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reviewed The Colonizing Self by Hagar Kotef

Hagar Kotef: The Colonizing Self (Paperback, 2020, Duke University Press) 4 stars

Colonizers continuously transform spaces of violence into spaces of home. Israeli Jews settle in the …

A chapter-by-chapter summary of The Colonising Self

4 stars

Introduction: Home The aim of the book is to examine the 'cultural, political and theoretical apparatuses that enable people and nations to construct a home on the ruins of other people's home, to feel that they belong to spaces of expulsion, or to develop an attachment to sites which subsequently – or even consequently – are transformed into sites of violence' (p. 3). The premise is that the home is a key site of colonialism not only of colonialism but also nation-building, because of its position and meaning in liberal political theory. Namely, the oikos as opposed to the polis. In these accounts, straight from Aristotle, the public sphere is where everyone (citizens) are supposedly equal, whereas the home is where difference justifies domination (e.g. over women, children and slaves). In this way, domination is framed as non-political, making space for the political ideals of universalism (see p. 8). The …

Abraham B. Yehoshua: Un divorzio tardivo (Paperback, Italian language, 2005, Einaudi) 3 stars

Nel corso di nove dense giornate si consuma l'estremo soggiorno in patria di Yehudà Kaminka, …

Another book I should possibly not have read again

3 stars

Yehudà Kaminka returns to Israel after years of absence to obtain a divorce because, as we are soon to find out, he's about to have a kid. Each chapter covers one of the nine days leading up to Jewish Easter, and revolves around a different member of his disfunctional Israeli family: his grandson, son and daughter in-law, his wife (locked up in a mental institution), his daughter and his two sons. All of them are very three-dimensional and flawed human beings. It is a masterfully constructed family-saga, and even if I started to lose interest in the second half, that has probably more to do with my mood than the book.

Masteful or not, however, this book is pretty problematic. The two gay men in it (the youngest son and an older ultra-orthodox man who is madly in love with him) are duplicitous and pathetic, respectively. Given the book was …

Hadas Thier: People's Guide to Capitalism (2020, Haymarket Books) 5 stars

A chapter-by-chapter summary of A People's Guide to Capitalism

5 stars

This was a great book - it explains Marxist theorist in a clear and compelling fashion, using a lot of examples from recent and not so recent history. But it isn't simplistic, or even simple: it actually makes for quite a challenging read. The tone of a 'call to arms' may irritate or alienate someone who doesn't already identifies with the left, but then again, maybe this book is not written for them.

CHAPTER ONE: The Birth of Capital This chapter defines capitalism and puts it into historical context. Marx defined capitalism as a social relation of production. This means that, as Thier puts it, <>.

The standard right-wing narrative about wealth inequalities is that rich people are rich because they earned it. A popular variation on this plot is that rich people are rich because their forefathers earned it. Instead, the book presents a sketch of the violent process …

J. D. Salinger: Franny and Zooey (Paperback, 2001, Back Bay Books) 4 stars

‘Everything everybody does is so—I don’t know—not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. …

'I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.'

4 stars

An unusual book [starting from the format: a short story (Franny) and a novella (Zooey)] by one of my problematic favourites. It revolves around two siblings, with sequential but not completely consistent plot lines. Franny is a literature college student undergoing a crisis about her studies and, indeed, the purpose of life. Zooey is her older brother, who tries to help her with a mix of sarcasm and sweetness, even if he is also himself experiencing similar doubts. They share a relatively complicated childhood, marked the death of two brothers and a home environment oozing intelligence and intellectual engagement, in ways that have perhaps been damaging.

What I found interesting about this odd mix is that both characters move in a space that is halfway between self-conscious, immature pretentiousness and mental illness. Is their crisis of faith (in both culture and spirituality) the typical transformation that many middle-class, highly-educated kids …

Mercedes Rosende: La donna sbagliata (Paperback, Italian language, 2017, SEM) 3 stars

Úrsula López vive da sola a Montevideo, dove lavora come traduttrice; ha un rapporto complicato …

Un giallo divertente e crudele

3 stars

Un giallo insolito, crudele e divertente insieme. Ursula, la protagonista, é una donna grassa e infelice, ai limiti della pazzia o della psicopatia. Odia i suoi familiari, non sopporta i vicini, le commesse, i passanti. É ossessionata dal suo peso (a un'ossessione nata dai mille commenti ricevuti in famiglia da ragazzina, amplificata dalle occhiate e dalle parole degli sconosciuti, che sono frequenti e se non arrivano vengono da lei immaginate). Quando si ritrova invischiata in un delitto, ci si butta a capofitto, non per incrastrare il colpevole ma per trarne vantaggio ed arricchirisi.

Non so se é un personaggio che potrebbe risultare offensivo per una donna grassa (che si sa, non sono rappresentate spesso, tanto meno in modo positivo), peró il tono satirico colpisce tutti i personaggi. In piú mi é piaciuto che tra i colpi di scena finali ci sia il fatto che [spoiler], anche se lei si auto-descrive …

Minnie Bruce Pratt: S/He (2005, Alyson Books) 3 stars

This brave memoir chronicles Pratt’s struggle to overcome the repressive traditions of Southern womanhood and …

Feeling bad for not liking it more

3 stars

Part poetic memoir, part a long essay that considers how gender theory emerges from/ applies to /is lived on an everyday basis. The short chapters alternate snapshots of conversations and other social interactions, childhood and family memories, musings on gender and quite explicit sex scenes. I could not relate to all of the author's concerns about butchness/femmness and femininity, perhaps because times have moved on, perhaps because of different experiences and identities. Some of the sex scenes were very hot, but others (or maybe their repetition) was not so interesting. T. really liked it, but I feel a bit ambivalent, or perhaps indifferent towards it.

On reflection, perhaps I don't really trust Pratt as a narrator. She comes across as quite preoccupied with being cool and 'woke', and perhaps not 100% sincere - a banal example: at times she talks about not dressing feminine and being judged for it, not …

Caroline Criado Perez: Invisible Women (Paperback, 2021, Abrams Press) 3 stars

Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development to health care to education …

Well-researched, pop data feminism

3 stars

In a nutshell, the author argues that there exists a fundamental gender data gap, and that this gap makes life harder for women, and harms society at large. The book presents evidence of this gap in different realms: planning (where decisions are based on the needs and behaviour patterns of a 'standard' person', meaning a man), on the workplace (where pressure to work long, unpredictable hours, poor maternity benefits, longstanding biases and lack of female representation at the leadership level) to design (where technologies and tools are tailored to men's bodies and priorities). I also appreciated the concern with different places and classes: although Perez never explicitly mentions capitalism or colonialism, and racism only rarely, some of her examples speak for themselves. There are many fascinating examples, and the author has a remarkable capacity to explain the ramifications of the gender data gap, its costs for women and society. However, …

Jhumpa Lahiri: Interpreter of Maladies (Paperback, 1999, Mariner) 4 stars

Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in …

A collection of excellent depressing stories

4 stars

Content warning Medium spoilers!

Patricia Esteban Erlés: Las madres negras (2018, Galaxia Gutenberg) 4 stars

A dark dark dark fairy tale

4 stars

Santa Vela, arguably the book's protagonist, is an enchanted house: its owner, Larah Corven, tried to escape there the ghosts of those who died killed by the weapons sold by her husband. She had the architecture changes into a maze of corridors, stairs and dead alley to confuse them, in vain. Years later, the house has become a girl orphanage managed by cruel nuns.

Each chapter of the book tells the story of a different character: girls, nuns, residents, parents. Each story is dark and tragic, there is no escape from the curse that seems to link all those who cross path with Santa Vela. The chapters could work as individual stories, with sister Priscia (the sadistic, fanatic head nun) and Mida (a rebel orphan, daughter of a witch) being the two recurring characters, linked not only by their being in the house, but also their conversations with God (presumably …

Louise Doughty: Apple Tree Yard (2013, Faber & Faber, Limited) 3 stars

A gripping thriller with a message...

3 stars

I would describe 'Apple tree yard' as a gripping thriller with a message. The message is more or less: in rape cases, the justice system has the habit of putting the wrong person on the stand. Which isn't a bad message to put out there, and may reach some new audiences in this format. This doesn't make it a masterpiece, but as a book it does what is supposed to do.

Óscar Contardo: Antes de que fuera octubre (Paperback, Spanish language, 2020, Editorial Planeta) 4 stars

NO SON TREINTA PESOS, SON TREINTA AÑOS, una de las consignas emblemáticas de la revolución …

Some background on the estallido

4 stars

I had to officially move out of Chile to actually feel fully motivated to read this book. Human minds are really strange. Contardo offers a panoramic of Chilean society and political tensions up to just before the estallido. It's not an in-depth analysis or historical account, but more a collection of reflections, anecdotes and cultural references - all pointing to the enormous inequalities and arrogance that brought people to the streets in October 2019.

Ian Cobain: Anatomy of a Killing (2020, Granta Publications Ltd, Granta Books) 4 stars

A primer on the troubles

4 stars

Months ago I had listened to the Guardian Long Read excerpted from this book, and I had been idlly meaning to read the rest ever since. Then, I watched Hunger, Steve McQueen's film about Bobby Sands' hunger strike, and decided it was time.

It is perhaps the best journalistic book I ever read (admittedly, it's not a genre with which I'm particularly familiar). Clearly, the author imagines a British audience, and so the first part of the book is devoted to persuading readers that IRA fighters are first and foremost people, whose decision to join an armed force was mainly shaped by the circumstances in which they found themselves (or, as a former fighter puts it, that they would not have become IRA fighters had not they been born in Northern Ireland). The argument does not go as far as to claim that terrorism is in the eyes of the …