ninetieth (2024-01-16)
“i feel so intensely the delights of shutting oneself up in a little world of one’s own, with pictures and music and everything beautiful" ― virginia woolf, the voyage out
photo by steph byce of the cool kids on christmas
happy (goy) new year, happy lions playoff win, and three cheers to me for reading 135 books in 2023 (15 over my goal of 120)! i am determined to get out of my cycle of reading a billion books, feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of writing about them, and procrastinating writing this newsletter while i read a billion more. you can expect another post one week from today and then i will be all caught up, so help me g-d
books
doppelganger: a trip into the mirror world by naomi klein, 2023
this is a standout and may be the best nonfiction book i read in 2023. klein uses her experience of being mistaken for naomi wolf to explore the ways conceptual doppelgängers, shadow selves, or mirror versions of ourselves permeate every day life, from COVID-19 to having children to political actors co-opting progressive language for their own nefarious gain. i can’t do justice to the clarity and poise of klein’s writing nor her deeply researched and thoughtful analyses - it’s a must-read!
homeless bird by gloria whelan, 2000
this is a story about a young girl in india struggling against poverty, alienation, and arranged marriage. this won a national book award; apparently 2000 was a year of little competition. (it’s also a young adult book which should carry the requirement of being declared on the cover, subject to fines and penalties.) this review is written about as well as the book but it does clock the many outdated practices contained within.
seduction and betrayal: women and literature by elizabeth hardwick, 1974
hardwick is a writer’s writer - every page about the authors and their work is brimming with beautifully written analyses so delicate and cutting that you feel smarter for just reading a page. i admit that the sections of writers i was less familiar with were not as exciting to me (i’m an only child after all) but the whole book is a stunner.
the beauty of your face by sahar mustafah, 2020
i was excited to read a book about palestinian-americans in the chicago suburbs as the chicagoland area has the highest population of palestinians anywhere in the country. this is a complex story of a young woman growing up amidst familial loss, the tensions of acculturation and assimilation, the double-sided binds of religion, and the constant stress of living in a xenophobic and racist world. though some bestseller tropes are repeated here (the complexities of the beginning are overly simplified at the end), this was a moving and determined read.
the friend by sigrid nunez, 2018
i recently read an interview with nunez and felt like a fan before i’d read any of her work, and my premonition was right. her writing is austere, meticulous, and meta, leaving you wondering if you’re reading fiction or fiction about the art of writing fiction.
the bear by andrew krivak, 2020
this is similar to i who have never known men, with a slight (not a spoiler) supernatural twist. it takes intense creativity to keep a story moving forward with so few human characters without turning to a reductive man-and-his-volleyball-named-wilson arc. points for that, and points to me for realizing i would not last one day in a post-apocalyptic wifi-less world.
she's come undone by wally lamb, 1992
this was a gift from my soon-to-be sister-in-law nichole and i loved it. i was cynically expecting an “it gets better” ending but the narrative was committed to showing the depths of self-destruction in the face of grief, and our ability to invisibilize the traits in others that are too damaging to our own psyche to integrate.
tender is the flesh by agustina bazterrica, 2017
cannibalism has entered the chat! in a world where animals bred for eating have been contaminated by a virus and human’s insatiable appetite for flesh is threatened, we turn to breeding and eating other humans. this is grotesque, provocative, deeply metaphorical (capitalism, industrialized farming, media complicity, i could go on) and brilliant.
film
poor things, directed by yorgos lanthimos
this was very strange - i suppose something described as “a science fantasy black comedy” and also a “twisted gothic fairy tale” would be - but delightful. this review is all-encompassing - i’ll add that the total newness/unplacableness of the time period, aesthetic, and technology left me feeling refreshed and rewired. it’s rare to see a movie with a completely unimagined world alongside new twists on old tropes. and emma stone is (as always) radiant and so charismatic that i wanted mark ruffalo to get off my screen (even though he was toxically funny) so she could take up more of it. 10/10!
thanks for reading - more to come -
bria