07 - Book influencers, rage, and bitches
Hello. I am back after taking some time off for no reason in particular. I didn't feel like writing so I didn't. As the heat ramped up in sub-tropical Mumbai this month, I ate more mangoes than I can count and played the Dermi Cool song over in my head repeatedly. My rants and observations of trees and people are back to grace your inboxes. (If you find typos/errors scattered around, please excuse them. Thanks!)
🌊 Hi, I'm Sachi and this is Currents where I talk about people, books, and other things. If you want to unsubscribe, click the link below. If you like this newsletter, send it to a friend/ an acquaintance you only send memes to on Instagram/ a relative you like but don't love. Seeing even one new subscriber every month makes me so happy. Give me the popularity I crave, o strangers on the internet.
📚 My Glorious Career as a Book Influencer
I love books. You know that. Even when I can't tolerate reading and avoid books for weeks, I still love them. I love how well designed covers are nowadays. I love how there are more books than I can keep up with. I love the rush of dopamine and unadulterated desire I feel when I browse through Goodreads recommendations list. I want them. I want them all. (insert drooling emoji) I want a hundred bookshelves to house the piles of books I have and want. I would literally eat them if I could. You get the point.
I buy/borrow books when I can. I read everything. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, graphic novels and the occasional odd genre bending book. Do you know what would be absolutely lovely? Getting books for free. Having publishers send me gorgeous hardcover books to review. I've seen enough bookstagrammers to know what I had to do. I had to take many beautiful pictures of books next to coffee, books on my lap, books next to my face, books next to a sleeping cat, books next to a sunset, books next to anything remotely lovely.... I wrote it down in my journal as something I would like the universe to deliver to me. I shall do no real work towards it but I demanded that this wave of free books plop itself on my lap because I wish for it. Nothing could be better. I will think it and speak it into existence. And I left it at that, as a good manifester should. The internet says pestering the universe like people wanting to get down at the same station as you in a local train is a sure shot way of delaying this cosmic version of Amazon Prime.
One fine day, I found myself bored in a can printing factory. (Yes, you read correctly, I was in a can printing factory) I was going in circles on a plush leather chair, trying to kill time, as I waited for printed samples. The marketing head of the beverage company that I was designing a can for napped soundly in the same room as me. He gave up on trying to pretend that the process was remotely interesting. Printing sample cans apparently takes a while. I was bored of the book I was reading. Network was scarce at the factory. Streaming was out of question. I decided to check my email. I had quite a boring job and wasn't expecting any email. And yet I clicked on the little envelope called Gmail knowing that there was nothing new in there but hoping that somebody in the world may have sent me something exciting. Maybe some fake prince needs my non-existent money for something. None of the writers I liked had sent me anything. However, there was something else in there. An ebook for me to read for an honest review. It was a free ebook, not a gorgeous hardcover book that would make a designer drool, but A BOOK nonetheless. I could say it was crap if I didn't like it. FINALLY somebody had acknowledged the sheer gold that lay in my two line reviews on Goodreads. My charming personality got somebody in the world to give me something they spent years on for my tiny review and a possible emoji. Finally. Had the world finally come to its senses? I was thrilled. He sent it to me in three formats so I could load it on my kindle if I wanted or read it on an iPad. How thrilling.
A week went by and I didn't touch this book. I'd get to it later I guess? A few months went by. Books were read. Life went on, I aged a little as one does in a shitty job. At one point this writer asked if I had reviewed his book, and like the lying little shit I was, I said I had been busy and assured him that I would get to it eventually. Which I didn't. I know, I'm horrible. I should stop doing everything and read it right now. It turns out I don't like being told what to do. I've always known this about myself. Surely, my relationship with authority of any sort couldn't be news to me. It has been well over 25 years. What I didn't know was the extent of how strong this character defect is. Reading is something I do for my own enjoyment. Being told what to read and when to read it feels horrible. It feels like being a kid and not getting to dress like a drug induced vision of a multicoloured butterfly to a serious event. I am now (thankfully/ unfortunately) an adult. I will be the multicoloured butterfly when I want and I will read what I want when I want to. This is how I rationalize making lists of what to read and defying them the next day. I should probably read his book so I don't feel like a terrible person. Okay great, everybody now thinks I'm a horrible person.
And that's it. That was my entryway into being sent books to review only to learn that I'm too much of a brat to actually do it. I didn't do it. I no longer want tons of books from publishers only to realise that I don't feel like reading any of them. Publishers aren't lining up to send me books and I'm not pining for it. Unless of course, they come with no timelines or expectations.
Alas, I'm not famous enough for that yet.
👹 Unlikeable women and the bitches
****I wrote this rage-y essay after reading Nightbitch and Shit Cassandra Saw. It was a lot longer and I chopped it. I considered deleting it many times but couldn't get myself to do it. I keep wondering why I feel apologetic about writing an essay about a book about female rage. Can we just talk about it?****
There is an ungodly amount of pressure on women in real life and equally so in books and movies to be pleasant, likable, and palatable. I have been reading a lot of books written by women lately. There is a theme I found in reviews of books written by women featuring women. It is in this space you frequently find the unlikeable character. The unpleasant woman. The I-related-to-her-till-she-kinda-did-whatever-the-fuck-she-wanted woman. The why-can't-she-be-more tolerable woman? The why-can't she-smile-and-go-along-and-like-the-right-guy back-and-end-it-happily woman. The judgment that female characters face is far harsher than male characters. Our prejudices in real life bleed into fiction and ultimately in our reviews, ranting, and ranking.
Getting stuffed into tiny boxes begins in childhood. The contortion begins early. We have been told since we were little to smile. We were told to be pleasant when we were angry, forgive brothers and relatives and friends when we were angry. We were told to not shout, we were told to bottle our emotions as far as we could. It was made abundantly clear that a girl's emotions were a mere inconvenience. As a teen it was blamed on our periods. As adults it was also blamed on our periods. God forbid a woman feel an emotion. Can't you just be pleasant? Can't you just smile and be pleasant? Must you be such a bitch? Any refusal to go along with what is expected of a woman and attempt to do what feels right to us is met with the judgment of being a bitch. Few books, fiction or non fiction, discuss the women who stop abiding by these unsaid rules and what happens to them afterwards (presumably some social alienation, rude stares, and more harsh judgment?) Rachel Yoder's book Nightbitch is phenomenal because it does exactly that. Burdened by being a wife and a mother and all the unsaid expectation that comes from it, the protagonist snaps.
Isn't this just the invisible contract we sign? Men cut us mid-sentence with some bland platitude that they believe is brilliant. You smile. When you don't you get asked why you're so emotional. Old men act like jerks. You want to murder them but you smile calmly. You're asked repeatedly to fetch things from the kitchen, while you're eating, for a man perfectly capable of doing it himself. I really cannot sum up every time I've had to bury my feelings and go along because it made people uncomfortable. The correct word for it all is rage. It's something every woman knows so intimately. It is violent but it's there quietly lurking.
Again, this is why I loved Nightbitch so much. I could scream it from my tiny building's rooftop. Rachel Yoder talks about rage. Pure, unfiltered rage that comes with being a woman. The lead in this book is a mother of a two year old boy. This mother gave up her career in art to look after her child. She earns less than her husband so naturally one would assume that she should be the one to give up her dreams to look after the child. She is a woman after all. Isn't motherhood the pinnacle of a woman's life? She finds her resentment growing. Resentment for her life, resentment towards her husband who never helped or showed interest in her life, resentment towards her cat and sometimes even resentment towards her son. Many people will read this in horror. Isn't a mother supposed to love everybody all the time even when they're behaving like nasty little shits? Isn't her love supposed to be all encompassing? Isn't she supposed to make a list of what to buy, buy groceries, do the laundry, cook and do all the other mind numbing chores day after day after day with no recognition, no appreciation and no compensation with a smile on her face because isn't it a fucking delight to be a mother? Shouldn't a woman be grateful for all the opportunities that society gives her? Who gives a shit about who she wants to be when she can be a daughter, a mother, and a wife?
As the book progresses, you can feel the pressure building. It is hard not to feel it viscerally. If you have been raised by a mother figure and have a shred of empathy, you cannot avoid feeling every bit of what that mother is feeling. Not once does she ask you to pity her. She stops feeling pity. She is past pity. She is furious. She is the unlikeable female character at best. She will risk being a bitch for simply being a person with emotions, who refuses to smile as she watches her autonomy get taken away from her. Her ability to force herself to keep it together to be the pleasant woman she was supposed to be falls apart. In a Kafka-esque turn of events she begins to turn into a dog! She finds her teeth getting sharper, fur growing down her a neck and a tail developing. Unlike Gregor Samsa, who has his life going for him. this mother takes thrill in the freedom of being a DOG. She can run on the streets at night, knowing that nobody will come near her. She can be her most feral and unbridled self without anybody telling her to behave, to smile, to be pleasant or to temper herself.
In turning into a dog does this woman finally find release. A dog can do anything. A dog doesn't care what society demands of it. She is a bitch, literally, and she loves it.
One one hand it's a little sad to see that being a dog is more freeing than being a woman but on the other it's gratifying to see the mother lose her inhibitions and create a better life by being an actual bitch. I am starting to enjoy reading books about intentionally unlikeable female characters, whatever that means, challenging our notions of who a woman can be. They're uncomfortable to read about and that's why I enjoy it. That is why I love fiction. It can broaden our ideas of everything we hold to be true. It makes us question the boxes we're squeezed into and it then makes us accountable for getting out of them in as many ways as we can.
The unpleasant woman is everywhere. That snarky aunty at the event that you loathe, she just wants to sit back, do nothing and be unpleasant too. Unpleasantness is a release. It's a pressure cooker releasing a ton of steam. It is refusing to tolerate what is asked of us and to stop smiling and nodding when we're not okay with something. Fuck being pleasant. Being unpleasant is a delight. And this isn't about asking men to change, god knows how many times women have tried that. Let us allow ourselves and each other to be unpleasant, messy, imperfect, badly groomed, cranky, and unyielding.
Who is the unpleasant woman? She is every woman, really. She's just a person who is tired of being shoved into the box of pleasantness. May we all claw our way out of the boxes we have been shoved into.
Let her live.
📚 BOOKS
>> The great
⭐️ ⭐️ Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder - This book is remarkable. I wrote an essay about it, I clearly love it. Read it.
⭐️ Several People Are typing by Calvin Kasulke - This is HILARIOUS. Please read it. I LOL-ed for real.
⭐️ Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E Kirby - what an enjoyable series of short stories! Some stories are better than the others. The first two are glorious pieces of art.>> The really good
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz - Incredibly written. The tension was palpable. (It's a thriller) I could predict the end but it was still really good.
Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren - I loved this book. I kept thinking about the characters long after I finished this book. The part of me that's mushy AF loved this book so much. I got all the feels.
You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle - Hilarious rom com. There is com in this rom. It's about an engaged couple who fall out of love and somehow make their way back together.
>> The good and okay-ish
Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid - it's like the movie Sliding Doors with alternative timelines. Our confused lead Hannah goes home with her friend Gabby in scenario 1 and with her ex Ethan in scenario 2. Both take her through wildly different paths but both lead her to finding her way through.
Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant - It talks about so many important things - accessibility, disabilities, race, creativity, feeling worthy, and the general turbulence that comes with being a teenager. I enjoyed it.
Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter - Cute and mildly cringey but enjoyable. Fun but also meh?
>> The terrible
I spared you, don't worry.
🎧 PLAYLISTS
The K Drama Twenty Five Twenty One's OST
📝 ARTICLES
⭐️ Naomi Klein on how corporate branding has taken over America - an interesting take on branding and politics in America.
"Obama, in sharp contrast not just to social movements but to transformative presidents such as FDR, follows the logic of marketing: create an appealing canvas on which all are invited to project their deepest desires but stay vague enough not to lose anyone but the committed wing nuts (which, granted, constitute a not inconsequential demographic in the United States). Advertising Age had it right when it gushed that the Obama brand is 'big enough to be anything to anyone yet had an intimate enough feel to inspire advocacy'."
Survival Guide to Life by Chris Guillebeau
📱 PODCASTS
Liz Plank on the Man Enough Podcast
Roxane Gay and Debbie Millman on Partners with Hrishikesh Hirway - I think these two are really cool people
👾 INTERESTING THINGS ONLINE
My friend Rujuta's short film called Talking Hands
The documentary Breaking Boundaries on Netflix
Boxed in: life inside the 'coffin cubicles' of Hong Kong – in pictures
Daily life in North Korea through photographs - 1 & 2
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Until next time,
Sachi