It's been quite a while since I last posted here. I had begun getting myself into a habit of posting here a couple of times a month, which is good for me. But, May and June have turned out to be extraordinarily busy months, and my attention has been diverted elsewhere. Well, into more than one 'elsewhere' to be exact.
First up though, I want to share that I did actually manage to set foot on a plane and spent a week in a country that's not one of the UK four nations. At the end of April, we flew to Fuerteventura and had an amazing holiday. It was the right mix of everything - going on day long trips, long walks, playing sports and then lazing by the spa pool reading. It was exactly what I needed, but it was a nightmare carving out the time for it. University just isn't what it used to be (hence why people are striking). Things don't start to calm down until the end of June now, with assessments, personal tutor meetings (choosing options courses for the next year) and exam boards. So, of course, I ended up doing double the work before I left and when I got back because it just doesn't stop because you do. But, the holiday was exactly what I needed.
I managed to finish two books when I was on holiday: Maaza Mengiste's 'The Shadow King' and Agate Nesaule's 'A Woman in Amber'. I hadn't planned that these two books would cover such similar content in such contrasting ways, but there you go. I had bought Mengiste's book pretty much as soon as it came out in early 2020, being sent back to the UK from Ethiopia due to fears over the pandemic. I had read Mengiste's previous novel 'Beneath the Lion's Gaze' while I was in Ethiopia and loved it. I thought she was a great writer and had a unique feminist-esque lens that she expertly utilised to analyse quite emotive Ethiopian history. But, I never got round to reading 'The Shadow King', having given it to two other people to read while I was finishing off other books. The book gained some traction by being Shortlisted for the 2020 Brooker Prize, which Douglas Stuart's 'Shuggie Bain' eventually won; another book I have in my bookshelf that I haven't gotten around to reading. Maybe I need to go on holiday again?
'A Woman in Amber' was recommended to me by one of my students, and it proved to be very difficult to get a hold of. I eventually got it second-hand, having been out of print for many years. So, in Fuerteventura I managed to make my way through both of these novels. First up are the similarities. They are both about war and invasion, and its aftermaths, from a woman's perspective. Both women are from nation states that imperialist European nations are trying to invade and colonise, i.e. the Italians in Ethiopia, and the Russians and Germans in Latvia. Mengiste's novel stays rooted in Ethiopia however, while Nesaule's spans Latvia, Germany and eventual emigration to the US. Both novels are also rooted in lived history - Mengiste's in the Ethiopian rebellion against the 1935 Italian invasion (although there are some chapters in the future, but these are inter-sped throughout), and Nesaule's of the Soviet and German armies fighting for European territory during WW2. Mengiste's story is based on her own family history and a lot of research she undertook thus based across the spectrum of tightly and loosely on actual people who lived through those times. Nesaule's book is autobiographical, and is split into two halves: the first living as a refugee in Europe, the second as an immigrant to the US.
Overall, I preferred Nesaule's book by a country mile, which I was not expecting. Mengiste is a great writer. She definitely has a flair for words and for conjuring emotive imagery and dialogue. Her book was also an illuminating piece into the senselessness and barbarity of European 'foreign policy', and the pride that Ethiopians have of their country (having taken part in one of the yearly Battle of Adwa celebrations in 2020, I can well imagine this). Overall though, it was just too long. It took about half of the book to start building up to what 'The Shadow King' actually was / was going to be. This time was spent instead on characterisation. But, even at the end, I felt some of the characters needed a bit more development; particularly some male characters. Still, Hirut is a great character, and both Aster and The Cook are engaging paradoxes.
It took equally as long for Nesaule to make the connection between the title and the main characters, but a bit more care was taken to make sure you could put the pieces together when the right moments came. Also, I felt the characters were much more richly written. Perhaps this is the true difference between fiction and non-fiction characters, and it is a chasm that is very difficult to bridge. Also, due to Nesaule's longer time span, the development of the main characters (particularly the author herself) was much more on point for me. I could foresee the heartbreak and misfortune that was coming to the main character, foreboded from her own early experiences and family trauma. I actually cried at the end of the book, seeing for once a true glimmer of a different coloured lining that could let the author break the spell of her past. Mengiste's ending packs a punch, but there are a lot of strands to tie together and I'm not convinced she fully manages it. It also lacked the emotion of Nesaule's, which made me think how performativity and authenticity can differently manifest in writing. Maybe Mengiste was reaching too big with her wallop of an ending (bringing back in Haile Selassie to boot) thus it fell a bit flat with me. I found Nesaule's smaller scale and unique personalism (including the deep reflection of how much trauma had imprinted on her life) much more haunting. Nesaule wrote a second autobiographical book, set after the events of this book and I've already downloaded it for my Kindle. Again, one needs another holiday to keep on reading...
Although, that isn't technically true. Over the last 2-3 months (minus being on holiday and working very hard) I have been working my way through the genre defying 'The House of Leaves' by Mark Z. Danielewski. This was another book recommended to me, this time by a creative writing lecturer. I'm a huge horror fan. I blame my diet of horror movies when I was a kid and reading the entire Point Horror book series in my tweens. By the time I became a teenager, I was reading Stephen King, Clive Barker, Patricia Cornwell, Thomas Harris and Anne Rice religiously. Horror finally started to subside into a preference for academic (Sociology and Politics mostly) and self-help autobiographical / spiritual books in my late teens; but I do pull back very strongly to the genre of horror and feel myself being like a teenager all over again when I get my hands on a very good horror novel.
'The House of Leaves' (HOL) really is something else. I've still about 1/3rd to read, and it really is a challenge. In a good way. There are three core narrators in it (although there are chapters from other character's POV as well) and you are not quite sure which of them are actually telling the truth. Because of this, it slightly reminded me of Bret Easton Ellis' 'The Rules of Attraction' - but these novels are very different beasts. All narrators in HOL may be writing about something that doesn't even exist in the first place (which plays throughout with your mind). HOL also doesn't fit neatly into the category of 'horror' although I can't really think of any other genre it more belongs to. The 'horror' part is exceedingly well written, using experimental font, text and spacing to atmospheric effects. But, it's also laugh-out-loud funny. The author has an exceptional 'go' at academics throughout and some of the footnotes had me howling with laughter. Academia can indeed get like this. Sometimes, it does get quite cluttered though, and there are two stories vying for centre stage and they can interrupt each other to the extent that I lost momentum to keep reading. Still, I keep coming back to it. And this afternoon will be no different. I really would recommend it, and I'll write a full review when I do finish it.
So, some reflections on books I have read this year. I have read well into double digits of books this year already, encompassing fiction, non-fiction (often autobiographical, self-help literature) and academic writing. After the review of HOL, I'll do some academic reviews next. I'm in the middle of reading Thea Riofrancis' 'Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post Extractivism in Ecuador'; an edited volume titled 'On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis', and about to start two books on the relationship between capitalism and psychoanalysis. When I finally do die, I wonder how much of my time alive will have actually been spent reading. I also wonder if I will regret any of it (I suspect not) ;)
