@renata It's fine :) especially since I know sometimes you're also spontaneously generous and give five-star ratings (e.g. to films)...
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ralentina reviewed Inferno by Eileen Myles
Eileen, the punk rascal
4 stars
This book is pretty unique, I'll give it that. I did love the language, which is poetic and raw, queer in the best kind of way. Even though it is generally not my style, I also enjoyed being carried through this journey, sentence after sentence, without the need to fully understand every sentence, of knowing what happens at which point in the story, where a character comes from and how they end up.
Is Eileen incredibly pretentious when it comes to poetry? Hell yes. Is it yet another book by a writer enamored with the myth of their own creative bubble, and very proud of having hung out with the right crowds, doing drugs and having sex in New York? Also yes. Does Eileen, who strike me as a really sweet person, come across as a touch navel-gazing and emotionally unavailable (with one exception, Rosie the dog, that was adorable)? …
This book is pretty unique, I'll give it that. I did love the language, which is poetic and raw, queer in the best kind of way. Even though it is generally not my style, I also enjoyed being carried through this journey, sentence after sentence, without the need to fully understand every sentence, of knowing what happens at which point in the story, where a character comes from and how they end up.
Is Eileen incredibly pretentious when it comes to poetry? Hell yes. Is it yet another book by a writer enamored with the myth of their own creative bubble, and very proud of having hung out with the right crowds, doing drugs and having sex in New York? Also yes. Does Eileen, who strike me as a really sweet person, come across as a touch navel-gazing and emotionally unavailable (with one exception, Rosie the dog, that was adorable)? Absolutely. Do they seem to have a sense of humour about it? To be fair, yes they do.
ralentina reviewed Matrescence by Lucy Jones
A very lonely experience of motherhood. Thrice.
3 stars
The word matrescence makes me think of a growing appendage, a bulbous tentacle shooting off from someone’s side. It is however, a -scence as in adolescence, not excrescence: a phase of change in a person’s life. The book’s story is that becoming a mother is a tremendous change, physically, psychologically and socially, and not enough fuss is made about. Maybe this is because of a collective effort to undervalue women’s contributions, skills and sufferings, maybe because of a paternalistic sense that not talking about the most gruesome and taxing aspects of motherhoods will mean more women sign up for it. So far, so good.
The book waves together accounts of scientific research on the topic, some literature-informed reflections on the social structures of motherhood, bits of her personal experience as a mother of three, and sketches of motherhood in the animal kingdom. I enjoyed these different ingredients to different degrees. …
The word matrescence makes me think of a growing appendage, a bulbous tentacle shooting off from someone’s side. It is however, a -scence as in adolescence, not excrescence: a phase of change in a person’s life. The book’s story is that becoming a mother is a tremendous change, physically, psychologically and socially, and not enough fuss is made about. Maybe this is because of a collective effort to undervalue women’s contributions, skills and sufferings, maybe because of a paternalistic sense that not talking about the most gruesome and taxing aspects of motherhoods will mean more women sign up for it. So far, so good.
The book waves together accounts of scientific research on the topic, some literature-informed reflections on the social structures of motherhood, bits of her personal experience as a mother of three, and sketches of motherhood in the animal kingdom. I enjoyed these different ingredients to different degrees. The author is a science journalist, meaning she’s pretty good at explaining biological research, but I did wish for more depth and details: just when things were becoming interesting, she would move on to a different topic. I may be a harsh critique on the social science front, but these pages felt too superficial, and maybe like she did her homework but didn’t have anything original to say about them. Her personal experience sections were…a roller coaster. Depending on the topic, I alternative thought that she was able to articulate my own fears, that she is a straight lady and god have mercy on them, or that she was genuinely in need of help and should be urgently talking to a counselor (a personal one, but also a marriage one!) rather than writing a book.
This sounds like a mean review, and I don’t mean it. Motherhood does sound tough and it is certainly good that someone writes about this. Plus, I’m sorry, Lucy Jones, that you had to go through all of this.
ralentina reviewed Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay
I want to have tea with Jackie Kay
4 stars
I read this book years ago and, if you had asked me, I would have said it's a book about Kay's experience growing up black in Scotland, and then embarking on a quest to trace her birth parents. I suppose this is more or less what the official blurb suggests. On this second read, I found that these two threads are kind of secondary, and the book could instead be described as an exploration of what it means to be a daughter. Kay loves her adoptive parents to bits, and that love really shapes her memory of the past (the way they stood up for her in every way they could), her experience of the present (her conflicting emotions meeting her birth parents and coming to terms with how insubstantial a relation based on genetics is), and her outlook on the future (as she sees herself taking on more and …
I read this book years ago and, if you had asked me, I would have said it's a book about Kay's experience growing up black in Scotland, and then embarking on a quest to trace her birth parents. I suppose this is more or less what the official blurb suggests. On this second read, I found that these two threads are kind of secondary, and the book could instead be described as an exploration of what it means to be a daughter. Kay loves her adoptive parents to bits, and that love really shapes her memory of the past (the way they stood up for her in every way they could), her experience of the present (her conflicting emotions meeting her birth parents and coming to terms with how insubstantial a relation based on genetics is), and her outlook on the future (as she sees herself taking on more and more of a caring role in relation to her aging mum and dad). In many ways, the book is not particular complex in its plot, language or insights, but it just gives one a warm feeling, and Kay seems so fucking lovely!
ralentina reviewed So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan
A convincing sketch of masculine mediocrity
4 stars
Content warning Very minor spoilers
A basic man - not a particularly bad one, but the bar is low - is clearly struggling, as we soon start to suspect, because of a recent break-up. He is miserable, and resentful. As more details about his late relationship emerge, it becomes clear he was kind of an asshole, and, although on some level he knows is and is ready to acknowledge it, he doesn't see much of a problem with that either. As this synopsis makes clear, not much happen in the book. Nor is there a lot of perceptive introspection, because our protagonist is not able of that. Yet, I found it surprisingly not-boring: a convincing sketch of masculine mediocrity.
ralentina reviewed The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Rarely has an ending ruined my reading pleasure to this extent
4 stars
Content warning Mega spoiler!!!
Let’s get the spoilers out of the way first (LAST WARNING, STOP READING!): It is the 1960s, in the Netherlands. Isabel grew up in a large country house in Overijssel, living a reclusive, calm, and quite miserable life. Over the years, she has seen her brothers move out, and her mother die, and feels utterly alone. She is unfriendly, bitter and obsessed by the fear others may be stealing from her. Against her will, she ends up hosting Eva, the new girlfriend of her brother Louis. Eva appears to Isabel as working-class, loud, tacky and fake. Things start to disappear from the house: first a spoon, then a cup, then a plate. The two barely talk to one another, and when they do Isabel is ferocious. Time goes on, however and, when you put two women alone in an isolate, cold country house for long enough, they will find ways to warm up each other, at first through guilt-ridden kisses in dark hallways, eventually with steaming hot sex. The twist is revealed in the third part of the book, when we get to read, through Isabel’s eyes, Eva’s diary. We learn that the house used to belong to Eva’s family, who lost it during the war when they had to go into hiding on account of being Jewish. They also lost the legal rights to the house, since they stopped paying the mortgage. Eva’s appearance in Louis and Isabel’s lives is an elaborate plan to get back what it’s hers. So far, so intriguing. In the last chapter, Eva and Isabel make up and EVA MOVES IN WITH ISABEL AS HER LOVER WITH THE PROMISE THAT SHE WILL BE GIVEN THE HOUSE WHEN ISABEL INHERITS IT, WHICH IS AS PROBLEMATIC AS STARTING POINT FOR A RELATIONSHIP AS THERE EVER WAS. This book has two enormous strengths: (1) it’s fun to read, thanks to a well-paced plot, a writing style that is elegant enough without being pretentious, and a lot of really hot lesbian sex scenes (2) it explores an important topic, e.g. collective responsibility, guilt and victimhood, in a way that is thought-provoking but not excessively preachy. This book also has a pretty big flaw, i.e. a disappointing ending that to my eyes undermines both endeavors, since if seems implausible in relation to the preceding story line, and also risks presenting love as a solution to historical injustice. The book came out in 2024 and, as far as I hear, the author has basically refused to talk about Palestine, and seems to be resisting the pressure">pagesofjulia.com/2024/02/16/maximum-shelf-author-interview-yael-van-der-wouden/) to do so on the grounds that it has little to do with a Jewish-Dutch identity (maybe? That’s how I understand it). The argument is complicated by the fact that she was born in Israel and the story of Eva is not too dissimilar to that of many Palestinians, at least with respect to the experience of losing a home to strangers.
ralentina reviewed The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
An interwar Eat Pray Love
4 stars
Four British women, each miserable in her own way, rent an Italian castle together. They don't know each other, don't particularly like each other, and are only motivated by the desire to leave behind the rain and their husbands / suitors. Ms Wilkins is a young housewife, married to a stingy man, who often loses the thread and cannot filter her thoughts. Ms Arbuthnot is a religious woman who feels abandoned by her husband, and seeks refuge in her pious work. Lady Caroline is a young aristocrat, so beautiful that men cannot help fall in love, to her great frustration. Mrs. Fisher is an elderly woman who lives stuck in her memories, preferring the company of dead intellectuals and politicians she met in the past to that of any living person. The Italian sun transforms all of them, but the undeniable cheesiness is only kept at bay by the author's …
Four British women, each miserable in her own way, rent an Italian castle together. They don't know each other, don't particularly like each other, and are only motivated by the desire to leave behind the rain and their husbands / suitors. Ms Wilkins is a young housewife, married to a stingy man, who often loses the thread and cannot filter her thoughts. Ms Arbuthnot is a religious woman who feels abandoned by her husband, and seeks refuge in her pious work. Lady Caroline is a young aristocrat, so beautiful that men cannot help fall in love, to her great frustration. Mrs. Fisher is an elderly woman who lives stuck in her memories, preferring the company of dead intellectuals and politicians she met in the past to that of any living person. The Italian sun transforms all of them, but the undeniable cheesiness is only kept at bay by the author's light sarcasm and humor.
ralentina reviewed All Fours by Miranda July
In this world, there are two kind of people. This book is about those who are neither...
5 stars
Content warning Minor spoilers!
In the first pages of the book, the narrator's husband states very authoritatively, in the way straight white man with cultural capital do, that in this world there are two kind of people, drivers and parkers. He's at a party, and everyone around him, especially his wife, take this very seriously, in the way people do when straight white man with cultural capital say something with conviction; in fact, one could is the rest of the book as her vain quest to be a driver.
A few pages later, she recalls a conversation with her best friend, where they were describing to each other how they have sex with their partners. They are both in long-term relations and struggle to fit sex into their domestic lives. But while the narrator deals with it by being in her head and playing raunchy scenarios, her friend Jodi gets into a sweaty bodily tangle with her life, and grinds. They both have a moment of envy for one another, and the narrator concludes that people can be divided into kind of people with respect to sex, those who are mind-rooted, and those who are body-rooted. One could see the rest of the book as the narrator semi-successful quest to have more body-rooted sex.
There is a lot of sex in this book, and a lot of thinking about sex. It is romantic sex, weird sex, rebound sex, eye-opening sex, routine sex, but never boring, described with a lot of curiosity, and respect for the other person and for the many ways sex can enrich one's life. There are also a lot of implausible and quirky situations, but, contrary to other works of July, they always feel very honest, like Miranda was saying: OK, we know this is not exactly what happened to me, but we both understand the basic impulse that I'm trying to get at. And there is also a lot humour.
On some level, this is also a book about a wealthy white artsy New Yorker with a fulfilling job and a loving family, who feels trapped and reclaim her rights to be happy. She's conscious of the injustices inherent to the nuclear family model that she inhabits, but never thinks beyond that, never reads the news. Lucky her at this time. But also: damn her. She is also quite snobbish (e.g. see her characterisation of Davey's girlfriend); when she falls madly in love with a provincial hunk, she can only rationalise it by writing an American-dream ending for him, as a successful dancer in New York.
ralentina reviewed Mammoth by Eva Baltasar
Ways of 'doing motherhood'
4 stars
Content warning Medium spoilers!
The final book in Baltasar's exploration of motherhood is as deranged as the previous two, which is to say: pretty deranged. The protagonist-narrator is a lesbian who lives in Barcelon and works in some sort of research project involving old people in homes. She loves to plot a good plan, and has an unconvential sense of morality, two qualities she puts to use when she decides to get pregnant. The second part of the book sees her moving to the country side, where she lives a grotesque, extreme version of pastoral life, shedding all comfort and extra and embracing self-reliance and brute nature. She fights for survival, and, sometimes, kills (for example, a loads of kittens). Her neighbour, a shepard, helps her getting to ropes with things, and fullfil her desire for a baby, but not the way you (or she) anticipated.
ralentina reviewed L'isola di Arturo by Elsa Morante
Manhood in the making
5 stars
Content warning Minor spoilers!
The book's narrator is Arturo, a boy growing up in almost complete solitude in Procida, near Neaples. His mum died whilst giving birth, and he was raised by a local farmer who fed him goat milk. He imagines himself a hero, a knight, a soldier or a pirate, and spends his day swimming, walking around the island with his only friend, a dog named Immacolatella, and reading adventure books. That, and waiting for the return of his father Wihlem, who visits unpredictably, and whom the boys adores. In the eyes of Arturo, Wihlem embodies the qualities of a real man: he is brave, handsome (blond, even!), virile and free-spirited. When Arturo is fourteen, Wihlem brings home a new wife, a Neapolitan girl of sixteen, and Arturo's world changes...
Arturo is a very unlikeable protagonist: misogynistic, arrogant, often crueld. He's also very human, and as such a touch endearing. So that, while the book's atmosphere is almost fantastic - sometimes similar to a fairy tale, sometimes of a classical myths - the realism in Arturo's portrayal is incredibly convincing, almost painful.
ralentina reviewed The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Time-travelling horny spy romance
4 stars
As I write this review, I'm once again finding myself on the goodreads page for this book (no idea why I do this, like I want to check my own taste against that of 'the people'?) and I'm very surprised to find that The ministry of time is an extremely polarising book. One star ('I'm thankful to this book for providing some needed perspective on what a bad book is'), or five star ('the author is a genius'), kind of thing. I would have thought it would be a solid 3-4 star crowd-pleaser. To me, it reads like one of those addictive Netflix series with a quirky plot, fun dialogues, and just enough nods to social issues to make it possible to watch without feeling completely gross afterwards.
The basic plot (very minor spoiler) revolves around a young, British-Cambodian public officer, whose job is to help / monitor a British …
As I write this review, I'm once again finding myself on the goodreads page for this book (no idea why I do this, like I want to check my own taste against that of 'the people'?) and I'm very surprised to find that The ministry of time is an extremely polarising book. One star ('I'm thankful to this book for providing some needed perspective on what a bad book is'), or five star ('the author is a genius'), kind of thing. I would have thought it would be a solid 3-4 star crowd-pleaser. To me, it reads like one of those addictive Netflix series with a quirky plot, fun dialogues, and just enough nods to social issues to make it possible to watch without feeling completely gross afterwards.
The basic plot (very minor spoiler) revolves around a young, British-Cambodian public officer, whose job is to help / monitor a British explorer that has just been kidnapped from the 19th century, and ends up falling in love with him. The story touches upon some 'serious' issues: colonialism and its effects on the present, migration and experiences of outsiderness, individual agency and responsibilities within state apparatuses, climate change. It does so in a way that is both clever and relatively superficial. Intentionally, I think, because the author's main goal is to write a fun book, that blends time-travel novels, some elements of a spy thriller, and others of horny fan-fiction.
ralentina reviewed Female Masculinity by Jack Halberstam
Academia ruining lesbian aliens for us all, since 1998
4 stars
Female Masculinity has become a classic, the kind of book that gets reprinted for its 20th anniversary, with a new preface. And yet, somehow the notion of female masculinity still remains relatively marginal and provocative, certainly in the mainstream, but even within queer circles. At least, this is how it feels to me, even as a (somewhat) masculine woman. What does it mean for women to express masculinity in ways that are original rather than derivative? How does the category of 'masculine' reshuffles division between, on the one hand, dykes and straight (masculine) women and, on the other hand, dykes and trans men? What are the politics of performing masculinity, vs rejecting any stable gender position, vs becoming male? and are these even political practices, or expressions of some inner identity, or both?
Halberstam explores these questions by analysising different cultural artefacts: artistic photos of butches and trans people, the …
Female Masculinity has become a classic, the kind of book that gets reprinted for its 20th anniversary, with a new preface. And yet, somehow the notion of female masculinity still remains relatively marginal and provocative, certainly in the mainstream, but even within queer circles. At least, this is how it feels to me, even as a (somewhat) masculine woman. What does it mean for women to express masculinity in ways that are original rather than derivative? How does the category of 'masculine' reshuffles division between, on the one hand, dykes and straight (masculine) women and, on the other hand, dykes and trans men? What are the politics of performing masculinity, vs rejecting any stable gender position, vs becoming male? and are these even political practices, or expressions of some inner identity, or both?
Halberstam explores these questions by analysising different cultural artefacts: artistic photos of butches and trans people, the notes of 19th century doctors and therapists, the writings of John Radclyffe Hall, and his friends and lovers, Stone Butch Blues, the (mostly academic) clashes between dykes and female-to-male trans theorists, drag king performances, and films representing masculine women.
The main weakness of the book is, in my opinion, that Halberstam loves to pick fights with other scholars. In some cases, he clearly has no respect of his adversaries and their ideas, which he represents so sweepingly as to lose the reader's trust (example: 'white lesbian feminism', never defined, and at points seemingly encompassing - or 'brainwashing' even Audrey Lorde). In other cases, he is very sensitive and self-questioning (example: the mailinglist controversies around F2M) - which obviously is a better premise for thinking. In all cases, however, the meaningfulness of his reflections risks getting lost in the squabble.
Stylistically, I understand this is an academic product, but I do find it a bit of a shame that the book isn't written in a slightly more engaging way: Halberstam never abandons his rigorous scholarly register, though he cannot help soften a bit in his scholarly exegesis of Flaming Ears.
All in all, the book made me think of masculinity in a whole new way, but even I find myself thinking: wow, this is a bit navel-gazing, let's stop thinking about gender and burn down a bank instead.
ralentina replied to Literaturliteratur's status
@Literaturliteratur oouch, harsh! But fair - I always want to like Le Guin's fiction more than I do. I do love her essays, though. [this is an oddly solemn and nerve-wrecking moment - the first comment ever on this instance of the site].
ralentina reviewed Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts by Nada Elia
...And yet I agree with 95% of what it says
2 stars
Nada Elia sets out to accomplish something very necessary and ambitious: chart the connections between interrelated struggles across the globe, with a focus on the connections between Palestine and US indigenous struggles. In give-or-take 150 pages, she touches upon the problems with white feminism, pink washing, policing, land appropriation, health and reproductive rights, Apartheid, environmentalism and conservation, and food sovereignty, among others.
Necessarily, the book stays on the very surface: mentioning a given issue, sometimes providing an example, and then moving on. I get that the book is for a general, not particularly-informed audience, who may never had thought about these issues before, and that simply mentioning the connection can motivate them to do their own research. But if this is the idea, then I still lack a bit more rigorousness and precision in explaining concepts and phenomena around which entire literature exists. Some examples: when Elia discusses land restitution …
Nada Elia sets out to accomplish something very necessary and ambitious: chart the connections between interrelated struggles across the globe, with a focus on the connections between Palestine and US indigenous struggles. In give-or-take 150 pages, she touches upon the problems with white feminism, pink washing, policing, land appropriation, health and reproductive rights, Apartheid, environmentalism and conservation, and food sovereignty, among others.
Necessarily, the book stays on the very surface: mentioning a given issue, sometimes providing an example, and then moving on. I get that the book is for a general, not particularly-informed audience, who may never had thought about these issues before, and that simply mentioning the connection can motivate them to do their own research. But if this is the idea, then I still lack a bit more rigorousness and precision in explaining concepts and phenomena around which entire literature exists. Some examples: when Elia discusses land restitution and the quest for indigenous sovereignty, at points she claims this means independence, at points she suggests indigenous activism aims to transcend a nation-state framework. These are two completely different things. If the situation in North America is somewhat similar to Latin America, then both positions exist and are a matter of debate and division within indigenous movements; but Elia never gets to this level of nuance, and indigenous movements are always united and right. This sort of imprecision / lack of interest for all that is grey, uncertain or worth debating also surfaces in a lot of throw-away comment, as when, in a fully-justified and righteous critique of the US settler-colonial mindset, she throws under the bus apple pie, on the ground that apples are not originally from the Americas (really? then no tomatoes for Italy, no chilli peppers for India, no sugar for the Caribbeans?), and the pie is 'more calorific than nutritious' (whose apple pie? what's wrong with calories? what does that even mean?). Nada, let the apples be.
Taking the time to explain in a simple but nuanced way how Palestine connects to other struggles would be an extraordinary accomplishment, and one that requires a lot of reading, time and dedication on the part of the author, because explaining things well always does. I don't feel Nada Elia quite manages.
ralentina finished reading Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts by Nada Elia

Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts by Nada Elia
Palestinian activist Nada Elia unpacks Zionism, from its hypermilitarism to incarceration, its environmental devastation and gendered violence. She insists that …