read with me: september 2019
read with me!
books
Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde
I’ve been reading this book slowly over the last year at night, sometimes as a way to sooth me to sleep, not because the content is light (quite the opposite), but because Lorde’s prose are so melodic and honest. I finally finished it this month and feel a little empty without Lorde’s voice echoing in my head. I know this book is on pretty much every “10 books every feminist needs to read” list, but it’s not just hype. What a beautiful book.
Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
Read this for a brilliant escape into the mind of Tom Ripley, a sociopathic con-artist who scams his way through Europe in the 50s. Patricia Highsmith brilliantly captures the nonchalance of Ripley’s horrific (think grifting a la Fire Fest, and the con-artist novelist who funnily enough studied Highsmith’s literature in grad school, but even more extreme). I found this book so pleasurable to read, with the descriptions of decadent hours-long Italian meals and excessive amounts of espresso drinking, that I am waiting until the perfect moment to read the next four books in the Ripley series.
Territory of Light, Yuko Tsushima
Yuko Tsushima, whose writing has only gained popularity in the U.S. since the recent translation of Territory of Light, writes in a style similar to Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti (ah, I can’t get enough of autofiction). Tsushima’s writing tackles similar issues: performing femininity and the not-so-fun aspects of motherhood. The novel centers around a woman who, recently abandoned by her good for nothing husband, finds herself living in a tiny light-strewn apartment in Tokyo with her young daughter. Tsushima's frank depiction of a woman refusing to perform conventional domesticity or motherhood or womanhood can be grating at times. There are moments when she outwardly expresses disgust at her child (like when her daughter repeatedly wets the bed they share), and she yearns for solitude writing, “Weirdly, I caught myself resenting her - a three-year-old - much as I might resent some sort of overseer.” Read if you’re looking to read more translated fiction and something experimental.
Fierce Attachments, Vivian Gornick
Vivian Gornick’s writing is shocking. Gornick, a journalist and literary critic, is a razor-sharp writer to a degree I’ve never experienced before. Fierce Attachments, a memoir largely about Gornick's fraught relationship with her mother, removes the veil of protection we often give our mothers. Weaving memories from her childhood in an insular Jewish community in the Bronx to her present-day Manhattan (the 80s), Gornick describes her mother as emotionally suffocating and manipulative, dependent, provincial and small-minded, unable to understand the nuances of art and literature, but also interweaves the inescapable moments of tenderness. Gornick’s writing at times reminded me of Kiese Laymon’s brilliant memoir, Heavy, a book that weaves together the complicated web of love and resentment. I also recommend reading this great Paris Review interview with Gornick.
other reading i've enjoyed
Conversation with dani shapiro
"But writing is sitting alone in a room with the contents of your inner life and it is a path that is strewn with boulders both in terms of the outer world with publishing and the inner world of solitude.”
"Why on earth did I think she’d been having a nap? Didn’t I know she never had naps? Of course, she wasn’t having a nap! She would never have a nap! Never in a million years! What a stupid remark to make! How had I gotten so stupid? A nap – for God’s sake!”
"But if Camelot was always a romantic facade, the Trumps have dropped the ennobling pretense. Like a fun-house-mirror version of the Kennedys, they reel across the national stage swapping the language of duty and sacrifice for that of grievance and quid pro quo.”
Post-disciplinary reading and literary sociology
"To emphasize literature’s role in helping to build the character of the people who would have the talents and authority to lead society represented a stunning reassertion of the liberal arts as a privilege and marker of the ruling class—a throwback to prewar structures and ideologies of higher education, only this time the ruling class was not a class of genteel gentlemen-scholars, but a tough managerial superclass.”
my month was better because
Fleabag, (Weeping, laughing out loud, this show made me feel a type of way and Rachel Syme ofc gets why) Muji pens, (they might beat out my other favorite Pilot Juice pen) poketo notebook, i haven’t been as obsessed with a musician as much as i have been with Tash Sultana in a long time, these surprisingly versatile leggings, Nyum Bai, a restaurant that transports you to Phnom Penh, Nothing like finding a gem of a place like Ordinaire, a sublime natural wine bar in Oakland. We got two flights of some of the most delicious and interesting wine I’ve ever drank. They also have a wine club! Weszeli Gruner Veltliner, Barbro Nilsson rugs, Airpods case because why not, Poached cod recipe Anoushka Mirchandani(I want everything!!) Ruby wine SF (a neighborhood gem in Potrero Hill with $12 tastings and music on Fridays 😍) Madre mezcal (pair with a slice of grapefruit and salt. Yum) The best bag I’ve owned
As always, let me know what you're reading or what's helping you survive this present madness! And share with anyone you think would enjoy.