Reviews and Comments

A murder mystery / family drama, that revolves around the finding of a corpse in a family's country home, and the unreliable narrator's efforts to unravel what happened. Said narrator, Toby, is unreliable because an attack has left him with serious memory problems, but also because, in his mindless privilege, has gone through life unaware of the pain of others. He always considered himself a good guy, but is now forced to question his innocence, not, or not only in relation to the murder, but more in general. And the book plays with the question, what does it mean to be innocent? Wouldn't we all kill, in certain situation, if we had the chance? And his killing necessarily the guilty thing to do? It could easily turn banal or sanctimonious or lame, but the threads are weaved together very skillfully, as Toby becomes less and less likeable with every page, and more and more believable.

A very enjoyable book: original, funny, engrossing. At its core is the relationship between two sisters, Korede, tall - with unremarkable looks, an obsession for tidiness, and a strong sense of duty- and Ayoola, pretty, superficial, self-centered but devoted to her sister, and a serial-killer. T says it has won a lot of prizes that maybe would be better spent on more literary works. It's true that there isn't necessary a message or a second layer of meaning to give the book depth, but the first layer, so to speak, is never banal. I enjoyed how unlikeable but three dimensional everyone was. For example Dr. Perfect, the love interest of Korede who falls for Ayoola and turns out to be not so perfect after all. There's a great scene where Korede asks him what he likes about Ayoola, and cannot think of anything. Meanwhile Korede, who loves and hates Ayoola so fiercely, easily names many specifics that make her unique.

This was another of T's book that I read just because it was there, since she had taken my tablet for her weekend in Elqui and I got her e-reader in exchange. It is a first person non-eventful narration by a 40 something single woman in Copenhagen. Two themes stood out for me. One is related to what it means to be a single woman.The protagonist seems to want a relationship but her life is not defined by a lack of partner, nor is she unhappy. Nevertheless, she is to some extent defined by her single-ness, because that's what society does. I really like one passage (I cannot copy it here because I gave back the e-reader) where she reflects on the difference between being single in her home village vs being single in the big city, aka Copenhagen. While single women in the village are viewed as I they have failed at life, people nevertheless talk to them as people. Whilst in the city being single is a thing, to the point that a whole industry has sprung up around it. It made me think of how there is a 'cool' way of being single, meaning mainly if you date around a lot, but also if you travel or have some super career, as if you needed to make your single-ness be worth it. Which brings me to the other theme, i.e. the confusing feelings towards one's home place, particularly when home is a small village and one is attracted by the city's freedom, the permission to be 'weird', until one realises there are rule on how to be weird, and that village communities are tough but tight, more forgiving that one gives them credit for, or maybe that's just what they look like from the vantage point of the city. The book has a light, amusing tone to it, but there is a Scandinavian bleakness to it, as if death and loneliness were never far.

As one could guess from the title, this is a book about humiliation, with each short story exploring a different face of this sentiment. The hints in the blurb that it is somehow about the dictatorship are misleading, and I started to think all Chilean are marketed as dictatorship-related out of laziness or maybe because it supposedly sells. But I am going off a tangent. Almost all the stories are told from the perspective of children. I particularly liked the title story Humiliation (about a girl witnessing his unemployed dad being humiliated, and for the first time being able to interpret what has happened), Talcahuano (about being very young poor but not so unhappy in Talcahuano, and then getting old enough to lose the bless of obliviousness and being disappointed in one's parent and moving to Santiago to lead a poor and not so happy life) and the Last Vacation (about the well meaning efforts to "rescue" a child from poverty and the working-class condition, and the boomerang effect of said child's pride and loyalty to his mum. I was happy to find a good book about Chile.

50% an argument against 'fast' (neoliberalised) academia, and its negative consequences on academics' health, research, teaching and social life, 50% advice on how to resist it from within, by slowing down academic practice.

Clearly, the authors themselves are ultra-aware of the problem: fastness is a structural conditions, and individuals have only that much agency, and yet by not adopting the corporate language, by insisting that learning and understanding cannot be quantified, and by refusing to treat each other as valuable 'contacts' or tools for upward mobility we can make a difference in our own local environment.

Perhaps, a few more words could have been spent on junior and/or people with precarious contracts, for whom slowing down seems a lot more difficult. While the book acknowledges it in passing, it doesn't have any magical tricks for slowing down while keeping your job, let along getting a permanent one.

I think I was slightly disappointed, because it sells itself as a call to action, but it gives little advice, and relatively vague. Perhaps that's part of the problem: there aren't magic tricks, a matrix for 'thinking slowly' and yet thrive in academia, nor replicable formula, but just the encouragement that comes with knowing some people are trying their best.

Re-read after maybe 10 years and still loved it. I was inspired because Tascha read it in English and fell in love with it, and I was surprised, because my memory of it was that it's a book that depends on the familiar language of Northern Italy, infatti non so perche' sto scrivendo i miei appunti in inglese, le malagrazie, le negriture, scempio, e' un mondo intimo e pieno di nostalgia, la sua ma anche la mia. Forse dimostra che neppure io ho abbastanza fede nelle abilita' dei traduttori e delle traduttrici, che evidentemente se la sono cavata bene.

Un'osservazione evidente e' che Ginzburg si dilunga su certi aspetti, la descrizione di abitudini e modi di dire, di personalita' (i genitori sono entrambi cosi' convincenti, ebrei torinesi borghesi e di sinistra, un po' distaccati dalla realta' lui burbero, lei un po' capricciosa, pieni di amore per la propria famiglia e sgomento per il fascismo dilagante) e cambiamenti, mentre quasi non dice niente su altri avvenimenti cruciali, sia  a livello storico (per fare un esempio, la promulgazione delle leggi razziali) che a livello personale.

Another re-read (I feel quite good about re-reading books these days, it seems almost an act of defiance to indulge in re-experiencing a book I liked, or didn't, rather than running around to catch up on must reads and add to the pile). I love Jackie Kay, that's the starting point.

Some of the stories I remembered well, obviously the one about the sad lesbian couple breaking up in slow motion because one has fallen in love with a Martis Amis’ fan, which Tascha had picked for a book club meeting in Hong Kong. That is such a good story, with all the despair and sadness of the rejected party coming through, but also conveying how the relationships had really become a little stale...except that when I put it like that it sounds trite and banal, but Jackie Kay weaves it all in such a subtle and humorous way. (You go when you can no longer stay)

Wish I was here is the cringe-inducing, funny story of the lady deciding to surprise her best friend by showing up at her holiday hotel, where she's gone with a new, young and hip partner. Again, the perspective of the rejected party (in love with her, clearly desperate for a relationship, and now feeling left behind as a friend) works very well, describing the kind of desperation that gets almost grotesque, but doing so with empathy.

Sonata (during a train journey, a stranger opens her heart to a fellow passenger, telling her of her lost love, destroyed by her own jelousy), I finally realised, is a tribute or retelling to the Kreutzer Sonata, and I have resolved to read that in 2020.

Then there were a few stories that I enjoyed but didn't quite captured me as much, such as the one where a woman gives birth to a fox, or how to get away with suicide.

The last story, The Mirrored Twins, I still remembered. Two 'bear-y', scottish gay men in a beautiful relationship, going hiking and getting into trouble. In my memory, it was the story of the death of one of them, but this time I saw it as much more open ended. I is extremely romantic and sweet, tender and oh very very sad.

She's such a brilliant writer!

Gaitskill's novella was written in response to the #metoo movement, and it has been predictably divisive. It is the story of Quin, who works in media, and surrounds itself with beautiful young women. With them, he builds genuine friendships and flirts, and enjoys exploring the line between teasing and offending, seducing and assaulting (he would not put it like that), hurting and pleasuring. Most of the time, he does so only through words, inappropriate as they may be, though he does not shy away from non-consensual touches, which he promptly stops when he is asked to.

I think Gaitskill is trying to explore the nuances of women's agency here...Margot (the co-narrator) stopped Quin from touching her between her legs on one of their first encounters, and has since enjoyed his friendship, though she's often angered by him, his carelessness and inappropriateness. Angered and charmed. Why can these other, younger women not do the same, and simply say no to what they don't want to happen? Why are they accepting Quin's favours, if they think he's a creep? Yes, Margot recognises, there's an uneven power dynamic, but she seems to think Quin is just on the right side of the acceptable line, and that these girls have taken advantage of the situation as long as they could, and now the punishment that has fallen on him is out of proportion.

I would be harsher on Quin than Margot is, and way less charmed by his explorations of sexuality and sexual fantasies, which clearly is best undertaken outside of one's work network. But I do see how fiction is a good means to talk about these blurry lines, and it takes a good dose of courage to do so.

The gist of the book is clear: to be better than the patriarchy it wants to dismantle, feminism must be anticapitalist. The framing of the problem is simple, perhaps deceivingly so: there is the feminism of social movements, and liberal feminism, and we need to take side, supporting the first and disowning the latter. Woman emancipation must be the emancipation of all women, not the diversification of elites. Throughout, there are good examples of 'good' feminist initiatives and of the selling out of feminism at the hands of liberal economic elites.

It is a manifesto, so it is clear that bold ideas are necessary, and that it must be interpreted as a provocative call to action, rather than a sociological treaty. But it grates on me to divide the world into two camps, because the camps are never two, and are never so clearly divided: between the radical feminist movements and Sheryl Sandberg are millions of women who would not support all of the theses proposed here, but call themselves feminist. Purging is so 1930s; and Nancy Fraser is such a fine thinker that I was expecting more.

Starting from the title, On earth we're briefly gorgeous is an exceptional, poetic book. If I had noticed ReadEra's new quoting function, I would have quoted the hell out of it.

Little Dog - Ocean himself, it would appear, is growing up gay in the suburbs of New York (New Jersey?), brought up by his Vietnamese mum and grandma, both with mental health problems. Around him, malls - where to go on a Sunday afternoon, all dressed up, to stroll and suck on two hardly-earned Godiva pralines - fields - cultivated with tobacco, handpicked by Latino workers - and opioids - relentlessly destroying Little Dog's friends, one by one.

The book is told in the form of a letter to the narrator's illiterate mother. The two stories waved into it are how Little Dog's family came from Vietnam into the US in the aftermaths of the war, and Little Dog's romance with Trevor, a white boy from a messy, unloving background, ashamed of being gay, intent on proving how tough he is all the time, but capable of being really sweet to Little Dog. I liked the romance, I liked the power dynamics between the two, Trevor being white, but far from rich, and son to an alcoholic, violent father, Little Dog being Asian, more 'urban' but poor, son to a mentally unstable but loving mother.

It was a great book to start 2020.

I don't why I find self-help book (so often written by straight white men) so reassuring - even if I can see they're flawed and politically dubious. Oh well.

Poor Cal sounds like a bit of nutter - it is not so much his super regimented mechanisms of self control and scheduling that grate, but his assurance that his way will benefit everyone. I made a list of the suggestions that I found relevant: - plan to work deeply in chunks, aiming for 3-4 hours a day. try to make your chunks reasonably long (60-90 minutes). - schedule these blocks in advance, working around shallow work you cannot avoid. Remember that deep work is more important, so call in sick if it needs be. - have rituals for opening and closing blocks of deep work, and for shutting down at the end of the day (something that tells your brain it needs to stop thinking about work). - the internet and social media are the biggest threat to concentration. don't mindlessly browse in your short breaks during sessions. schedule 'browsing times' rather than internet blocks. think very carefully about which social media you need to use, if any. - be mindful, purposeful and ambitious about what you CHOOSE to do in your free time. Don't let it slip past. - reframe time-planning as a way to be mindful, rather than controlling what happens in your day (it is OK to redraw the plan 6 times a day) - Make your progress visible, ideally on a board you see from your work station - Force yourself to finish at 5:30, with few exceptions - Don't take Cal too seriously

The story of an abusive relationship between women, interspersed with reflections and literary discussions about queerness and abuse. Machado's central preoccupation concerns the importance of documenting her story - given the erasing of queer people's lives in literature, and the general denial of victims' experience of abuse. Some of them were very clever, but I was most fascinated by the more narrative parts, as I think she has a knack to sketch out her ex's character, so elusive and yet so convincing. At times she sounded very sick, as in, mentally unstable, to the point that I questioned to what extent she can be held responsible for her actions - perhaps a question the author herself had to grapple with, and concluded, hell yes, to a great extent because the alternative is to blame the victim.

Every chapter is narrated in a different literary genre, or perhaps a different space, moment or concept through which to make sense of the story: Deja Vu, Cautionary Take, Apartment in Philadelphia. It could easily be 'try-hard', but I thought it worked quite.