certain nuances and complexities I now take as given, especially in her understanding of sexuality, gender identity. A loose nostalgia replaced contemporary care with these. The commentary on gender & safety while potent in its personal testimony does not offer anything newly piercing or refreshing to the discourse. The vacillation between place, gender, fear, were not as beautifully or powerfully woven as they could have been. The latter half felt less qorked on and edited. While it didn't live up to the heights of my lofty expectations this was still worth reading and had moments of beauty.