A lot has happened over the last couple of months. However, the list of things has not included writing blogs. Somehow this one item on my to-do list has masterfully evaded my attention (read: has masterfully been ignored by me). But here I am, more than two months since my last post, trying my best to get back into the habit of uploading regularly. I refuse to acknowledge the possibility of falling off the bandwagon once again, after all it is the intention that counts. Right?

Even though I have not been writing regular reviews on here, I have been reading a ton of really interesting books lately. Some have immediately made it on my list of all-time favourite reads, some have left me questioning the time I spent reading them, but all of them have undoubtedly been interesting. Now that I am back on the blogging ball, I am determined to write proper reviews for at least some of them (since promising to write reviews for the 20 books I have read since Best of Friends would be a stretch, even I’m not ready to commit to.)

To hold myself accountable and ensure I do not go MIA once again, here’s a list of books I want to write reviews for in the next few weeks, before we go back to regular programming. Consider this also my official return to the #30TubeReads challenge, which I horribly abandoned the last time. Am I going to risk setting myself up for failure by overcommitting once again? Yes, of course! I seem to be a store of bad ideas these days. So here goes nothing…

Long ago, on a blog that has hopefully been lost in the dark and ambiguous corners of the internet, I used to do a series of blogs that I had ‘imaginatively’ named #AroundtheWorldin180Books. I’m sure you must have gathered from the rather unique name that the aim of the series was to read at least one book from every country around the world. (Once again remember that it is the intention that counts since #AroundtheWorldin195Books did not have the same ring to it according to my 17 year old mind.) The series went on for a few years and I did read some very interesting books in the process. But as you might guess from my recent disappearance, I fell off that bandwagon at some point as life got in the way. This is my official announcement that I want to start doing that again.

Life will always have the tendency of sticking its nose where it has no business. But since I do really enjoy putting out my silly reviews about the lovely books I read for the few (but really precious) readers I have, I am going to try to work around life’s interferences.

So here’s the list of reviews you can look forward to in the next couple of weeks:

1. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (#30TubeReads)

2. Dandelions by Thea Lenarduzzi (#AroundtheWorldin180Books)

3. The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

4. Three Rooms by Jo Hamya

5. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

6. Strangers I Know by Claudia Durastanti

7. The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak (#AroundtheWorldin180Books)

8. Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

9. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

10. The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

11. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (#30TubeReads)

12. The Perfect Wife by J P Delaney (#30TubeReads)

13. Tin Man by Sarah Winman (#30TubeReads)

These are the 13 books that I want to review as soon as possible since we can then get back to regular programming, instead of trying to clear out the backlog. Here’s wishing me luck because I definitely need it!

With the holidays coming up, I’ve had far too much free time and far, far too many rabbit holes to wander down. Here’s just a few of them to tumble down along with me!

1. The Zara scandal has shown that online activism does not always fall on dead ears.

   We live in a scary world. Unless you live under a rock, I am sure you have been bombarded with posts, articles, and links about the Gaza conflict on all social media platforms. The images of bodies, some of babies as young as a few months, shrouded in white cloth have overtaken every waking moment. It is impossible to look away, and we should not be allowed to look away because it is a privilege that the people living this reality do not have. I wrote a little about the conflict in my #30TubeReads review of Minor Detail and at the same time I decided to read more fiction from authors from the region, and read more about the history of the land itself. As part of my search for narratives from the region I came across a beautiful piece in the New Yorker.

   The View from my Window in Gaza by Mosab Abu Toha

   The houses in Jabalia are so small that the street becomes your living room. You hear what your neighbors talk about, smell what they cook. Many lanes are less than a metre wide. After two days in the camp, on Saturday morning, my family has no bread to eat. Israel has cut Gaza’s access to electricity, food, water, fuel, and medicine. I look for bakeries, but hundreds of people are queuing outside each one. I remember that, two days before the escalation, we bought some pita. It is sitting in my fridge in Beit Lahia.

   When I was in Journalism school, before the pandemic completely changed our ideas about communication and activism, my teachers, more accustomed to the workings of traditional media would often turn their noses up at the idea of online activism. We were a class of idealistic wannabe journalists. The rebellion anthem Khalabali ran through a veins.

   A Professor once promised to mark attendance for the entire class if we decided to go for a protest instead of actually attending her lecture. But the shutting down of a Zara campaign that unabashedly showed images that were too close to the images regularly coming out of Gaza, due to the uproar online shows that there is power in the voices of the common man. Even when the powerful ones refuse to end the genocide.

   Zara’s New Campaign is Under Fire for Parallels to Gaza Crisis by Danya Issawi

   On Monday, people familiar with the matter told the Cut that the campaign was conceived in July, shot in September, and was allegedly not intentional. On Tuesday, the brand posted to a statement to their Instagram, saying the Zara Atelier campaign, titled “The Jacket,” “presents a series of images of unfinished sculptures in a sculptor’s studio… unfortunately, some customers felt offended by these images, which have now been removed, and saw in them something far from what was intended when they were created.” The post goes on to say “Zara regrets that misunderstanding and we reaffirm our deep respect towards everyone.”

2. My never-ending TBR just grew by one.

   I have a love-hate relationship with Zadie Smith’s work. I absolutely enjoyed reading White Teeth by Smith. It felt like I was being sucked into the crazy dynamics of a family other than my own but still as real in their intensity. But then I read Swing Time by her and I could not tell you what the book was about. (Although I do have a feeling that it was trying to do something similar to Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie.) To be true to this statement I am resisting the urge to look the book up on Goodreads.

   Smith’s work is laced with references to the past. Tales of political and social conflict in history form the framework of all her works. However, now she has written her first piece of historical fiction and I am extremely intrigued. But I am procrastinating reading the book itself, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am a little nervous I won’t like it, so I decided to read all about the book instead of reading the book itself.

   In ‘The Fraud’, Zadie Smith Has Doubts About Fiction by Jordan Kisner

   The metaphor is not subtle. This will be a book about the dead weight of literature; the saggy, impractical, possibly elitist enterprise of revering it; the ambivalences and frustrations involved in making it; the embarrassing excess of it all. This will also be a novel about the fear of using the “wrong word,” or the right word the wrong way, and what happens when that fear curdles into resentment.

   Crushing the Port Glasses by Colin Burrow

   The Fraud is a paradigmatic instance of a mature work by someone who began life feeling as though they belonged outside a national canon and got famous by doing something brilliant and different; someone who then finds herself rather awkwardly central to an age in which her kind of urban, eclectic, consciously mixed race, sometimes angry, sometimes funny, sometimes funny-angry writing is what a lot of people want to read, and is so much what people want to read that it has become canonical. That isn’t an easy transition to negotiate. Smith began by thinking about herself as edgy, both culturally and tonally. Then, as the formerly edgy becomes the new canonical, the big questions begin to loom. What am I doing to the English literary canon and what has it done to me? What am I doing for the people and histories it has hitherto marginalised?

3. This is now a Donna Tartt fan club. Care to join?

   The first time I read The Secret History by Donna Tartt was in 2020. Since then I’ve read The Goldfinch once, and The Secret History twice more. For someone who does not reread novels very often this is high praise from me. (Obviously Tartt had been dying for this accreditation from me!) Tartt’s books are beautifully written and in the 30 years since The Secret History was published first the novel has only become more famous, especially with the takeover of the Dark Academia vibe on Instagram and TikTok. However, she still does not receive the same kind of acclaim as other male authors who belong to similar genres as her. There is debate about why this is. I recently read an article in which the author discusses the politics of genre fiction and where in that debate does Donna Tartt fit in.

   Fooled You: On Donna Tartt’s Genre Fiction by Richard Joseph

   Tartt’s books, by contrast, are what happens when a literary novel does not condescend to genre but takes it seriously. When Theo, the protagonist of The Goldfinch, smuggles a priceless painting through airport security, he imagines “some cinder-block room like in the movies, slammed doors, angry cops in shirtsleeves, forget about it, you’re not going anywhere, kid.” The genericity of this — “like in the movies” — is not here played for laughs but imbued with genuine menace. The familiar scene becomes an effective shorthand for a world of torment, the law clamping down on Theo’s childish hopes. In fact, the whole novel is rife with genre allusions and techniques, particularly the genres of cinema.

4. The burkini makes a comeback!

   Earlier this month the Miss Universe contestant from Pakistan wore a burkini during the swimsuit round of the pageant. It led to a lot of different conversations on the internet.

   But this is not the first time that the burkini has been in the news. Apart from its ban in France, this piece of swimwear has had a varied history.

   The History of Burkini: From France’s 2016 Ban to Miss Pakistan 2023 Erica Robin’s Change-making Swimsuit Look by Allie Fasanella

   In 2016, several of France’s seaside towns, including Cannes and Nice, banned burkinis, with former Prime Minister Manuel Valls declaring them tantamount to “woman’s enslavement” and “not compatible with the values of France and the Republic.” The strict clothing rules applied to public pools and beaches run by the state.

   Women working in the Islamic fashion industry expressed disappointment around the decision. “The burkini was intended to integrate and bring people together. To give them the freedom of choice to wear something modest if they choose to be modest for whatever reason they need to be modest for. It should be happy and positive. It is turning something meant to give women the freedom of participating in health and fitness into a negative thing,” Zanetti said in 2016.

   The 2016 France ban on the burkini is not the only time that women have been policed for the clothes they decide to wear. For centuries commenting on the clothes women decide to wear has become a way to not only control them in a patriarchal society but also in some cases a way of victim-blaming in rape cases. It also becomes a subtle way for societies to influence a population and impose their own ideas.

   Ban the burqa? Scrap the sari? Why women’s clothing matters by Rafia Zakaria

   Ending sati or widow immolation in 19th-century India, and founding women’s shelters to protect women from honour killings in 21st-century Afghanistan: these campaigns bookend two centuries of Anglo-Americans standing squarely against horrific local customs. Specifically: protecting brown women from barbaric local customs. The 19th-century British Missionary Register and The New York Times Magazine of the 21st-century both tell urgent stories of Anglo-Americans as the fragile ‘thin line of defence’ protecting vulnerable local women.

5. Awkward anecdotes that should belong in memoirs.

   One of my guilty pleasures is that I really enjoy books in which women recollect really awkward stories from their lives. It kind of helps me find solidarity in the weird situations I often find myself in. These are situations that are unique to being modern women as we try to work, date, and just live in the world. Occasionally, I come across personal essays that belong to the genre and they immediately manage to suck me in right from the first line. It is just a bonus if the person writing also happens to be funny.

   Only ‘Okay’ on WikiFeet by Ziwe

   I had body odor. As an adult, I am known for smelling as fresh as a tropical beach after a rainstorm, because I surround myself with candles and fragrances. However, when I was a child, I was unfamiliar with the concept of deodorant. For some reason, it had never been explained to me. Not to point any fingers, but my mother refused to buy me products that acknowledged that I had hit puberty, and instead told me to scrub my armpits harder. One issue for a stinky middle schooler is that people will actually remark on your scent. The most memorable conversation about my stinkiness was when my sixth-grade teacher, Mr. [REDACTED], pulled me aside during gym class to ask me if my parents were dead. Confused, but ever cheery, I informed him that they were not. He replied, “Well, then, tell your mother to buy you deodorant.”

   My Tinder Date Stole My Tabis, But I’m Having The Last Laugh by Daniel Rodgers

   Yes. It is rough. To find something serious or real, it takes forever. I feel like it’s gotten worse over the last couple of years. People are like, ‘I’m young and wanna have fun’, and there’s not a lot of serious connection-making. People are dating just to meet a new person every week! They’re not intending for anything to be meaningful. It’s interesting when I get comments like, ‘You just invite anybody over!’, and I’m like, ‘That’s kind of how it is going right now.’ It means these things are bound to happen. You meet someone and realize they’re awful without thinking that would ever happen.

I was a snarky teenager when I first read Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie. That specific genre of books has never, and will never, enthral me in the ways it is meant to. But years after that first read—which, to be completely honest, was accompanied by a lot of snorts from me—I came across a quote from the book on the internet. Yes, it was one of those quote/insta poetry pages. Yes, I enjoy occasionally making fun of Rupi Kaur’s poetry. I am a person of varied interests. But to get back to the point, the quote was, 'Death ends a life, not a relationship.' My first instinct was to roll my eyes at it. It does have the same quality as the thousands of quotes we see embroidered on throw pillows. A cute grandma who likes knitting would have a pillow like this. But I woke up this morning to the news that Andre Braugher, our very own Captain Raymond Holt of the 99th precinct, had passed away. I thought of the quote in a new light.

As we come to the end of another year—how is it almost 2024? I am still coming to terms with 2020—we once again find ourselves wondering aloud how we have lost so many people this year.

Our world is a strange place right now. There are people for whom war and genocide are their lives, and others who don’t bat their eyes at all the death and bloodshed. In such a time, it might seem a little strange, and even frivolous, to talk about the death of actors and celebrities. And I won’t agree with that argument. But what would humans be if they didn’t turn to art for comfort during such uncertain times? How can we not take a moment to mourn such a loss even when the world is falling apart?

When I was a child, I would excitedly watch the Filmfare Awards—self-proclaimed as the Oscars of the Hindi film industry—every year. My family would make an evening of it, ordering in good food, often opening bottles of alcohol for the adults and coke for me. At some point during those functions, there would be a segment that showed black and white portraits of all the people the industry had lost that year, accompanied by sad music. (Why does my brain immediately start playing ‘Zindagi kaisi hai paheli’ when I think about this?)

Waking up to the news of Braugher’s death in the middle of December felt a little like that after losing another sitcom favourite, Matthew Perry, so recently. (I made the mistake of googling 'Celebrity deaths in 2023' while writing this article and came across Harry Kissinger’s name. Some deaths we do not mourn!)

For eight seasons, Braugher played one of my favourite characters ever. The black, gay, dry, lovely, oatmeal-loving, dog parent, Captain Raymond Holt, on the show 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine.' There are some shows that, to use a Gen Z term, live rent-free in your head, and 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine,' for many, including me, was one of them. Quotes from the show are parts of my daily vocabulary. I say 'Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.' at least five times a day. My favourite T-shirt has the words 'You took the wrong Fluffy Boy' on it. I cannot sing ‘I Want It That Way’ by the Backstreet Boys without singing ‘Now Number 5’ and following the song with ‘Chills! I have literal chills!’ And I can almost tell you the exact plot of every episode of the show without having to look it up. (I have a weird memory for shows and movies.)

There’s a lot that can be said about 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine.' It is a comfort show with characters that are not afraid to be vulnerable. It breaks stereotypes in every episode. The muscular Sergeant loves his little girls and makes princess castles for them. The detective who loves his job leaves to be a good father. Two Latina women play main characters in the show. The beta of the show is also the character with the most heart. In the first episode of the show, while talking about the main character, Detective Jake Peralta, his Sergeant Terry Jeffords says, 'The only puzzle he has not solved is how to grow up.' As we watch the eight seasons of the show, we somehow grow up with them. (Is this cheesy enough to be on a pin cushion, yet?) And of course, we have Raymond Holt himself.

Ray Holt is the new Captain of the 99th precinct in the pilot episode. He is a rule-following, pencil-pusher who, much to the disappointment of Jake, is replacing the fun-loving Captain the precinct had until then. He is a washed-up robot. Meep. Morp. Zarp. Except he is so much more…

He is a black man who was out as gay in the '80s. He faced years of discrimination in the police force for his identity and that never changed his ambitions of one day becoming the Commander of the police force. After being stuck in the PR department for years, the opportunity to be the Captain of the 99 is his only chance to achieve that ambition. But what he gets in exchange is a slightly unruly team of misfits to manage. He manages to do that… And how?

In Holt, the show gives us a character with multitudes. He is Jake’s father figure (not brother figure). He is Amy’s mentor (who teaches her that eggs for breakfast is a big no-no). He is a great manager to Terry (who sometimes plays the villain to save Tiny Terry from his bigger brother-in-law). He cooks with Charles (even though he hates cheese and is not a curd-mudgeon). He supports Rosa when she comes out (by giving us the heartfelt quote, 'Every time someone steps up and says who they are, the world becomes a better, more interesting place. So thank you.') He learns to get rid of his ego when Gina is the same personality type as him (even though she chooses a cookie over a blondie). He loves Kwazy Kupcakes. He loves his husband, the formidable Kevin Cozner, who hates a kerfuffle. And he loves his ‘fluffy boy’ Cheddar. But most importantly, he is 'a male, a human male!'

Braugher has played a cop before, and he even won an Emmy for his performance in the drama series 'Homicide: Life on the Street.' But with his portrayal of Ray Holt, he has given us a character that is both vulnerable and intimidating. He was the kind of character that is very rarely seen on TV. I am sure that a lot of people would agree that he was the kind of comfort character that stands out for ages.

There are a few shows that bring me comfort, especially when I’m alone or during difficult times. 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' is one of them, along with 'Modern Family,' 'Santa Clarita Diet,' and 'Friends.' These are shows that practically form the background music of my life. The knowledge that Braugher has passed away made me think that the show would lose its charm, in the same way that Matthew Perry’s death made watching 'Friends' a little different. But that’s where the Albom quote comes in: “Death ends a life, not a relationship.” Braugher might no longer be around, but his legacy lives on in the comfort Ray Holt brings to thousands.

'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' is not a perfect show. Addressing the debate about cop shows and their representation of the police, Braugher once said, “Cops breaking the law to quote, ‘defend the law,’ is a real terrible slippery slope. It has given license to the breaking of law everywhere, justified it, and excused it,” he said. “That’s something that we’re going to have to collectively address—all cop shows.” I would argue that the show is pretty near perfect, and Holt is possibly the most precious character ever.

I am going to end this with two of my favourite Holt scenes:

And, of course:

I moved to the UK in September 2022 to pursue a Masters in Creative and Critical Writing. (For those of you who are not sure what the curriculum of such a course is, in a nutshell, it is a starter pack on how to be a broke, aspiring writer.)

In September 2023, I finished my one-year degree and moved from my uni town of Brighton to London, with three suitcases, the countless books I’d bought in the previous year, and the hope to find a job in this city. But that was the beginning of the struggle… I come armed with over four years of experience in my field, a slightly unhealthy hardworking attitude, and a, rather unimaginatively named, Post Study Work Visa; that allows me to stay and work in the UK for the next two years. And yet, it was as I started looking for work here that I realised just how precarious my situation is.

I am in a country that isn’t my own. A Visa in my passport and a card I hold more dear than my own life, gives me the permission to live here. I don’t share the same liberties as those who can call themselves citizens of this country.

Amongst other things, Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie is an exploration of this precariousness.

Earlier this month, I reviewed Burnt Shadows and exposed my slightly unhinged obsession with the works of Shamsie. In that blog, I mentioned the things that are typical of her writing: questions about love, family, home, all enmeshed in an allegory for global politics. These are themes that were constant in the three books I have read by her, along with a complex bond, nostalgic yet pragmatic, with Pakistan. Best of Friends has all these things, yet, it somehow felt like she got the measurements wrong this time and the book was only half-baked.

This is not to say that I did not enjoy her prose. Once again she had me enthralled with her carefully chosen words and her ability to bring such a tale to life in a comparatively slim book. Very few authors have her ability to make characters leap off the pages, their bonds as real as any I have with my friends, their ambitions and fears resonating with my own experiences. Shamsie talks a lot about the importance of shared subtext for lifelong bonds; and when I turned the last page of the book I had this overwhelming feeling that I had shared subtext with Shamsie.

Best of Friends is divided into two halves; two timelines. The first half of the book picks up in the moments leading up to a great metamorphosis in Pakistan. The main characters, Maryam Khan and Zahra Ali, are 14, struggling with the changes in their bodies, learning to take space as young women in a world that does not permit them that. They are in the heart of Karachi in the 80s, as Pakistan sees the end of a dictatorship and seemingly welcomes a new dawn as Benazir Bhutto takes oath as the new President of the country. Their ambitions; big and small, their struggles; personal and political, but most importantly their identities as girls from greatly different socio-economic background mirror Pakistan. These two girls represent the two sides of a country which seemed to be on the precipice of something exceptional in the 80s.

Benazir was Prime Minister; she had taken the oath of office in a bright green shalwar with white dupatta, the colours of the Pakistan flag, and made the men around her look like pygmies.

I remember vividly that it felt like I inhabited two different lives. A part of me believed that the world was my oyster. Everything was achievable. But while being a teenager, especially a girl whose body seems to be doing things completely out of her control, is hard. There were moments when it felt everyone was hell-bent on telling me exactly how much space I was worthy of in the world; absolutely none. It is the age when you start losing your innocent outlook of the world, suddenly you’re faced with all the big, bad monsters of the world. And as a young woman there is this rude realization that your carefree days are a thing of the past.

Even though I have learned that this is a universal experience for girls in their early teens, reading it in a book felt like being seen and understood.

Through Zahra and Maryam, Shamsie demonstrates the little rebellions that girls sometimes undertake to assert their independence or challenge societal norms. They simultaneously detest male attention and crave it. The line between acceptability and proclivity blurs for them at 14 and as they struggle to toe that line, one unfortunate night changes things for them and shapes the people they become.

In this representation of 80s Pakistan, Shamsie describes the differences in Zahra and Maryam's socio-economic backgrounds, 'class' as Maryam crudely puts it later in the book, through subtle signs. It is evident in the kind of houses they live in, their summers and family outings, and their access to material goods. But most importantly, it is made apparent by their outlook towards the present and their ambitions for the future.

But for Maryam, university was just an interruption before she could take over the family business. The only future that mattered to her was the one that would unfold in Karachi, a city to which Zahra had no intention of returning once she’d left it.

Used to spending her summers in London, Maryam knows that she is destined to attend university abroad, like most of her classmates. It is a given. It is as certain as the fact that she is going to then return to Karachi and take over her family business: Khan Leather, from her grandfather. She has no doubts that she is going to take her place in Pakistani society, brush shoulders with a particular kind of people, and there is no doubt about her proximity to power. National politics affect her only to the extent of who to invite to a party, and how to get out of a fix by employing a convenient name.

You don’t mind the exclusivity, you just mind that you aren’t part of it, Layla had said once, as if this was a Maryam-specific attitude rather than absolutely everyone’s objection to exclusivity.

On the other hand, brilliant and dedicated Zahra needs a scholarship, preferably not ‘financial aid’ to get into Oxbridge or an Ivy League. Her future is something she has to make on her own, in the same way that she has to fight for her space in the higher echelons of society. The fear of one wrong word about her sports news telecaster father bringing down the wrath of a dictator lies heavy on her shoulders. And while Maryam’s rebellions can be loud and obvious, hers have to be hidden in the shadows.

Through these characters, Shamsie perfectly illustrates the subtle disparities that exist in the two different worlds that people can inhabit in South Asian countries. I say South Asian because as an Indian these are distinctions I’m exceedingly familiar with.

By contrast, whatever happened to Maryam today wouldn’t matter very much. She’d still inherit a business and a place in society. The rich lived in a different universe.

The one night when this distinction, some might even call it a power dynamic between the two despite their strong friendship, is questioned is the night that changes the trajectory of their lives.

Childhood friendship really was the most mysterious of all relationships, maryam thought, as she signalled Zola to get up and clear the plates; it was built around rules that didn’t extend to any other pairing in life. you weren’t tied by blood, or profession, or an enmeshed domesticity or even – as was the case with friendships made in adulthood – much by way of common interests.

While Shamsie writes about Karachi through rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, from the picture she paints of London you know that this is someone who has come to the city and fallen in love with. When I first came to the UK I remember going to Finchley Road and Wembley, trying to trace the routes described in Home Fire. Reading the descriptions of the city through the changing seasons felt like walking through the now well-traversed roads. I found beauty in Shamsie’s descriptions in the same way that Zahra found beauty in the blooming flowers as she waited for Maryam in the park on a Spring Sunday.

That is when the second half of the book picks up. In 2019, Zahra is the Head of the Centre for Civil Liberties and Maryam is a leading Venture Capitalist. Both living in London now. Both ridiculously successful, with media clamouring to get interviews and rubbing shoulders with the all-powerful, creme de la creme, of London society. (I tried to keep my bitterness about the unattainable, unrealistic, absolutely absurd expectations of what life is like for international students in this country; maybe I should have tried a little harder.)

The repercussions of their different backgrounds that were subtle in the first half of the book are more evident now. Their beliefs about the world, their politics, and morals are on opposite sides of the spectrum. While Maryam believes that profits are more important and proximity to power brings you those profits, Zahra is a human rights lawyer, highly idealistic, and refuses to bend. However, their friendship traverses their differences. Until people from their past make an appearance in their present and throw their lives for a loop.

The distinctions between the friends are made further clear through the ways in which they react to this reappearance. Maryam believes in justice, got through any means, while Zahra has no such illusions about justice being guaranteed.

Burnt Shadows spans across decades and continents. It is broad in its scope and the comments it makes about global politics. In contrast, Shamsie seemed to have narrowed the scope of her fiction down with this novel. It is about these two girls, later middle-aged women. Questions about family, home, and identity exist; but they are secondary to conversations about childhood friendship. Shamsie seemed almost determined to prove the almost sacrosanct quality of lifelong friendships by often digressing off into sentimental paragraphs that were meant to encourage the reader to associate these feelings with the characters. (I am trying not to use the terms ‘sickly sweet’ and ‘in your face’.)

their laughter built, moving beyond the immediate joke into a deep laugh of joy for friendship, for each other, for the certainty that whatever happened in the world you would always have this one person, this north star, this rock, this alter ego who knew your every flaw down to your atoms and who still, despite it all, chose to stand with you and by you through everything that the world had yet to throw at you, every heartache, every disappointment, every moment of darkness. always this friendship, always its light.

The really interesting plot lines are put on the back burner. I wanted to know more about the consequences of the face-tagging features of the fictional social media app Imij. There are interesting ideas she mentions like the moral ambiguity of Maryam’s ethics regarding the racial discrimination of the feature, or the misuse of similar features in law enforcement, however, she dangles these ideas and leaves the reader anticipating a discussion that never comes. The part that resonated the most with me was the mentions of people struggling with their visa applications and citizenship statuses. Shamsie evokes the fear of having to leave a life and go back to a world that no longer feels like home with mastery. Her descriptions of the detention centre, and the lengths to which people are ready to go to live in a country even when the dream does not turn out to be as promising, are nuanced.

They opt in to being tagged by their friends. That’s a different thing to the police watching you at all times because you’re a climate activist or a guy who goes to a mosque.

And then Shamsie does not delve into it at all. Except for a well-written but brief chapter describing Zahra’s struggles while applying for a student visa, these are struggles faced by the secondary characters.

I think that is what my biggest complaint about this book was. All the things I believe are Shamsie’s strong suits are explored only half-heartedly in this one. It left me wanting more; almost like there were parts of the story that were just not included in my copy. Even Shamsie’s penchant for explosive climaxes was missing in this one. And what’s more annoying that with a fade to black penultimate chapter, and a two-page epilogue set in 2020, the end of the book feels abrupt.

Having said all of this, Best of Friends was still a captivating read, especially because it gave me another opportunity to immerse myself in Shamsie’s exquisite writing. At the end of my review for Burnt Shadows, I mentioned my aim of reading all of Shamsie’s bibliography and I am still determined to do so. I just have to swallow the slightly bitter pill that I’m not going to absolutely love every book.

We're finally back to #30TubeReads—sorry for the small hiatus. But don’t worry, I've been reading all along; just need to catch up with the reviews.

On an Overground train sometime last month, I came across a father and son with their heads bent over a copy of The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell. It was a cute sight and gave me such a wave of nostalgia for when my mom would read books to me. She's the reason I have such a love for books. Before I even knew how to read letters, my mum would read books aloud to me so many times that I could recite the stories without even understanding. I’ve been told that I knew exactly when to turn the page.

My reading journey started with picture books about a naughty monkey named Bubbles. Until I was about 10, a corner of my toy cupboard was dedicated to the entire collection of Bubbles. (At some point, my mother got rid of the books, and I still remember being absolutely heartbroken about it.) I soon graduated to a steady stream of Enid Blyton books. I went on adventures with the five adventure junkies, solved mysteries with the Secret Seven, devoured every Mallory Towers book, and read everything else in between. It was a logical progression to Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. It's always been a mystery to me exactly how many books were written in this series, but I’m pretty sure I made my way through 70% of them. I was a Nancy Drew junkie, and the old man at my library would constantly try to maintain the supply to meet my demand.

I made my way through all the children’s classics. I think I fell in love with the idea of being a writer when I read Little Women for the first time, and I remember devouring A Wrinkle In Time.

You do have to listen to the stories, for stories always mean something. The question that worries me is: WHAT exactly do they mean?

Around this time, I was introduced to the magical world of Hogwarts. I grew up with the Golden Trio; I would vividly dream of receiving a letter from the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I even remember penning short stories about the adventures of Diti in the world of magic spells, butterbeer, and flying brooms. I returned to my habit of rereading the books over and over until there was a point where I could look at a paragraph and tell you the book it was from. It was an obsession! (That has been tainted by J. K. Rowling’s opinions, but I try not to think about it very often.) My obsession has followed me into adulthood because one of the first things I did upon reaching London was to visit Platform 9 and 3/4, and my day at the Wizarding World Experience in Watford was definitely one of my most memorable birthdays.

I've always been a fast reader, which means I finished the 7-book series really quickly and was left with a void. Suddenly, I couldn't find a book to fill the gap left behind by the Harry Potter series. The Percy Jackson books briefly kept me entertained, but I was a little too old when introduced to Rick Riordan’s world of Greek and Roman gods. I remember asking my librarian for books that would scratch my Harry Potter itch, and even the man (At 11, I believed he had read every book ever published.) could not solve. He redirected me to the world of teen fiction, and my love affair with Jacqueline Wilson’s bibliography began. (I'm not complaining here at all!)

This is the problem with adventures. They bring out parts of you that you never even knew were there.

However, I really wish I had Cressida Cowell’s works at that age. I could totally imagine 12-year-old Diti loving the world that she has created in this novel. It is the right amount of goofy and magical, the humour is cute but smart, and the snappy language just hits the right spot. The Wizards of Once follows a Wizard boy, Xar, and a Warrior girl, Wish, who were raised in a world where they were taught to hate each other. Wizards and Warriors do not mix! And it's the story of the extravagant, fantastical adventures the two go on when their worlds collide.

Surely, just because SOME Magic is bad, it doesn't mean that ALL Magic is bad?

Cowell's imagination is just *chef's kiss*. If the Narnia series introduced me to a world of creatures and characters unlike any I’d read about before, this book takes it to another level. There are creatures, big and small, that are interesting. Each species has a well-fleshed background, myth, and lore. The forests are filled with mysteries and thrills. There's an Evil Queen, extinct (but maybe not really) species, and magic objects that often have minds of their own. It’s all brought together by Cowell’s sarcastic wit, which fits perfectly with the tale she's telling.

She’s a queen and a mother and it’s a mother’s job to be scary,” said Wish.
“Well she’s very successful at her job,” shivered Bodkin.

Cowell is also the author of the How To Train Your Dragon books. I haven't read the series, but even seeing the books made me realise that the world of children’s books is so much broader today. The child in me may be a little jealous, but it also makes me happy that I can revisit my childhood every now and then by reading books like these. Additionally, I have to mention the illustrations in this book. The fun and unique sketches just add to the tongue-in-cheek humor of the novel.

I think this blog is already liberally sprinkled with my favourite books from my childhood. Each one of them has made me the reader and writer I am today. They've captured my imagination, and I've spent many nights reading under blankets with these literary companions. I really hope the little boy on the Overground train found the same kind of comfort and joy in The Wizards of Once.

It's fun to see the absolutely wide variety of books I’m reading because of #30TubeReads. I'm hoping to get back to regularly reviewing the books I read for the challenge.

In 2019 I was introduced to Kamila Shamsie’s writing when I read Home Fire. A book that has made me cry every time that I have read it (3 times since the first time I flew through the pages.) and has travelled across countries with me. One day people will ask me which books contributed to making me the person I am, the reader I am, the writer I hopefully become; and I will point to the yellowed, well-thumbed, copy.

Shamsie’s books deal with a variety of topics that I can categorise as topics she keeps returning to after now having read three books from her seven book bibliography. Burnt Shadows picks up in 1945 right before the bombing of Nagasaki and follows the cast of characters to Delhi right before the partition, Pakistan during the 90s, and concludes in a post-9/11 New York. She talks about global politics, proxy wars, immigration, racism, terrorism, and Islamophobia, with a fluency of language that does not take away from the horror of the violence, but somehow adds to the impact reading about it has. Even while I was reading her describe the mindless destruction of human life, human potential, land, entire worlds, due to the bombing of Nagasaki, I was left breathless by her imagery and use of words. Her prose is flowery; but by creating a contrast to the gruesome events she is narrating she paints an astounding picture of a world where beauty can exist even amidst gratuitous violence.

What would you stop at to help the people you love most? Well, you obviously don’t love anyone very much if your love is contingent on them always staying the same. (Home Fire)

But at the heart of all her novels are the people. In the midst of war, she shifts focus to tender moments of love; romantic, platonic, familial, and sometimes just the brief bursts of love that one feels for a stranger. She questions what it means to be a family. In Home Fire, the most pressing question seems to be: How far can one go for family; for love? As Aneeka sits vigil with the body of her brother, facing the gaze of the world, without flinching, with ferocious protectiveness of her twin, you wonder at the limits of sibling love. Political powers from around the globe stand against her and yet, she tenderly loves her brother. How much of your love for a person is dependent on them never changing, never doing something unforgivable? Isma has spent her life caring for her twin siblings. Her life is controlled by her father’s decisions. Even her freedom is tinged with Parvaiz’s rebellion. Her first love is overshadowed by Aneeka’s beauty. In the turmoil of global politics and personal drama, there is tenderness in Shamsie’s descriptions of a Pakistani British family trying to survive when the world is pulling them apart. Death and grief are as constant themes in the book as love is; but Shamsie has the ability to balance the two. Never letting one overpower, or overshadow, the other.

Everything else you can live around, but not death. Death you have to live through. (Home Fire)

In much the same way, the central question in Burnt Shadows is: What is home? Is it a place? People? A country? Brick and mortar? And, what is family? Blood? Or the people you choose? After losing her fiancé, Konrad, and her father to the devastation of the atomic bomb (she imagines remains of the former on a rock that she buries when she finds no body, and mistakes the latter for a reptile after the toll of the bomb), Hiroko’s only aim is to move to India and meet her fiancé’s estranged sister. She is looking for any connection to the man she loved, even if it is to someone who had no relation to him anymore. A part of Hiroko is looking for home. How do you reconcile the image of home when it has been brutally transformed beyond recognition, when everything that you held dear is taken away from you there? Hiroko finds a home; however temporary, a family; however tenuous, and a second chance at love.

Yes, I know everything can disappear in a flash of light. That doesn’t make anything less valuable. (Burnt Shadows)

Her husband, Sajjad, is a man in love with the city he was born in and has lived in. Dilli, not the Delhi of the British, has inspired poetry for decades, and in the same way Sajjad idealises the narrow streets, the Islamic architecture, the worlds that exist around every corner. And through his eyes, his words, and sequestered Urdu lessons, he gets Hiroko to fall in love with the romance of the city. When a twist of fate, brought on by the violent partition of India means that Sajjad cannot return to his beloved home, his heart is broken as much as it would have been if he had lost Hiroko instead. Losing his home, his Dilli, is like losing a part of his identity. He manages to make a life and a home for his wife and son in Pakistan, but some part of him is lost forever when that tether is cut. In the same way that the scars, both emotional and metaphorical, of the bomb keep Hiroko tethered to Japan even decades after she has left home, an idealisation of the old world charm of Delhi keeps Sajjad prisoner to dreams of ‘what could have been’.

My history is your picnic ground. (Burnt Shadows)

For Sajjad the biggest failure is his inability to make his British employer see the same beauty in Delhi. He finds himself wondering how the British haven’t managed to make India home at all, as compared to the other invaders the land has endured over the centuries. He muses, “Why have the English remained too English? Throughout India's history conquerors have come from elsewhere, and all of them --- Turk, Arab, Hun, Mongol, Persian --- have become Indian. If --- when ---this Pakistan happens, those Muslims who leave Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad to go there, They will be leaving their homes. But when the English leave, they'll be going home.” Sajjad is ignoring Henry Burton when he says this, who later becomes the American: Harry. The child of James Burton, Sajjad’s British employer, and Elizabeth, Konrad’s sister, never knows a home other than India. To grow up believing that the land you live in is your home, that you belong there even though you look different and are treated differently, only to be told that you have to go to a strange land and be loyal to a new home, is a unique injustice. When Henry is sent to England to study in boarding school, it is another tether being pulled to its extreme. He finds it difficult to replace his idea of home; Indian summer, the musical lilt of Urdu, mangoes, and sprawling gardens; with an unfamiliar and hostile land. In that discomfiture, he is forced to create an identity for himself.

What he is unable to do in England he manages to do in New York. The most under-the-radar, but surprisingly nuanced character in the book is Elizabeth. Ashamed of her German connections, in the first half of the book she hides behind her husband’s British identity, her marriage (which was once happy but has staled since then), a life that does not suit her and makes her feel caged. Hiroko’s arrival and the surprise grief of losing a brother she didn’t know much about forces her to rethink her life. All she needs is an invitation from a cousin to leave behind any notion of home and move to the glamorous and slightly scandalous New York. Once again Shamsie cleverly blends the idea of home and identity. For Hiroko and Sajjad the conflict was building a home away from the land they called home, for Elizabeth it was always feeling like the outsider and then finally finding a home in an unlikely place. America gives her that root, and she passes it on to Henry/Harry, who takes the loyalty towards his new home one step further by joining the CIA.

For the next generation, the idea of home and identity are even more tenuous. What is home when you’re a half-Japanese and half-Indian, living in Pakistan? What is identity when you share features with the Hazaras of Afghanistan, even though you have no connection to them? Raza, Hiroko and Sajjad’s son, faces these questions as he grows up constantly at the receiving end of taunts and comments in the streets of Karachi. Shamsie’s family had to move to Karachi after the partition of India, she spent several years growing up in the bustling city. This is where the author’s home merges with the idea of home of the characters. In every sentence and description of the city the reader can see that Shamsie is finally on her home ground. If there are hints of racial stereotyping in the first half of the book (Hiroko wearing a kimono when the bomb strikes, or her father’s act of rebellion being the burning of a cherry blossom tree), there is an understanding, and innate cognisance about Pakistan, and what it means to be Pakistani in the latter. If Raza is a symbol for the dissonance of being Pakistani and not knowing who you are, Kim is the confidence of being American and living in the comfort of the American dream come true.

If the greatest loss of his life is the loss of a dream he's always known to be a dream, then he's among the fortunate ones. (Burnt Shadows)

Sometime in August I visited the Museum of the Home in London. The visit was unplanned and I remember wandering off the street and into the air-conditioned building without really knowing what I was walking into. But there was definitely some serendipity at play when I did. Born after the pandemic, the Museum of the Home poses the question: What does home mean to you? Each room of the museum tries to answer that, through carefully maintained relics of the past, ephemera borrowed from people, stories etched on every wall, knickknacks that made up homes, rooms that recreate the decor—and decorum— of homes over a century, and in one special room, recorded videos of people answering the question. There is no one answer. Home is a mixture of a lot of things, sometimes you’re born in it and sometimes you spend your whole life trying to find it. Most importantly it is a feeling of belonging. Reading Burnt Shadows felt like walking through the exhibits of the museum.

In August I was at the tail end of the Masters degree that had brought me to the UK. My lease for my little student accommodation in Brighton was almost up and I was preparing for the big move to London. The next few months would decide my future, my career, and where I would live for the foreseeable future. As I write this today, I am still in that place of uncertainty. The one thing that has changed is that I have a better understanding of what home means. It’s not brick and mortar, nor is it a country. It is trying to find peace, people that you can surround yourself, rituals that keep you rooted (video calls with my parents), and I don’t think I would have survived the last few months if it had not been for me finding a notion of home in my fragmented, ulta-pulta, and confusing life in London. Shamsie seems to be saying just that in Burnt Shadows, Home Fire, as well as, A God in Every Stone.

If Shamsie’s writing is the strongest when she explores the questions of home, belonging, and identity, her writing is the most endearing when she writes about families. The Tanaka/Ashrafs and the Burtons make for a strange family, but, despite not having any blood relations, that’s what they are. The lives of each member of this family is entwined intrinsically with those of the other. Hiroko is drawn to Elizabeth in India, she finds love and comfort with Sajjad, Sajjad survives in Pakistan because of Hiroko, Harry is compelled to visit his old Urdu teacher, Raza hero worships Harry and then when he falls from the pedestal changes his life’s course because of him, Elizabeth welcomes Hiroko into her house for a second time, Kim risks it all to help a stranger because of Raza, even though she has never met Raza herself. In many ways, Shamsie addresses the same question about how far is a person willing to go for family. The answer in this book seems to be to the world’s end.

At the risk of making a story too confusing, Shamsie’s novels comprise of multiple threads, intertwining and tangling with each other. Tug one thread and you can create an unsolvable knot. From the three books that I have read, I think her mastery lies in doing just that. The climax of her books are dramatic; the traits of her desi upbringing make themselves surprisingly obvious. She brings all the threads together to an explosive, heartbreaking end. Readers can scoff at it, I know some think that the last 20 pages of Burnt Shadows feel forced just to reach the end she wants. However, I am of the opinion that the novel was effective for me and it will stay with me for years to come because of its end. I found myself breathlessly turn the page even though a part of acknowledged that the climax was more cinematic than a work of literary fiction needed it to be. After closing my copy of the book I had to sit with my thoughts for several minutes because I remember feeling the helplessness as acutely as if it was happening to me. To be able to inspire these feelings through words is truly a triumph.

How to explain to the earth that it was more functional as a vegetable patch than a flower garden, just as factories were more functional than schools and boys were more functional as weapons than as humans. (Burnt Shadows)

There is a scene in the movie New York that will stay imprinted in my brain for my entire life. John Abraham’s character is detained in a post-9/11 New York and questioned for daring to be Muslim. As part of the procedure he is closed in a metal box, so small that there is no where for him to move. The camera focuses on the disbelief and horror on his face, as he lies in a foetal position, naked, and waits for his fate to change. The claustrophobia can be felt through the screen. There is a scene in Burnt Shadows that stirred the same feelings in me; Raza travelling at the bottom of a boat, lying on top of bodies stuffed like sardines surrounded by human filth and cries of lament. It made me want to stop reading the book. It made me furious at the world for allowing these circumstances. How desperate do people have to be to endure these conditions? How horrible does home have to be if this is better than living there? As we witness a genocide, and watch as world leaders don’t bat an eye, I am going to leave you with the questions about global politics and its personal impact that Shamsie raises in her works.

Laughing, he said, “Cancer or Islam—which is the greater affliction?” (Home Fire)

This has turned into an essay rather than the simple review that I started writing. But Shamsie is one of those authors who I can read over and over and still find something new to appreciate, an idea that I had not noticed the first time, or a symbolism that I did not understand then. My hope is to read all her works, including her latest, Best of Friends, and then analyse her bibliography as a whole. One day I will make that happen, but for now I think I might pick up my copy of Home Fire and read through it once again. Maybe this time I will find a new meaning of identity, belonging, family, or home.

Once upon a time young Diti, frustrated with the lockdown rules, started a blog with a friend called Footnotes & Scribbles. In January 2021, right after watching the first season of the hit show Bridgerton, she wrote an article about it on the blog. It might have been a little bit of a rant, but I don’t judge her!

Since then there has been another season of the show and a spin-off about Queen Charlotte. I am guilty of watching (and slightly guiltily enjoying) both of them. I recently started rewatching the show and was reminded of all the things I enjoyed and didn’t about it, along with that I spoke about Julia Quinn’s books in my review of Love and Other Words. So I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the article and then get into things that have changed since January 2021.

Here goes nothing!

Bridgerton: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

In 1813, Daphne Bridgerton, the belle of the year’s London season, is escorted into a ballroom filled with people of colour by her eldest brother accompanied by a string quartet rendition of Ariana Grande’s ‘Thank You, Next’; and you already know that you are not watching a typical period costume drama. The only way that you have not heard about the new Netflix series Bridgerton is if you have been living under a rock because the show has taken the internet by storm. Bridgerton comes to us from Shondaland the same people who gave us Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal. But unlike its predecessors, Bridgerton is a Period Fantasy Drama that gives the audience a great route for escapism while attempting to be inclusive. 

The show is adapted from a series of books by Julia Quinn that follows the eight alphabetically named Bridgerton siblings as they either attempt to either escape or immerse themselves into the marriage market of London’s season during the Regency era. The first book, The Duke And I, follows the eldest daughter, Daphne, as she attempts to find the perfect husband for herself by the end of her first season. During this search she comes across her brother’s old friend Simon Bassett, the new Duke of Hastings, who is the perfect match for her in the eyes of everyone except for her brother who knows all the things that his friend has done that cannot be spoken off in polite society. As Daphne and Simon decide to fool everyone by pretending to be ‘attached’ it is revealed that Simon’s redeeming quality, that excuses his rakish behaviour, comes from his childhood and the trauma that his father inflicted on him. Like any self-respecting romance reader knows, no fake-dating ends without the characters falling in love. That is exactly what happens to Daphne and Simon and they fulfill their Disney-Princess-happy-ending destinies.

Unlike the books the show does not focus on one sibling at a time and instead gives us an all-encompassing storyline that starts at the beginning of London’s 1813 season. Unlike every other book adaptation, the fact that this one strays from the source material is not a bad thing. The first book disguises a woman raping a man as something she does because of her desperate need to get pregnant, the second one tries to excuse adultery by giving the readers a sad backstory and in the third installment the man basically gives his love interest a choice between either being his mistress or a servant in his house. (I can imagine where the rest of the series is headed.) All the stories in this series, like most other regency / period dramas, are about white people and the makers of the show right from preliminary interviews and posters marketed it as an inclusive and racially integrated show. 

In my opinion, the showmakers could have gone one of three ways: 1. Make a show that was historically accurate in its representation of the lives of POC characters of the time. 2. Give us a fantasy world where POC lived lives of the aristocracy without their skin colour playing any role in their characterisation. 3. Develop the world in such a way that explains how the POC became part of high society while commenting on its socio-economic repercussions. Instead of sticking to any one of these options, the showmakers gave us a confused, half-hearted mixture of all three, resulting in the audience feeling like the initial marketing aimed at duping them in the same way that clickbait YouTube titles do. Nothing about this show is historically accurate and I don’t see anything wrong with this decision. I call it a fantasy period drama because the characters wear clothes with dyes and beading that did not exist in the time. They interact in ways that were not prevalent during the regency era. Queen Charlotte is played by a woman of colour and the Prince Regent is completely missing. To be frank, the show could have easily been set in any time period and nothing much would have changed. And that is fine for what the show is trying to position itself as; escapism. So why could they not have just had people of colour in prominent roles and left it at that? In this fantasy version of the 19th century where women step out without bonnets and people make out on the roads, we could have just as easily digested the idea that people of colour were part of those circles.

Instead, the showmakers perfunctorily attempt to explain how such a society came to exist. This explanation comes only in the fourth episode and it feels like a cop-out because while it hints at the existence of racial inequality in society it does not take the conversation forward. Slavery still existed in 1813 and if the showmakers want us to believe that people of colour were allowed into high society for the sole reason that the King fell in love with a black woman and then do not tell us what happened to those slaves it is bad world building. The racial subtext is buried under so many layers of other issues like classism, gender equality and the ‘campiness’ of the other characters that it is easily missed if you’re not looking for it.  

Whether you support Bridgerton’s brand of colourblind casting or don’t, the colourism and stereotypes in the casting are evident. Simon Bassett and Marina Thompson are the only two primary characters of colour, both played by fairly light-skinned actors who fit into the Western idea of beauty. Even then, Marina’s storyline is the saddest in the show and it further propagates the stereotype of the black woman in trouble. The Duke of Hastings, Lady Danbury and Queen Charlotte are all secondary characters who are dark-skinned, the first is the main villain in the show, the second a woman deemed ‘scary’ by most of the other characters and the third an eccentric, who is mostly the comedic relief. The rest of the people of colour are ancillary characters or fillers in the ballroom scenes. The only person of, what I’m assuming is, Indian descent has two dialogues and is characterised as the ready-for-anything sex symbol. So what does this say about the show’s claims of racial integration?

Very often while reading books categorised as classics we use the phrase ‘product of its time’ to explain away certain problematic tropes that were acceptable during the time it was written. I, however, refuse to do that when talking about historical fiction shows and books written now. I spent several episodes of Bridgerton being annoyed at the actions of the characters. It might have been acceptable at the time for Anthony to behave the way he did with respect to Nigel Berbrooke’s marriage proposal, but watching him enforce his decision on his sister in 2021 just made me furious. (Side note: Anthony has to be the shadiest character in the show.) Statements like ‘If I am unable to find a husband then I am worthless.’ and ‘It is because I regard you so highly that I cannot marry you.’ are made quite seriously. The idea that the fake-attachment made Simon ‘unavailable’ and Daphne ‘desirable’ because of her association with the duke is promoted. Violet Bridgerton says to her daughter, ‘I have taught you to believe that marriage is the best that life has to offer, and that remains true. But it is not simply a partner that marriage provides. You will have comfort, a house to tend, and most importantly, children’ as a way to convince Daphne that it was right for her to accept Nigel’s marriage proposal, which was thinly-veiled blackmail. And while the repercussions of premarital sex faced by men and women are vastly different, even today, I deciphered that the subtext of Marina’s story was to hold her in contrast to Anthony or Benedict, but anyone else watching the show who was not looking for this idea would have completely missed it. Just like the issue with race it was implied and never explicitly mentioned. Eloise Bridgerton is by far the most relatable character with her dreams of doing more than what was expected from women in the time and her distaste for the theatrics of London’s season, yet as the token feminist character she doesn’t really do anything substantial. And for someone who constantly criticises media for representing progressive women only as the ones who smoke, drink and have sex, the scene where Eloise smokes on the swings with Benedict was jarring.

As a fantasy, the show has a lot of potential. The aesthetic is immaculate and every frame is vibrant and picturesque. It is rare to see people of colour in shows set during the time and it is easy to get lost in the opulence and melodrama of the show. But when a show is being praised for half-hearted attempts at racial integration by doing the bare minimum we need to reevaluate the bar we are setting for creators. The show is romantic and the perfect world it represents is an antidote for the horrible times we live in, but enjoying a piece of fiction does not mean we close our eyes to the problems in it. So even though I am pointing out the flaws in the books or the shows, it does not take away from the fact that people everywhere, including me, immensely enjoyed it. The show, especially seeing a black man play the soft, romantic lead, (spoon scene anyone) was to me the perfect amount of cheese and I am probably a little in love with Nicola Coughlan. My criticism should not be taken as advice against watching Bridgerton, instead as a reminder that while we enjoy the steamy romance we must point out how the show can do better. At the end of the day, Bridgerton’s casting of people of colour in a period drama is a step in the right direction We just need to see much more of it and better attempts at it.

Recommendation: Watch the TV show Harlots that follows the lives of sex workers in 18th century London if you want to see some more People of Colour in the Regency period.

Many creators today talk about colourblind casting today, but is it all that it is cracked up to be? Read: The Guardian

A discussion on the colourism problem of Bridgerton. Watch:

There’s, I think, a running joke about the costumes in Bridgerton. Watch:

Here’s What Has Changed:

• The second season of Bridgerton follows Anthony Bridgerton. I have no idea what magic the makers of the show have pulled off, but suddenly the show changed the shadiest character into one of the most endearing ones! And he is so good looking! Now that the third season is in production, a similar magical veil has been dropped on Colin Bridgerton. There is something special in the water that is served to the main characters on the set of the show!

• With the character of Kate Sharma, the second season of the show gives us Indian representation that is better than the one in the first season. But as an Indian I have to shout about just how frustrating the representation is. Once again Hollywood forgets that Indians are not a homogenous group. Our language, our culture, our terms for family members, are not all the same. And for a show as big as Bridgerton, creators should have put in a little more effort into doing their homework.

• The Queen Charlotte spin-off gives me a bit of what I needed in terms of explanations when it came to the racial integration and world building. It finally gives us a reason for why things work the way they do in this world. The prequel, by far, is the best of the series. It is entertaining and keeps the escapism of the first two seasons alive. But the plot and narrative structure make logical sense. We get a backstory that makes sense and a love story that is beautifully told in its dual timeline.

• I have some really high hopes from the third season of the show!

The Will They/Won’t They trope makes a comeback in the #30TubeReads challenge and if you have read my review of The End of Loneliness you know I have thoughts about it.

I’ll be the first to admit that I can be a snob about the books people read. I have had my fair share of problems with admitting that I occasionally like escaping into the cozy world of romance novels; where the main characters are good-looking, funny, and always have happily-ever-afters. (To be fair, reading a chunky literary fiction book in a cafe just makes for a more compelling picture to someone who very often goes to cafes just for the aesthetic value.) And I am going to preface this entire review by saying that even for my super quick pace of reading books, I went through this one really, really fast. But sometimes you go through a book really fast because you just cannot put it down, and sometimes you go through a book really fast because it has no substance. Unfortunately, this felt like an example of the latter.

Love and Other Words by the author duo Christina Lauren is a love story told in alternating chapters that follow two timelines. One timeline follows Macy Sorenson as her father buys a holiday home to retreat to after the unfortunate death of her mother. On her first visit to her new cabin, Macy bumps into her nerdy, gangly neighbour, Elliot, and the two of them start a friendship, that keeps teetering on the edge of a romance but does not quite tip over, based on their mutual love of books and strange sense of humour. The second timeline picks up 11 years later. After a chance encounter the two estranged friends try to come to terms with a devastating event that resulted in Macy’s decade long silence. While Elliot tries to get to why Macy cut ties with him, she has to decide what matters more to her: listening to her heart or protecting it from more pain.

Oh, if only I could post my annotations for this book! (I cannot promise that there is anything informative in my mostly agitated scribbles but they are quite entertaining.)

I grew up on a steady supply of Wattpad and AO3 stories to supplement my regular supply of books from the library. There was a time in my life when I wanted nothing more to be a brown-haired, meek, not-a-step-out-of-the-ordinary girl, who somehow manages to catch the eye of every guy she comes across. More than once I have tried to perfect the messy bun, that is dishevelled enough to show that I am unconcerned by the opinions of others but gorgeous enough that people fall in love with me at first sight. For months, I would try to figure out a way to be the right kind of nerdy (where my glasses and the book I have my nose buried in are acceptable accessories but my intellect is not intimidating), the right kind of tomboyish (where I was cool enough to hang out with but not so masculine that boys forget that I am a girl they can date), the right kind of clumsy (where it is endearing but not an annoyance), and the right kind of approachable (where I could not be labelled a prude or a slut). Despite the most important factor that I studied in an all-girls school and my interaction with boys was thoroughly limited, I strived to be that epitome of a desirable woman: ‘Not Like Other Girls’.

The Wattpad generation has, by and large, grown up. But the kind of stories pushed to us has not gone through a similar maturation. Very little has changed. And this is visible in the books that are the most popular among the romance girlies on BookTok and Bookstagram. The Colleen Hoover readers ignore the romanticisation of domestic abuse. The Jenny Han readers do not see a problem in the upholding of beauty standards. The Julia Quinn readers do not bat an eye at the blurred lines of consent. And countless readers somehow find comfort in blatantly misogynistic plot lines. Each of these deserve a blog of their own but that’s for another time. The thing that has always bothered me about these stories are the simultaneously low, yet unattainable, standards that the characters are held against.

In Love and Other Words, paragraphs on end are dedicated to describing in great detail every aspect of Elliot’s appearance. The first time Macy sees him after their decade long estrangement, half a page is just taken to describe his frame and posture. We are told over and over again that he is large, his hands are large, he is tall, he towers over Macy (even though she is extremely tall herself), he is nerdy but hot, he is smart but sexy, he is everything. If I could draw, I could provide you with a police sketch of the man from the abundance of description provided in the book. Ask me to tell you what colour hair Macy has, and I couldn’t. (Not for lack of trying. I had my highlighter ready in case the authors decided to mention it clearly even once.) To take a page out of the Barbie movie: He is Elliot. She is just Macy.

And yet, she is unforgettable. Elliot breaks up with his girlfriend immediately after seeing her for a second in a coffee shop, even though they hadn’t met each other for over a decade before the chance reunion. He has not been able to be with another girl wholeheartedly ever since she walked out from his life. The most important things the reader is told about Macy are the negative things, and yet Elliot (this perfect specimen of a man) wants to spend his life only with her, even if that means pursuing her endlessly and almost desperately. For fear of sounding a little envious of her lack of trying, I am ready to even accept this aspect of the story. Mostly because I still have much to complain about…

SPOILER WARNING:

As children and teenagers, Macy and Elliot spend almost every weekend and major holiday together. They spend hours huddled together in Macy’s closet library (If I had to be jealous about something it would be this.). Over and over again, the reader is told that these two are perfect for each other. They have feelings and chemistry. Their families get along (As an Indian I might be giving this too much importance, but it matters!). Everything is perfect! And yet, they JUST do not start dating. It is so difficult to point out to the logic that’s behind their refusal to be together… even after admitting they have feelings for each other… even after making out… even after throwing jealous fits… even after almost being caught by Macy’s dad! I have never wanted to shout “Just get together already!” at two characters more than I did while reading the ‘Then’ chapters of this book. The only discerning reason that I could find was the fact that they would have to do long distance for parts of the year. So what? It would have saved them years of hurt feelings, and saved me pages of will they/won’t they torture.

And it was torture because Macy could not stop dreaming and moaning about what is behind Elliot’s zipper! It made me want to throw the book across the room!

Christina Lauren are clearly obsessed with the idea of delayed gratification. If the ‘Then’ chapters just kept postponing their inevitable relationship, the ‘Now’ chapters refused to get to the point. Why was the drama dragged out so much? Macy did not talk to Elliot for over a decade, and then after they meet again you want me to believe that that is not the first thing two normal people would discuss? Instead, the conversation was pushed to ‘next week’, ‘next time’, ‘picnic with Macy fiancé’, ‘after Christmas’, and then finally ‘at Elliot’s brother’s wedding’. I don’t think two people have ever had worse timing.

Even when they start having the conversation, they somehow… don’t. I can understand a conversation being difficult and the one that Macy needs to have must be heartbreaking. But when it comes to writing and narrative structure, it is possibly the most infuriating use of the miscommunication trope!

After all this when the reader finds out what really happened that night when it all went wrong, I was just left confused. To begin with, I thought the justification that Elliot came up with was far-fetched to say the least and the ease with which Macy believes him suspicious. But even if I give Elliot the benefit of the doubt like Macy obviously does, the whole situation is fishy. The lines of consent are blurred. Someone forces themselves on Elliot, and he has obvious lasting emotional and physical trauma from it. And the whole thing is just… brushed away in three lines! I could have done with a little less descriptions of the perfect angle at which his hair falls on his forehead, and a little more description about the more important emotional setbacks that the couple faced. But it was not to be!

The whole experience of reading this book was frustrating. In an attempt to portray a real relationship, the authors give us a highly dysfunctional couple who choose to cling onto each other instead of processing their unresolved trauma. A book that deals with the idea of grief and loss better is Beach Read by Emily Henry, and if you enjoy the friends-to-lovers trope I highly recommend People We Meet On Vacation by the same author.

As a second chance romance, the book does a good job of describing the ways in which two people can drift apart and come back together. But they walk a thin line between pity and infidelity, when it comes to their partners, that made me uncomfortable at several points during the story. The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams is a fun take on this trope. If you are just on the look out for fun romances that are not as frustrating as this one, I would recommend the Brown Sisters Trilogy by Talia Hibbert (Get a Life, Chloe Brown, Take a Hint, Dani Brown, and Act your Age, Eve Brown), along with books by Jasmine Guillory. If you enjoy books that have intense descriptions about just how large the male love interest is (Is their height, their shoe size, and the size of the palms meant to be euphemisms?), then you must read The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood.

That’s it for this review for #30TubeReads. I really hope the girl (who had picture perfect hair even on a Monday morning, by the way) enjoyed reading the book more than I did. Also I am totally guilty of looking up fan-casting to figure out what Macy Sorenson looks like.

WARNING: This one is chock-a-block with spoilers.

I have a love/hate relationship with the will they/won’t they trope. Books, movies and shows that follow this pattern of romantic storytelling are equally intriguing and frustrating. Friends managed to keep me hooked on the will they/won’t they journey of Ross and Rachel for 10 seasons. Occasionally, you’ll still find me yelling at Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer to kiss already! I religiously reread the OG will they/won’t they classic, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, every couple of years. (It is not my all-time favourite classic, but it is pretty up there.) Reader, I am exasperated (every single time). And then there’s my favourite romantic drama that I love to hate, yet, have hate watched more times than was probably good for my sanity: One Day.

One Day is a 2011 romantic drama starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. Apart from having an unbelievably good-looking cast, the movie has a storyline that spans across two decades. It follows the two protagonists Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley on the same day, every year: July 15, as they go through the different highs and lows of life. They meet on their graduation day in 1988, and despite the insane chemistry between them they decide to be ‘just friends’. Cut to: twenty years of being each other’s closest friends, confidantes, going skinny dipping, being jealous of each other’s relationships, failed marriages, failed careers, failed stints in rehab, and a rather long list of things that can happen to two people. All along there is the underlying sub context of Dex and Emma being perfect for each other. Everyone can see it… BUT THEM!

Now it is spoiler time. (Although, with the data that I have already presented to you you already know where the first half of the spoiler is going.) After 20 years of denying their feelings for each other they decide to give a relationship a shot. And guess what, they are perfect for each other. They are happy and at peace. They own a cute cafe together and they live happily ever after. (Now this is the bigger SPOILER. So skip it if you want to. But mind you the rest of this blog won’t make much sense if you do. And the movie did release in 2011, so if you haven’t seen it yet maybe you’re never going to.) Then the last 15 minutes of the movie happens. Emma dies in quite a brutal, jump scary, absolutely devastating, and arguably infuriating road accident, while she is cycling back home to Dex.

Let it sink in.

2 hours of a movie - a romantic movie at that - for that end.

A will they/won’t they build up for fate to say ‘Oh, they won’t.’ just when you think that they will.

Now, take that same feeling of being robbed of a satisfying ending and imagine it came after you spent about a day and a half reading a 300-page novel. The feeling is so unsatisfactory that even the beautiful writing, the brilliant translation, and the interesting discussions about what it means to be a writer, do not make up for it.

I read Benedict Wells’ The End of Loneliness (translated by Charlotte Collins) as part of the #30TubeReads challenge after I spotted the striking cover on the Northern line. I feel compelled to mention that the woman reading it was possibly one of the most aesthetically dressed people I have seen in my life. The number of times I have googled tan overcoats in the last couple of weeks is slightly embarrassing.

The first half of the novel feels like a different book from its second half. His writing does not lose its charm, and nor does the pacing of the plot change. It is just because while the first half of the book is a delicate study of grief, childhood trauma, and sibling relationships, the second half is a circuitous One Day-esque tale, just more European. The fact that you can continue to see the signs of the same discussions as the first part but undeservedly neglected just makes the experience of reading the book a little annoying.

The novel follows three siblings: Liz, Marty, and our main character, Jules, as their childhood abruptly ends and the trajectory of their lives change forever, after the sudden death of their parents. They are sent to boarding school and are forced to live apart, finding their own ways to deal with the grief of losing their family in the blink of an eye. Each sibling finds a different way of doing this, for Jules it is retreating inward and rejecting everything that made him feel closer to his parents. He also finds some form of comfort in his friend Alva, who is the only one to stand up for him when he’s being bullied as the new kid. And so starts the will they/won’t they tale.

Wells does a good job of describing the ways in which the methods of coping with grief set the siblings apart. He slowly reveals different things about the days leading upto the accident that took the lives of the parents so that the reader can piece together and make sense of the psychological states of the siblings along with them. It is not possible for us to ever know our parents as individuals, our relationship to them will forever bias our opinions about them and their decisions. Even as adults we look at our parents from the viewpoint of children, and that is even more true for the three siblings of this book as they never get to know their parents beyond childhood. Wells’ descriptions of the lives of the siblings, their rebellions and their victories, seems real. There is an authenticity in his writing that does not feel like he is emotionally manipulating the reader in any way. (I am looking at you, A Little Life by Hanya Yangihara.)

These are themes that underline the entire novel even when the second half becomes a more introspective look into Jules’ character. As a character Jules is very similar to Dexter from One Day. He is lost. He does not know what he wants to do with his life. But while Emma becomes the stable and reliable point in Dexter’s life, the death of his parents and the disappearance of Alva, leaves Jules without any anchor. He drifts from career to career, losing money, breaking ties, and struggling to stay afloat. Even when he finds stability, unsatisfactory and undesirable, he abandons it the minute he realises that there is a chance of reconciliation with Alva. The fact that she is married to the author they both idealised (This point of the story leads to a brilliant description of what it means to be a writer losing his identity as his loses words and narratives.) and not available to fulfil his teenage romantic dreams does not matter. His decision pays off, but that’s besides the point.

Every part of Jules and Alva’s relationship initially is simultaneously a disaster and inevitable. Both of them make morally questionable decisions without any regrets or concerns about the consequences of their actions. But Wells handles even this aspect of the novel with grace. There is no judgement and the facts are presented to the reader in a way that’s meant to say ‘such things happen’. This was not my problem with the book. It is actually one of the things I enjoyed about Wells’ writing. What rubbed me the wrong way was the exploration, or lack thereof, of Alva’s character.

While the other characters are fully-fleshed out, Alva is not given the same attention. In the first half of the book as Jules develops an infatuation for his classmate and friend, this ambiguity is intentional. And it meets its goal. But as the story progresses and Jules and Alva finally get together (Spoiler: they will, after all!) even when snippets of Alva’s backstory become evident to Jules, and through him the reader, they are disjointed. The puzzle pieces don’t fit together to form a full picture of her character. Alva is a blurred figure, and the reader is meant to fall in love with this hazy depiction of the character, along with Jules. In my opinion, the books falls short in this aspect.

There is a similarity between the cult classic 500 Days of Summer and the Bollywood film Meri Pyaari Bindu that goes beyond unfulfilled love stories. In both movies the male main characters, and narrators, don’t fall in love with the main love interests so much as fall in love with the idea of them. They form an ideal of these women in their heads, that has very little to do with the women themselves, and then are infatuated with those ideals. It is not surprising when their relationship with the real women then fall apart. Something similar seems to be happening in The End of Loneliness, however, Jules is never criticised for that. Wells does not seem to be intentionally saying that Jules falls in love with idea of Alva but to the reader that’s what it feels like. Just like calling Summer and Bindu ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girls’ is an injustice, labelling Alva that way is also unfair. However, her character and the reasons behind Jules’ feelings are gaps in an otherwise polished story.

Another spoiler: The other thing that reminded me of One Day while I was reading this novel was the end. Jules and Alva get together (decades after they first had the opportunity), have twins (a girl and a boy, the perfect combination), and dream of growing old together. But once again fate says ‘Oh, they won’t’ and Alva is diagnosed with cancer. The book is an ultimate example of setting up delayed gratification and then taking it away at the last minute. You want them to have the happy ending, you want Jules to keep the one good thing that has happened to him after all the tragic incidents of his life. But Wells, the decider of the fate of the characters, decrees that it is not to be.

As a reader it is frustrating. In the same way that I have the urge of just not watching the end of One Day. (I wish I could be Phoebe and just not know the sad endings of movies.)

But these narratives are real because they seem to say that things are not always going to go the way you want them to. The moments of happiness and peace (Jules and Alva’s domestic bliss) are not less special because they can be taken away before they know it. The message of The End of Loneliness, right from the first anecdote of the siblings watching another family’s picturesque picnic getting tragically interrupted when the family dog falls off a cliff, is that the good things can vanish forever in the blink of an eye. All the things one takes for granted or believes are permanent are actually unreliable. However, the true strength of a person is evident only when we see how they deal with that loss.

Now I cannot say whether I agree or disagree with Wells’ decision to give us this real ending. Books, for many including me, are escapism from such realities of life. Yet, art is a reflection of the real world and if I can appreciate his exploration of grief and loss, I can appreciate the end of the book, too. However, I cannot promise that I won’t skip the last few chapters of the book if I ever reread it.

This is a genre of book that I really enjoying immersing myself in. Some books with explorations of sibling relationships that I have enjoyed are When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman, Mai by Geetanjali Shree, The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, and Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. This book was a unique take on the romantic drama genre and if that’s your cup of tea then a few that I recommend are: Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan, Ghosts by Dolly Alderton, Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny, and (this one I’m recommending a little grudingly) Normal People by Sally Rooney.

With that another review for the #30TubeReads challenge comes to an end. The End of Loneliness is a short book that managed to make me feel thoroughly engrossed in the tale. Other than giving me a reason to read the book, I’m grateful for the woman on the Northern line for showing me just how to style a tan overcoat like a true aesthetic Londoner.

1. I promise I didn’t have a Twilight phase.

   The idea of finding out where the concept of vampires comes from and who they are just gives me flashbacks of watching a constipated-looking Kristen Stewart awkwardly look for vampires on a search engine. The dark room. The old computer. The bad images and the even worse transition effects. All leading upto my favourite (almost camp) scene from the first movie:

   Edward (while his skin glows like a literal disco ball): This is the skin of a killer, Bella.

   

   But anyway, keeping with the Halloween spirit this week, here’s a better deep-dive into the genealogy of vampires. I think there’s only one mention of the movie in the article, thankfully.

   Silvia Garcia-Moreno on Dracula’s Depictions and Descendants by Silvia Garcia-Moreno

   Dracula uniquely positions disease in a new light. No longer is a vampire’s victim fated to die; instead they are doomed to be resurrected and infect others, festering a never-ending cycle of disease and breeding a vampire army. Dracula, after all, hopes to “create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless.” However, unlike zombies, who also transmit their infections via bites, Stoker’s vampires are perhaps even more dangerous because they retain those seductive qualities that their distant ancestor, Count Ruthven, typified: they are sexually attractive.

2. The only horror movies I hate are the ones with ghosts.

   If you know me you also know that I cannot sit through a single horror movie. I do not like jump scares. I detest ghosts, exorcisms, banging doors, and creaking floorboards. If a family moves into a new house and thinks something strange is afoot, they should leave. IMMEDIATELY. And do not even get me started on the usage of onomatopoeia to create atmosphere. However, creepy, disturbing movies are right up my ally. Keep the ghosts far away and give me all the grotesque gore possible. Body horror is a subgenre of horror movies that basically relies on depictions of violations of the human body to incite disgust. Vaginas with teeth, strange body parts, blood pooling under bodies, etc., that I can watch. Sometimes they successfully manage to give me the heebiejeebies, sometimes the effects are not well done at and are funnier than scary. But, regardless, they are always entertaining to watch.

   The 20 Best Body Horror Movies, from ‘Crimes of the Future’ to ‘Altered States’ by Christian Zilko

   The 21st century has allowed for a new group of elite genre filmmakers to emerge, and body horror films are now a regular presence at elite film festivals around the world. In addition to the opportunities for social commentary that they provide, body horror films also offer a massive canvas for practical effects artists to show off their depraved skills. 

   The body horror genre has proven to be a versatile medium for some of cinema’s most creative minds, with films ranging from the utterly grotesque to the subtle and cerebral. And sometimes, of course, movies can be both things at once. From Cronenberg and Carpenter to Julia Ducournau, we’ve rounded up 20 of our favorite additions to one of horror’s grossest subgenres. If you’re looking to watch something profoundly unsettling but don’t feel like sitting through another slasher flick or creature feature, look no further than the body horror canon. 

3. Supposedly, my uterus occasionally likes to wander off the beaten path.

   You already know my opinion on the term ‘unhinged’ when used for women. If you don’t, go read the blog! But if you read a little deeper into the use of the term hysteria, you uncover centuries of discrimination against women. When I read that women were not allowed to travel on the first trains because their uteruses would fly, I was shocked. Turns out women’s uteruses are meant to be quite the travel bugs. For centuries they have had wanderlust! Instagram pictures featuring people posed on stunning cliffs should have been starring uteruses all along!

   Hysteria, Witches, and The Wandering Uterus: A Brief History by Terri Kapsalis

   A good deal of the election’s fake news had been dependent on the power of a nearly 4,000-year-old fictional diagnosis. Both news and medical diagnosis masqueraded as truth, but they were far from it. How to make sense of this fake diagnosis in relation to the idea that illness can be born from our guts and hearts and minds? Is there anything truer? And yet, psychosomatic illness continues to be deemed an illegitimate fiction.

   We know that the social toxins of living in a racist, misogynist, homophobic, and otherwise economically unjust society can literally make us sick, and that sickness is no less real than one brought on by polluted air or water. In actuality, both social and environmental toxins are inextricably intertwined as the very people subject to systemic social toxins (oppression, poverty) are usually the same folks impacted by the most extreme environmental toxins. And the people who point fingers and label others “hysterical” are the ones least directly impacted by said toxins.

4. Welcome to a random Monday afternoon in my life!

   This Monday started out completely innocent. I was reading a few articles about the New York Times Bestseller List, and how difficult it is to understand how the list is determined week after week. The real confusion kicks in when you realise that Rupi Kaur’s book of poetry Milk and Honey was on the New York Times Bestseller List for 77 weeks. 77 weeks! Let that sink in.

   

   I’m not going to dump on her poetry. I am determined to not be that petty about anything on this planet. But on that Monday one thing led to another and before long I was watching this video. And then I spent my entire afternoon watching videos by Film Cooper. They are addictive and entertaining, and that’s all you really need to know about them. But the comparison between Rupi Kaur and Andrew Tate was so ridiculous that I started reading articles about both, that’s when I found something really interesting.

   Andrew Tate is Haunting YouTube by Kaitlyn Tiffany

   In particular, users of YouTube’s new-ish short-form video service (obviously built to compete with TikTok) say they haven’t been able to get away from Tate. Although YouTube doesn’t allow users to repost old videos from Tate’s banned channel, people are free to share clips of him from other sources. On Reddit, you can scroll through many versions of the same question: “Is there any way to stop seeing any Andrew Tate content?” You might find some commiseration (“every other clip is one from this moron”), but you won’t find many satisfying answers. Many of the people posting about Tate’s ability to lurk in the YouTube Shorts feed claim they are not doing anything that would indicate they are interested in seeing him. (“Most of the things I watch on YouTube are related to music production, digital painting, some fashion history, asmr and light content to relax,” one Reddit commenter wrote, perplexed.) Others said they are giving explicit feedback that seems to be ignored: “I press ‘do not recommend’ every time I get his content recommended but nothing works. Do I just need to stay off social media until he dies?”

5. What kind of reader am I really?

   Over the years I have swung between feeling guilty for enjoying the commercial fiction like mysteries and romances, and have been overly protective over these books that I love. I have reached the conclusion that… who really cares? Read the books you love. Read the books that bring you pleasure. As long as you’re reading, that’s all that matters! People can have their opinions. (I mean I will still turn my nose at someone reading a Colleen Hoover book on the tube, but, hey, I have my reasons for that.) But you do you my fellow reader. I don’t think its inherently bad or somehow ‘less’ to read a book just for the sake of enjoying it!

   Recently I read two articles about the kind of readers that exist as well as the difference between good taste and bad taste when it comes to literature. I can go on and on about the difference between high art and low art, but I am going to save that for another blog, for the sake of my sanity and yours.

   On the Bad Binary of “Good” and “Bad” Literature by Josh Cook

   Sometimes I do want to tell a reader that I think this book is better for what they want than that book. But declarations of quality, declaring this book “good” and that book “bad” is a fundamental aspect of weaponized good taste, one that brings together assumed authority and those incorrect assumptions of “standard” human experiences. Rather than thinking in terms of “good” and “bad,” I think about books in terms of “success” and “failure.” Does this book achieve the goals I think the author set for it? Does it meet my personal needs? Is it likely to meet the needs of this reader at this moment? What impact could it have on the social, cultural, and literary context in which it exists?

   When I answer those questions, I do so assuming different readers might answer them differently. “Successful” and “failed” are still value statements. I’m still using my expertise in books to assess the quality of books, but “quality” rooted in specific contexts that acknowledges subjectivity is significantly different from a “quality” rooted in an assumption of universal quality. The former rests on acts of influence, while the latter relies on power and authority.

   What is common reader? by Henry Oliver

   Literature can be broad. The more efforts literary people make to exclude themselves from the world of the common reader, or the more they deny that the common reader exists, nebulous a group though it may be, the more they can expect to be found irrelevant.

   Perhaps the real issue is that the common reader today is more likely to read non-fiction, serious non-academic books by experts or professional writers. As Woolf observed, many of these readers will be passing the time (and so what?) but most of them will be trying to learn, to find ways of working or living differently. The room for handing literary culture along the generations is thus somewhat smaller in relative, if not absolute, terms. This is fully within the common reader tradition — think of all those histories, biographies, theologies, books of essays and so on. But the production and analysis of such books is increasingly the job of non-literature specialists.

That’s it for this week. I think there’s a little something for everyone in this list and I hope that you enjoy frolicking through these rabbit holes just as much as I did! Until next time!

In the year 1994, audiences were introduced to six friends. Six, twenty something New Yorkers with messy love lives, massive apartments, unfathomable leisure hours, sarcastic quips, cooky opinions, and so much heart, walked onto television screens and then dominated them for 10 seasons. The same 10 seasons, since their move to online streaming platforms, have meant background work companions, Sunday night comforts, and cozy laughs, for millions of people globally. Even for some who weren’t even born when the show first made its debut with an unimpressive pilot episode and a shaky first season. There obviously is some magic in the tumultuous story of these six gorgeous people, with impeccable comedic timing, that their appeal seems to span over decades. We just cannot get over the nostalgic charm of the 90s sitcom: Friends!

On Sunday I woke up to the news that at the age of 54, Matthew Perry had passed away. Chandler Bing, possibly the most relatable, funny, sarcastic, comforting, spot-on, character to grace our television screens, was no more. This news came almost exactly a year after the publication of Perry’s candid and open memoir about his battle with addiction through the years. In the familiar cadence of the character with the impish grin himself, “Could this be any sadder?” For many, it felt like losing a personal friend. Since for many the fictional Friends of the show have been their constant companions for longer than many real friends.

I started out disgruntled at the idea that the death of a celebrity could overshadow much more pressing news about a genocide in war-torn regions. But soon something struck me, to many people Friends has been the antidote to the loneliness and doom-scrolling filled lives we currently live. It is escapism at its finest, a fantasy that is grounded enough to feel real but still untouched by the political implications of current affairs to provide a refuge. Perry’s death, and even the end to any optimism about sobriety resulting in better things for him, felt like that escape was rudely snatched away from people. It made it a little easier to see posts about Chandler Bing’s awkward, yet endearing, comments overwhelmingly populate my Instagram stories.

In an article from the Slant magazine, Greg Cwik says, “The great appeal of long running sitcoms is a sense of not being quite so alone, watching characters share moments which, by proxy, make a viewer feel like they, too, are sharing these inimitable moments.” The week-after-week affairs of the friends became a way for viewers to find vicarious companionship. Even conflicts, arguments, and even horribly dysfunctional relationships, between the friends in groups of twos and threes, didn’t stop the six friends from snapping back together like a rubber band. The success of this hopeful representation of a friendship between people, not ready to be complete adults and struggling to deal with capital L Life, was largely due to its power to mitigate the loneliness that permeated the life of its viewers.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to make all of us (I am a loyalist when it comes to what show I have playing in the background while I cook, vacuum, and go about the twenty mundane adult tasks that the characters on Friends make look so aesthetic.) sound like a sad, mopey lot. When I say that the show is a cure to the loneliness of the world, I mean it has the same appeal as a well-written dystopia. Friends, in a similar utopian/dystopian sense, has the power to pluck its viewers out of the real world and drop them on the orange sofa at Central Perk. Things go wrong in this world, but only for a few episode arch. People break up only to find their way back to each other. Friends fight each other, only to fall into each others arms, crying, at the end of the 20-minute episode. It is not a bad life to retreat into!

Friends’ lasting charm is a sign that the show has done something right. The sitcom from the late 90s and early 2000s had a formula, not entirely original because its inspirations were obvious even then, that garnered unpredicted amounts of success. For almost two decades now, shows have tried, and failed, to capture the same charm and capitalise on the popularity of Friends. But no New Girl or Happy Endings has made us return to beloved episodes (My personal list includes Monica and Chandler’s engagement, Rachel’s baby shower, every episode with Janice, to name a few.) like the witty dialogues of Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Chandler, Joey, and Ross. I don’t think it is a magic that can ever be recreated, it is time that shows stop trying to.

But this is not to say that Friends doesn’t have its fair share of problems. In recent times, holding the sitcom to the current standards of inclusivity and sensitivity, and criticising it for not meeting them, has become the fad. However, what most of these think pieces fail to acknowledge is that the show, even though its lasting popularity may feel contradictory, is still a product of its time. It is rooted inextricably in its era. It is a piece of wish fulfilment for a particular urban, white, privileged population. Viewers have become aware of the problems in the show only after becoming more aware of the world around them. Only after the audience became more aware of the identities that existed around them, did they start noticing the ways in which the show mocked, or even ignored, those identities.

Fat Monica, the absolute disgrace of putting Courtney Cox in a fat suit and expecting the audience to laugh at the jokes directed at her, (“Someone ate Monica!”, “The camera puts on 10 pounds. - How many cameras are on you?” “Did you eat my Kitkats?”) still has the power to rub me the wrong way after being bullied for my weight as a teenager. The pop culture of the 90s was rife with similar body shaming. It is really not a surprise that we, who have grown up exposed to media from the 90s and 2000s, do not have a good relationship with our bodies. (“Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”, Britney Spears being called fat, Kareena Kapoor’s size zero phase.) Having a positive representation and role model in a popular character like Monica on a hit show like Friends would have been life-changing. Unfortunately, we did not get that. But Monica’s character in the show is one that makes the most sense. Her controlling, and frankly compulsive, behaviours seem like a direct reaction to her former fat identity. (Her relationship with her mother does not help, either!) The character of Monica is an example of good writing, if not a very sensitive and nuanced one.

In a similar vein, Friends has received, some very well-deserved criticism for its representation of the LGBTQIA+ community. The show is homophobic and transphobic. No chance is wasted to use any gayness, or signs of femininity in men, as the punchline of a joke. The character of Chandler’s father is the worst. Ross feeling uncomfortable when his infant son, Ben, plays with a doll instead of G.I. Joe figurines, Ross feeling uncomfortable when Joey asks to kiss him to practice for a role, Ross feeling uncomfortable when they decide to hire an overqualified and frankly angelic manny for his newborn… Actually, Ross Geller himself. (But I’m going to get into that in a minute.) Every joke made on the fact that Ross’s ex-wife, Carol, is a lesbian and left him for her lesbian life partner, Susan (who I absolutely adore, by the way) makes you cringe while watching the show in 2023. Now, I am a strong supporter of the ‘Ross is the Worst’ argument. But can we blame him for being salty towards Carol? Are we forgetting that she cheated on him before springing the news that she was a lesbian and that she was pregnant almost at the same time? She paraded her partner and tried to keep Ross completely out of any decision about his child. Carol and Susan try to relegate him only to the role of a sperm-donor. And yet, the three of them form quite a good co-parenting team (even though Ben does disappear in the later seasons), and he even walks Carol down the aisle at her commitment ceremony when her parents refuse to attend the event. It’s in these moments that we have to acknowledge that despite its myriad of problems, Friends was ahead of its time.

Yes, the show is overwhelmingly white. (The only time I remember hearing the word Indian on the show is when Rachel, disgusted while changing Emma’s diaper, exclaims, “What are we feeding this child? Indian food?”) Joey and Ross both date nonwhite women but it is done without any discussions of the implications of such a pairing. Criticism regarding this move on the part of the directors is justified. But the show was on cable TV in a time when talking about it would not have been possible without it becoming a Special Episode or commentary! Today a show with all 6 main characters played by white actors would not be accepted, but how much of the decision to cast people of colour in main roles is just virtue signalling and how much of it is actual progress? (No, I am not talking about Piers Morgan’s stand on the issue.)

Now coming to the character who I, like many people out there, love to hate: Ross. (I genuinely apologise if this paragraph becomes an excuse for me to bring up all the things I find wrong with this character. At least, it’s better than me writing an entire blog just to do that!) The characters on the show are all meant to be stereotypes: Rachel is spoiled, Joey is a womaniser, Chandler is awkward and sarcastic, Phoebe is quirky, Monica is Type-A, and Ross is the ‘Nice Guy’. Even though the last one is supposed to be the only ‘positive’ trait, that’s the one that riles me up the most. Ross Geller is a representation of toxic masculinity before the term existed in popular discourse.

He is a man-child that refuses to grow up, choosing instead to stay in the comfort of his parent’s approval and coddling, hide behind his nerdiness that he blames for all of his problems even though it is responsible for his success and never seems to come in the way of him getting women, and the disguise of the ‘Nice Guy’. However, his relationship with Rachel, and frankly all the women he’s been with on the show (following Elizabeth on Spring Break, hitting on Charlie while she’s with Joey, hitting on his cousin!! Need I go on?), shatters this image pretty quickly. His jealousy when he’s with Rachel, after pining over her for decades, seems to have less to do with her relationship with Mark and more to do with the fact that she finally is succeeding in the career of her choice. (He accuses her of being a workaholic even though he took her to the museum on literally their first date!) He needs to be the saviour, the all-knowing, advice-spewing, know-it-all, older guy in his relationship. (Therefore, it is not a surprise when he decides to date Elizabeth even though he knows its objectively wrong.) He seems to judge Rachel’s decision-making even before they are together. (Ross’s disapproval of Rachel’s relationship with Paolo even before the incident with Phoebe.)

I can go on and on about my problems with Ross. (I haven’t even started on the fact that Rachel gives up her dream job to be with him, after he literally does everything to thwart her plans instead of supporting her career. You know what? Maybe I should just dedicate an entire blog to Ross Geller.) But the most annoying fact is that Ross is most static character on the show, he shows no growth even after 10 seasons. He believes his actions are right and the writers do nothing to rid him of this delusion. If Monica is an example of logically sensible writing, Ross is the exact opposite.

But despite my mini rant, the fact remains that it is unfair to hold a show that was meant for audiences of the late 90s and early 2000s to the standards of the 2020s.

The show is not meant to be an inclusive, sensitive, REAL exploration of what it means to be a twenty something in New York. It is meant to give viewers an opportunity to sink into a world where none of these concerns exist. The privileged lives of these characters is an escape because of how detached from reality they are. The lasting charm of the show is in that detachment. The characters’ reluctance to grow up, accept the consequences of their adult decisions (Ross dating a 20 year old student, Rachel dating her 25 year old assistant, Joey losing his insurance, etc.) is a relief for Millennials and Gen Zers alike. So I’ll take Chandler Bing posts taking up space and time that could have been given to conversations about Palestine because I know sooner or later people will have to return to the bleak realities of our world. In the same way that our beloved Friends had to grow up. It took them 10 seasons, a privilege none of us have. But they got there in the end and that’s what matters! (Except for Ross.) In the meanwhile, I’ll watch another episode of the show in the background, but this time pay a little more attention when Chandler’s boyish persona graces the screen.

As bonus here’s a really nice tribute to Matthew Perry’s portrayal of Chandler Bing! And it’s about one of my favourite episodes of the show.

I wrote this essay for as a term paper for my Voices in the Archives module during my Masters in Creative and Critical Writing. It also includes a piece of fiction that I wrote for the module. (It just happened to be the perfect segue from my review of Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.)

There are two answers to the things they will teach you about our land: the real answer and the answer you give in school to pass. CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE, Half of a Yellow Sun.

Introduction:

Half of a Yellow Sun (Adichie, 2006) was acclaimed Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s attempt to write historical fiction about the Biafran war, a civil war between Nigeria and the secessionist Republic of Biafra, who declared independence from Nigeria in 1967. The novel is a haunting tale that follows three characters. There is thirteen-year-old Ugwu, an Igbo boy employed as a houseboy by a revolutionary professor, Odenigbo. Next is Olanna, a wealthy Nigerian who moves in with Odenigbo, and Richard, a white Englishman living in Nigeria who falls in love with Olanna’s twin Kainene, in the wake of the devastating violence and trauma of the struggle for free Biafra.

Although Adichie’s family was directly affected by the war, her parents were fighters in the war and both her grandfathers died in refugee camps after the struggle; she found it very difficult to find information when she researched her novel (BBC, 2014). The Biafran war represented the political, cultural and socio-economic conflicts between the Igbo ethnic group and the Hausa-Fulani tribe, the interests of whom were most represented in the federal government. These tensions existed before the formal decolonisation of Nigeria by the United Kingdom, and the roots of the conflict can be traced back to the fact that the colonists created the country to serve imperial interests (Amadi, 2007). 

“...my point is that the only authentic identity for the African is the tribe...I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the white man constructed black to be as different as possible from his white. But I was Igbo before the white man came.” (Adichie, 2006, p.p. 34-35) 

Along with the Vietnam War, the Biafran War was the first to be televised, with tragic images of the massacres and starving, malnourished children reaching a predominantly Western audience.  However, the Nigerian government has always insisted that a hostile international press has grossly exaggerated the stories of starvation and death. Instead, they want to bury the stories since, backed by the British and US government, they want to portray the idea that a united Nigeria is sacrosanct (Meisler, 1969). Therefore, Adichie faced hurdles while researching her novel due to an intentional gatekeeping of information. Gaps exist in official records and authorities have systematically silenced testimonies by victims about the violence that occurred. 

As a result, Adichie had to rely on her family’s lived experiences. However, this also came with its own set of problems. “While I think it is wrong, I do not think it is terribly surprising that I did not learn very much about Nigeria (and the Biafran war) from school and growing up as the daughter of people who survived the war… and were deeply wounded by that war I did not know very much either because they did not really talk about it,” she says (BBC, 2014). 

“Just retelling the trauma may be re-traumatising” (Sunseri, 2020). Although they may be part of family legacies and archives, it is often too difficult to discuss stories about traumatic events. Using them as a source of research can run the risk of doing more damage than the benefits of giving the marginalised groups a voice. The ethics involved, therefore, are tricky. However, most cannot escape these stories because they are often part of the legacy that families pass on. Conflict-related trauma often results in transgenerational trauma. It affects how individuals understand, cope with and heal from trauma, consequently impacting the next generation (King-White, 2022). 

Similarly, in the Indian context, while the impact of the partition of Punjab is well-represented in the mainstream media and official records have concrete numbers of casualties resulting from it, the same cannot be said about the impact of the Bengal famine and partition. While the Government of India has worked extensively to spread awareness about the partition in the North by creating museums and memorials, no such authorised information exists about the violent and tragic history of the East. “There’s a lot of oral history, but there aren’t as many official files, and what official files do exist often remain classified” (Rani, 2018). Consequently, the only way to get any information about these tragedies is by turning to family members that have lived through them. However, culturally people in India are taught to suppress these stories due to a stigma attached to mental health struggles. This silence and lack of acknowledgement further the cyclical nature of transgenerational trauma. 

In this essay, I will engage with Adichie’s attempt to confront the hurdles of epistemic violence and family archives while writing Half of a Yellow Sun. I will compare it with the circumstances in India concerning the tragic history of Bengal.

Epistemic Violence:

In her text, “Can the subaltern speak?” Gayatri Spivak (1988) introduces epistemic violence as a way of silencing the stories of marginalised groups, especially in instances where knowledge and stories are dismissed because the alternative, often Western in her study, narratives are held in higher esteem. Due to this, local and provincial knowledge is disappearing since the most common method of executing epistemic violence damages a group’s ability to speak or be heard. Epistemic violence is central to the lives of marginalised societies because it affects their epistemic exchanges and creates an imbalance in societal frameworks (Perez, 2019). However, this violence is not as spectacular as other forms used to suppress marginalised groups. Thus, any discourse about epistemic violence is virtually missing from the social agenda.

Epistemic violence can be an effective tool to further a feeling of Otherness and fester a sense of community that looks at society in binaries of ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Allie Bunch has classified epistemic violence into three distinct categories: discriminatory, testimonial and distributive. Firstly, discriminatory epistemic violence occurs through dehumanising the out-group when the in-group consider themselves superior. Therefore, leaving the Others out of media and historical narratives. Secondly, testimonial violence occurs when the out-group’s stories are discredited and ultimately silenced. For a successful linguistic exchange, any speaker requires being heard by the audience, and epistemic violence is the lack of that reciprocity (Dotson, 2011). Lastly, distributive epistemic violence is the refusal of education to and about the out-groups since the impact of epistemic violence often spills into spheres of life other than just epistemic matters (Bunch, 2015).

The three forms of epistemic violence together result in the complete Otherness of marginalised groups. The epistemic biases that stem from it get ingrained generationally. It can be reversed only when communities actively engage in non-oppressive forms of education, seek out the stifled narratives and provide a platform for them to reach a larger audience. However, for fear of threats to the existing power structures, the in-group fights to maintain the imbalance.

In Half of a Yellow Sun, Odenigbo, the radical, educated Professor tells his houseboy Ugwu, “Education is a priority! How can we resist exploitation if we don’t have the tools to understand exploitation?” (Adichie, 2006, p. 24). One of the significant reasons why marginalised groups find it difficult to fight the consequences of epistemic violence is that they are unaware of its existence. According to Adichie, the official records reflect the truth only from the perspective of the victors of the civil war (BBC, 2014). In her TED Talk, titled ‘The Danger of a Single Story’ (2009), Adichie speaks about being vulnerable to stories because they shape readers’ worldviews and perspectives. Therefore, when a population is exposed to only one kind of history in the national archives, records, and history textbooks, they get a partial idea of the truth. The truth about any conflict is made up of multiple stories. The whole picture can be painted only when all sides get an equal opportunity to be heard and understood.

Adichie’s use of heteroglossia in Half of a Yellow Sun gives us an all round view of the war from perspectives of people from different races, genders and socio-economic strata. The novel alternates between these perspectives but it is never disjointed because each character has something in common with the other: Olanna and Ugwu are both Igbo, Richard and Olanna both belong to a privileged class, and Ugwu and Richard both look at the world from the a writer’s lens, even though it is initially not evident in the case of Ugwu. What ties all three of them together is their feeling of being an outsider throughout the book. Thus, this novel can be held as an example of how multiple truths and viewpoints are the only way for us to get better insight into a conflict, which is possible if we explore familial archives and consider memory as a source of historical evidence.

Familial Archives and Historical Fiction:

The need for multiple perspectives, especially some that oppose the official narrative, can be met by using familial archives and lived experience testimonies during research. Marginalised groups preserve their stories through traditions of oral history, since they are often excluded from formal archives and lack the power to create their own. However, official records are considered to be more credible than the alternative sources. The education system, archives and our official records are inevitably affected by the biases of those who curate them. Decisions are made about which stories are included, and the personal experiences and history of those with power have a great impact on those decisions. These systems decide the stories that the audience is exposed to, and often represent only the side of the victor. 

By using historical fiction instead of history to voice her family’s stories, Adichie gives them a face and makes them more accessible. “The no-man’s-land between fact and fantasy becomes a fertile territory, a place to explore and perhaps to change the relationship between our public history and our private lives.” (Margaronis, 2018) Fiction can then become an alternative source of information kept from audiences. Adichie’s novel, though historical fiction, provides us with an opposing voice and a context to the Biafran war we were deprived of. 

In the novel, Ugwu acts as a reflection of the readers. Odenigbo encourages him to look for different sources of information to understand the colonial biases that exist. Ugwu goes through a transformation from reader to ultimately writer as he tries to come to terms with the impacts of the war and undergoes the most drastic transformation of all the characters. “For Half of a Yellow Sun, too, reading is transformational in how it provides vehicles for both the reader and Ugwu not only to understand and come to terms with the impacts of the war, but also to enter sympathetically into the lives and the pain of others,” (Boehmer, 2017).

In recent years, an abundance of historical fiction has emerged, especially from countries with a colonial past. However, the opposition to authorised narratives raises questions about the epistemological value of historical fiction. In the postcolonial world no single version of history can be considered as the truth and it is always subject to challenges. “Such controversy demonstrates the extent to which the past is a problem for postcolonial societies – one that shapes how literature is written and read, how novelists choose their subject matter, and how notions of historical truth intersect with aesthetic form,” (Dalley, 2014). In the fictional world of Half of a Yellow Sun, the book The World Was Silent When We Died fills in the gap left by epistemic violence by describing the political forces that resulted in the war and contextualises the pain endured by the characters, and the larger population. When it is revealed that Ugwu is the author of the book the novel has a full-circle ending. According to Kristie Dotson (2011), “Epistemic violence in testimony is a refusal, intentional or unintentional, of an audience to communicatively reciprocate a linguistic exchange owing to pernicious ignorance.” In this case pernicious ignorance stands for any ignorance that harms another person or set of persons. The audience and the writer both have an equally important role to play while dealing with this pernicious ignorance. The biggest question being: Who gets to tell these suppressed stories? This is why the moment at the end of the book when Richard, the representation of the white, colonial figure, gives the manuscript to Ugwu and it is revealed that he is the author it is such a strong statement for Adichie to make.

Context of Bengal:

Based on religion, the roughly drawn Radcliffe line divided the Indian subcontinent into Muslim-majority West Pakistan and East Pakistan, situated on either side of secular India. The effects of the partition were violent in the North. However, in the East, the consequences were long-lasting and continue to have a trickle effect on the politics of the land today. As part of the colonial idea of divide and rule, Bengal was partitioned multiple times, from 1905 to 1971, and this has resulted in cementing the feeling of Otherness between people who culturally and linguistically share many similarities (Banerji, 2022). 

Today, even though the media talks about the porous nature of the border between the Indian state of West Bengal and Bangladesh, they ignore the deep-rooted reasons behind the porosity. Unlike its counterpart in the North, in 1947, the partition of Bengal did not see a clear divide in terms of religion. However, only some official records or government organisations attempt to understand these reasons. Over the years, testimonies by the people who have lived through these experiences have been discredited and silenced. As a result, the animosity between the two groups has also been passed to the next generation. In this case, historical fiction that represents these stifled narratives can be an effective tool to understand the history of the land and the current political scenario, in the same way that Half of a Yellow Sun contextualises Nigerian history. 

Conclusion:

Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun makes no pretence of being a balanced narrative about the war. It gives us a deliberately one-sided view without going into details about the numbers and nature of the casualties. Instead, through this important piece of historical fiction she attempts to counter the epistemic violence that has silenced her family and the group of people she represents in her novel. The novel tells us how the characters felt and immerses us into the pain in their lives during that period of Nigerian history that is not spoken of. Therefore, it is a commendable attempt at preserving her family history while giving a voice to a marginalised out-group. 

In a postcolonial world, it is important to contest every source that claims to provide the whole truth about any historical event. There needs to be a study of who is telling the story and consequently whose story is being silenced. While giving a platform to the silenced stories it is also important to weigh the pros and cons of dredging up the details of traumatic events, especially when it runs the risk of retraumatization.  Still, it is essential that we acknowledge the important role that family memory plays in the quest for finding multiple perspectives. 

Historical fiction is an effective tool to understand contested histories and contextualise them for the present. The advantage for this genre, especially in a postcolonial world, is that it humanises the tragedies of the past. Therefore, the murky history of Bengal can be understood better with historical fiction based on stories that are preserved by families and communities.

NOT HER LAND

CHAPTER 1

1935

By the time Aparna met Shona Pishi for the first time, she had already had one of the most challenging days of her life. Her nerves were a mess. Her heart was beating against her chest as it did after she challenged her brother to a race from the pond to the banyan tree in their courtyard. A thin sheen of sweat covered her brow, and her throat was parched enough that she could barely croak out her name when asked.

“Aparna,” she somehow managed to whisper.

“Will she show me her face? Or do I have to imagine it through that disgusting sari?” 

Aparna almost whimpered at the elderly lady’s brusque tone. Her mother had warned her. Her in-laws were not going to pamper her. She had to develop a thick skin if she wanted to survive in the big house. She had to be ready to suffer through rude behaviour. But most importantly, she had to find her way into the good books of Shona Pishi, the formidable 80-year-old who single-handedly ran the household.

Her mother-in-law stepped in when her fingers shook too hard to pick up the veil that covered her face. She had spent the day being introduced to all the people who inhabited the house, but this was the first time she looked at any of them that was not tinted by the pale yellow of her sari. 

Her mother-in-law had a sweet smile, but it was not reassuring because there was a hint of fear in her eyes when she stepped aside. Shona Pishi sat cross-legged on the four-poster bed. She was dressed in a white cotton sari, her uniform since the day she had lost her husband at 14. Her shorn hair formed a grey cap on her head. But instead of inciting a feeling of pity like the widowed daughter-in-law of Charandas next door, Shona Pishi’s hair added to her formidable nature. 

Every inch of her face was wrinkled. Yet, if you looked carefully, you could see signs of beauty that had been lost to the years and grief. Aparna had heard rumours around town that Shona Pishi had been the town’s beauty when she was a young girl. People from faraway towns would come to the Rai Bahadur mansion with prospective grooms for her. 

Any hint of long-lost beauty was erased when she opened her mouth to speak. Her face crumpled into a frown that showed disgust, “Chee chee chee! The only son of the Rai Bahadur family could not do better than this dark, skinny, ugly girl with a nose big enough for the local strays to take shelter in the rain?” 

Tears pricked Aparna’s eyes, and she felt her lips quiver. Her mother had told her never to directly meet the eyes of anyone in the household, so she didn’t see Shona Pishi’s expression become darker.

“Look at the little Maharani. Crocodile tears at the ready. Come here!” said Shona Pishi. Her words dripped with disgust and derision. The accent differed from what Aparna had grown up talking and listening to. It was posh, the words much crisper, unlike her family and neighbours’ rounded vowels and lilting ends.

Aparna felt someone nudge her forward because her feet refused to acknowledge the command. Her knees shook as she took a few timid steps towards Shona Pishi’s bed and stood at what she considered a safe distance.

“Do you not understand Bangla, or do we have a deaf daughter-in-law? Come here!” 

Aparna felt claw-like fingers wrap around her forearm and roughly pull her forward. A soft yelp escaped her lips even though she tried to control it. She stood so close to the older woman that she could feel her breath on her cheek. Still, Aparna resolutely kept her eyes on her feet. The prickly tears had turned to pools above her lashes, obstructing her view. She was scared of the moment one drop would escape and fall on the white bedsheet of Shona Pishi’s bed.

The fingers maintained their strong hold on her arm. They would definitely leave blue-green bruises on her skin. She felt another hand grab the veil that sat on her head now and pull it down. Exposing her head and hair was breaking another rule her mother had drilled into her head.

“A good wife and daughter-in-law keep her head covered all the time. Take it off only for your husband and no one else,” her mother had instructed her the night before. Many revelations had come her way the night before her wedding but even thinking about some of the scarier ones made breathing difficult.

Shona Pishi clucked her tongue, “Thin hair. She will be bald by the time she has her last child. This is the disadvantage of bringing a girl from a poor house into the family. No money to feed or clothe their child properly. I told you, get Adhiraj married to that girl from Kolkata. She would have come with trunk loads of jewels. What have you got?” 

Aparna’s arm was yanked a couple of times. She had to press her lips together to stop herself from crying loudly as the tears streamed down her cheek. The others in the room stood quietly, afraid to say a word lest Shona Pishi’s spite was directed at them next.

“Girl, do you speak? Say something before I really give you something to cry about,” Shona Pishi spat out.

Aparna struggled to stop her voice from shaking. She could not muster more than a whispered, “Yes.”

“Meek. Weak. Brings nothing more than one gold chain and an earring. Let’s hope she is useful in the kitchen, or she will have to be sent back to the hovel she comes from.”

Aparna was pushed. She stumbled a few steps and then ran the others till she stood behind her mother-in-law, who wouldn’t be any protection against Shona Pishi’s wrath. Still, putting someone between her and the scary woman was nice. Her entire body felt weak. Nothing Shona Pishi had said was a lie. They were things she had heard whispered around town multiple times since the wedding had been announced. But they had never been spoken out loud to her, and she had never been addressed in a tone as hard as Shona Pishi’s.

Done with Aparna and the others in the room, Shona Pishi opened a silver box that revealed treasures beyond anything Aparna had ever seen. Gold necklaces lay entangled with each other. Anklets with ghungroos that tinkled at the slightest touch lay next to earrings that shone. Bangles that were thicker than Aparna’s wrist encircled rings with big stones. Shona Pishi rummaged through them, chewing on her bottom lip the entire time. 

“Take this! It is better than anything you have probably seen in your life. Take care of it. One scratch and I’ll make you earn the money by working on the farms with the bulls,” Shona Pishi held out the most beautiful pair of anklets Aparna had seen. 

They were delicate, the lightest ones in the silver box, with ghungroos disguised as dainty flowers. As Aparna extended her hand towards them, she was afraid that Shona Pishi would pull it away at the last moment and scold her for ever thinking she was worthy of something so pretty. 

When she held it, afraid to even grab it tightly, she was surprised that no one in the room protested at her having it. She pulled it back and stared at it. The room was silent for a moment. No one knew what to do next.

Then with a loud thud, Shona Pishi closed the lid of the silver box, breaking the silence. “Are you going to stand here and gape at me for the rest of the day? No one has any work? Leave!” she commanded.

The people in the room scrambled out. Aparna felt her mother-in-law take her arm, and she was escorted out of the room the way her father escorted her the day she was caught stealing pears from the neighbour’s farm. 

Aparna sent one last look towards Shona Pishi on her bed as they got out. Her heart thudded as her eyes met the startling grey eyes of the older woman for a flash before they turned the corner, and she was out of sight.

CHAPTER 2

1952

Some people believe that the weather on the day that a person is born is a prediction of the kind of individual they are going to be. Mild-mannered adults who live their lives according to the unspoken guidelines of society came into the world with merely a whimper on days that were neither too sunny nor too rainy. On days when everything shook due to violent lashings of rain, and the air was filled with the crackling of electricity, the babies who came screaming into the world would grow up to be individuals that would continue screaming at everything around them, pushing against boundaries and always on the verge of starting a revolution. If this logic were true, the day Kalpana came to the world would have been assaulted by hot winds. The kind that leaves you in a daze. The type of day when the sun could drill holes through your skin just by being strong. Only then would it have been an accurate prediction of her life.

But instead, Kalpana was born on a mild day in early February. A part of Calcutta was mourning about a man being elected to the parliament. In contrast, another part celebrated it as the most significant victory. Labourers were off to work, drinking boiled and re-boiled chai out of kulhads on street corners, while the Babus were at home eating a full meal of rice, dal, sabzi and macher jhol. The recently polished shoes of kids on their way to school steadily accumulated a thick layer of dust as they fumbled through the grime of the city. And in the small room, meant only for the delivery of babies and the recovery of a new mother, in the big Thakur Badi, Amna screamed as her mother’s strong hands kept her in place.

The midwife sat on her haunches between Amna’s legs as Kalpana’s wily legs made their way into the world. The mother’s screams were piercing through the otherwise soundless house, echoing in every corner and making the family members gathered in the main room, waiting for news, wince. The entire purpose of the room, separated from the rest of the house, was to keep all the dirty business of birth away from the rest of the family, especially the men. At the end of all of it, the baby was supposed to be brought, cleaned and wrapped to be shown off to them before being whisked off. But this was Amna they were talking about. The baby of their family. The youngest of three sisters. 

When they had got her married to a man much more than twice her age at the age of 13, it had been a hit to the family. But that was the way things went. Girls got married and went away to live with their husbands. Then a year later, she returned, swollen with a child. The protrusion of her stomach was a rude surprise when paired with the spindly limbs she had yet to grow into. Another scream pierced through the halls, and Amna’s sisters grabbed each other for support. Having been through the same thing before themselves, they knew the unbelievable pain their younger sister was experiencing. A living thing was tearing out of her body, out of the most intimate, vulnerable part of the body, at an age where her body was not meant to accommodate that kind of pain. 

But they also knew that despite the gruesomeness of the process, it was the most natural thing in the world. The birth of a child may not be a pretty thing, but a woman’s sheer ability to bring a living thing into the world was nothing less than a miracle. And Amna would forget all the pain and torture of the last 12 hours the minute she would hold that small child, the perfect child, in her arms. But Amna as she lay, propped up against her mother, drenched in sweat, had no such romantic thoughts about the baby. She hated the parasite that had taken over her life and body for the last nine months. She wanted to feel like her body was her own again, even if a strange man had more of a say on it than she did. Even if the strange man’s family now dictated what she could and couldn’t put into the body. The body would belong to her and not the creature she had felt swimming through her inside, pushing against her organs and making her feel like she had lost all control over her own body.

Even now, as another contraction pulsed through her, she arched up, unable to control her body’s reactions. The pain was searing. All she could think about was the pain. It took over every nerve, every inch of her body and gripped it in its endless torment. “Just a little more,” she heard her mother’s whisper fade compared to the scream that shot out of her mouth. She saw red behind her eyelids. On the next contraction, she pushed because her body left her no other option and the baby slipped out. As the child’s wails filled the room, she sagged against her mother. She felt like the baby in the room who needed her mother’s comforting hug. She sighed with relief as her mother’s cold fingers brushed away the hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. She could feel her eyes closing with fatigue and reassurance in the knowledge that the thing in her stomach was out. 

“You have a beautiful girl,” said the midwife, pressing the blankets into her arms. The white blankets, faded with time and the births of several children before the one currently wrapped in it, did nothing to disguise the blood and gore covering every inch of the squalling thing. Amna recoiled at the prospect of holding the bundle that was supposed to be her child. She went deeper into her mother’s embrace as if the baby, going red in the face by the force of its screams, scared her. The midwife turned to the lady of the house with confusion reflected in her eyes. She had seen countless mothers wait breathlessly for the moment they got to hold the baby in their arms for the first time. Others were scared to hold the baby lest they hurt the tiny thing, but it was the first time she saw a mother look almost revulsed at the prospect of holding her own baby. 

Amna felt her mother’s arms wrap around her own as she urged her to take the baby from the midwife. Her mother said, “This is your baby, Amna. Your child. She needs her mother.” Amna’s body was preparing for another rush of contractions, the brief moment of relief and calm that had come after the baby was pushed out had faded, and the pain was making its presence felt again. She wanted to scream, “I need my mother.” But the pain made it difficult for her to form words or protest when the midwife placed the baby on her chest. She looked into the eyes of the baby, who had finally stopped screaming but now whimpered with her eyes shut tight. There was no rush of unconditional love or maternal feeling in Amna. All there was a resignation to the idea that had only now struck her. The parasite may be out of her, but her body still did not belong to her entirely. The baby in her arms had a claim on it that she would never be able to outrun.

I have written stories since I was a pre-teen. My scribblings started out as poorly written scenes, obviously inspired by the authors I was reading at that point (Enid Blyton, J.K. Rowling, Rick Riordan). I even went through a brief, and maybe unfortunate, phase of writing massy romances on Wattpad, before it was completely revamped. (You might be able to find the surprisingly popular story I published on the platform if you dig deep enough. I would strongly advise against it!) Soon after that phase I started writing slightly more ‘serious’ short stories, with characters inspired from other books that I was reading or movies I was watching at that age.

But it took me a long time to take a step back and really pay attention to the fact that none of my characters looked or spoke like me, they didn’t come from families like mine, and they didn’t stay in cities like the ones I lived in. I was not a blue-eyed, golden-haired 10-year old from my Famous Five-inspired romps. Nor was I a messy bun-sporting, trench coat-wearing, New Yorker like my Wattpad stories would suggest. There is stereotype in the industry that most debut novels by authors are at least semi-autobiographical. We are meant to write what we know best. And yet, none of my characters were Bengali girls with curly, uncontrollable hair, haldi-stained nails, and massive, unruly families, from India.

Now I am someone who has engaged a fair amount with the argument that we cannot only write about our lived experiences. I have yet to really make up my mind about which side of the argument I stand on but I think that Salman Rushdie’s argument against autofiction is quite fair.

However, something needed to change about the stories I was writing. Mainly they needed to stop starring whitewashed characters, who would occasionally slip into Indian mannerisms. (I highly doubt that a 10-year old from the British seaside was ever actually threatened by their mother with a belan.) Around the time that I was doing my Bachelor’s in Mass Media with a specialisation in Journalism I watched Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED video: The Danger of a Single Story.

Her speech highlighted what was missing in my own writing. I was falling into the trap of a ‘Single Story’, thinking that stories about people like me, belonging to families like mine, those brought up in perfectly ordinary middle-class families were not important enough to be written about. There were so many stories that I was neglecting because of the need I felt to fit in with the stories I saw around me.

This is a bias that exists in the world, too. Stories, written by the winners, the rulers, the colonisers (surprise! surprise!) are prominent. They exist in the official documents, national archives, public records, and famous movies. While other stories get hidden and silenced. These are rich histories and personal narratives that never come out into the open. Entire histories, our histories, are kept from us! And the work required to get even a glimpse of them is exponential. The Biafran War, that Adichie writes about in Half of a Yellow Sun, is one such history that is never spoken about, except for when the target of photos of the malnourished children is a white, Western audience.

Richard exhaled. It was like somebody sprinkling pepper on his wound: Thousands of Biafrans were dead, and this man wanted to know if there was anything new about one dead white man. Richard would write about this, the rule of Western journalism: One hundred dead black people equal to one dead white person.

The idea of epistemic violence, with this book, is what I explored in the other essay that I wrote in the first semester of my Master’s. The third book that I reviewed for the #30TubeReads challenge was Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, which segued me perfectly into uploading my essay about novels with unhinged female main characters. So imagine my surprise when I entered a crowded Overground train and saw a woman reading Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This kind of proof that we live in a small world indeed makes me believe that one day I’m going to bump into Eddie Redmayne on the tube. (And then I’d probably ask him why the last Fantastic Beasts movie was such a travesty!) Anyway, back to the scheduled content.

The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is not that the majority of people had no say in whether or not they wanted this new world; rather, it is that the majority have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world.

In Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie masterfully writes the stories of three interconnected people during the violence of Biafra’s struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria. The novel spans an entire decade and gives us both the outsider’s and insider’s perspective of the conflict through its main characters. The novel alternates between the perspectives of the three character, without ever feeling disjointed. Each character has something in common with the other: Olanna and Ugwu are both Igbo, Richard and Olanna both belong to a privileged class, and Ugwu and Richard both look at the world from the a writer’s lens, even though it is initially not evident in the case of Ugwu.

...my point is that the only authentic identity for the African is the tribe...I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and gave me that identity. I am black because the white man constructed black to be as different as possible from his white. But I was Igbo before the white man came.

What ties all three of them together is their feeling of being an outsider throughout the book. Through these characters Adichie tries to push across the message that multiple truths and viewpoints exist about the same historical incident. The only way for us to get better insight into a conflict is by exploring all these multiple narratives. (An idea this book has in common with Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, also a book I reviewed here.)

How can we resist exploitation if we don’t have the tools to understand exploitation?

There is quality to Adichie’s writing, even though it isn’t flawless and seems to lack the polish that is visible in Americanah, that makes it possible to lose yourself in the story. For me this experience was even more drastic because I realised just how little I knew about the Biafran war. In the same way that years from now there will be people who just won’t know enough about Gaza and the Palestinians. In this book Adichie’s tendency to lean towards the melodramatic is especially evident. (There are evil women, a meddling mother-in-law, poisonings, and cheating husbands galore!) But this melodrama does not take away from the importance of the actual tale that Adichie is telling.

This was love: a string of coincidences that gathered significance and became miracles.

More than anything else this book is about identity. Adichie provides a nuanced and detailed explanation of the African tribes, and how crude borders drawn by the British caused extreme violence as the tribes fought for their land. (As an Indian I can confidently say: Been there! Seen that!) And through this discussion Adichie stresses the need to look for different sources of information. Ugwu becomes a representation of the reader in the novel. As Odenigbo, his Master, encourages him to study and look for opposing narratives, the reader is reminded over an over that there is a danger in falling for a Single Story and that the powers that may be will always want to bury some stories that are not beneficial to them or don’t show them in the best light.

This is our world, although the people who drew this map decided to put their own land on top of ours. There is no top or bottom, you see.

Adichie is an exceptionally talented writer and I genuinely recommend Purple Hibiscus and Americanah by her. For other books that discuss the postcolonial repercussions in Africa I think the essential read is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and for a more contemporary option it is Homegoing by Yaa Gyaasi. I personally also loved Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo. Additionally, on the topic of multi-generational stories about historical events that don’t get talked about enough, I highly recommend Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, How We Disappeared by Jing Jing Lee, and A Promised Land by Khadija Mastur, even though they are not about Africa.

There’s a lot more I can say about this novel. That’s mostly why I wrote an entire paper on it! (Shameless self-plug to the next blog!) But that is not to say I don’t have my fair share of problems with Adichie’s ideologies and politics. (Why do some authors ruin their legacy?) Still, I’m glad that the woman, who was so engrossed in the pages of the book that she almost missed her stop, gave me a reason to pick it up once again as part of the #30TubeReads challenge.

I wrote this essay for as a term paper for my Modernist and Contemporary Fiction module during my Masters. I think it deserves to be read by others even if it may not be my best work.

Writing about oneself, one is writing about others, since your problems, pains, pleasures, emotions and your extraordinary and remarkable ideas - can't be yours alone. DORIS LESSING, The Golden Notebook.

I went home and went to sleep. Outside of the occasional irritation, I had no nightmares, no passions, no desires, no great pains. OTTESSA MOSHFEGH, My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

Introduction:

In a letter to her confidante and lover, Leonard Smith, Doris Lessing uses the term 'unhinged' (Lessing, 1946) to describe herself to justify her decisions and actions while questioning the need for such a justification. She also describes herself as ‘selfish, an egotist, polygamous, amoral, irresponsible, unbalanced, and utterly not a good member of society’ (Lessing, 1946). 'Unhinged' is often hurled at women who dare to show an emotion that steps outside the patriarchal society's prescribed bounds. Using it, she rejects any attempts to make herself palatable to the receiver of her letters and, decades later, readers she never wanted. She also refused to make the female characters in her magnum opus, The Golden Notebook (Lessing, 1962), likeable when she presents the 'free women' as raw, unpolished grey characters glorious in their moral ambiguity. She took questions about their identity in society and their struggles with mental health head-on in a decade when such conversations were frowned upon and penalised.

Sixty years later, this move has gained popularity because of a niche group with surprising influence on readers and the publishing industry. The credit for starting trends like 'Sad Girl Books', 'Unhinged Woman Books', and 'Hot Girl Reads' goes to creators on BookTok (videos about books on TikTok) and BookTube (videos about books on YouTube). These genres claim to address an aspect of the human experience reserved for women. These videos and posts, popularly known as 'being in your Fleabag era', named after Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s titular character in her show Fleabag, on social media platforms can garner anywhere from 50,000 to 400,000 views (Shunyata, 2022).

The torch-holders of this genre are authors like Ottessa Moshfegh and Sally Rooney, whose books; My Year of Rest and Relaxation (Moshfegh, 2019) and Beautiful World Where Are You (Rooney, 2021) are at the top of all the lists. However, these novels are criticised for glamorising female suffering and mental illness and actively encouraging dissociative feminism. This essay attempts to draw comparisons between the representations of unhinged women from Lessing to Moshfegh, countering the critics of this trend and the feminist implications. 

Background:

The Golden Notebook was published in 1962, a time 'in which girls were lobotomised if they expressed an ounce of female suffering' (Barriga, 2022). The following year Sylvia Plath published The Bell Jar (Plath, 1963), the archetype of the 'Sad Girl Books' genre.. The emerging genre by its name, instigates a conversation about the gendered nature of mental health representation. However, this is not new. Most prominently in Western culture, madness (called hysteria, melancholy or depression) has been primarily considered a women's issue, regardless of the statistical evidence (Thelandersson, 2017). In the 19th century, medical professionals and sociologists attempted to draw links to the female reproductive system and biological-based gender roles. 

"When in the 19th century, biological-based gender roles came to the fore (work and intellect for men, home and children for women), it was one small step for doctors to declare that any woman who rejected her submissive domestic roles was medically impaired." (Moore, 2021)

Literature and popular culture reflected a similar representation beginning in the eighteenth century. There is a widespread belief that this state of affairs has changed due to the Women's Liberation Movement's work. According to popular discourse in the 21st century, society has managed to meet the most critical goals of feminism, and so it should be glorious to be a woman today. However, the overarching media narrative is that women are unhappy, and the blame lands at the doorstep of feminism (Faludi, 1992, p. 1-7). 

The terminology may have changed, but the sentiment at the core of it remains the same: the onus of women's suffering lies in their fight for freedom and identity. Most novels written by men, pandering to the 'Male Gaze' (Mulvey, 1975) or rooted in traditional ideas about gender roles, represent women using the Madonna-Whore complex (Brownlee, 2020). A female character is either a figure of unflinching purity and respectability or one that fails to live up to these standards and is considered a contemptible whore who dares to show an iota of sexual desire. Then there is the third trope of the 'madwoman in the attic': think of Victorian novels like Jane Eyre (Brontë, 1847), Lady Audley's Secret (Braddon, 1862) and The Woman in White (Collins, 1860), which primarily mirrored Victorian anxieties about inconvenient women that rebelled against the masculine figures in their lives (Bachman, 2017). 

To compartmentalise women into these boxes is to ignore their complexities and reduce them to one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. Take the representation of Mrs Rochester in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre versus modernist author Jean Rhys' (1977) response to it in Wide Sargasso Sea, in which she imagines the life of Bertha Mason. Rhys gives us a three-dimensional character instead, revealing the horrifying reality behind a man's claim about a woman's insanity.   

When women reject restrictive gender normative roles and portray female suffering and emotions, we get real characters. A step in this direction that several female authors have taken involves reclaiming terms like 'unhinged' and its predecessor 'hysterical', which are used to silence women and undermine their emotions. Lessing was one of the first authors to do this, more directly in her correspondence and indirectly in the characters in her novels and short stories, by removing the negative stigma associated with it. These representations are accurate to life. They mirror a human experience, uniquely female, that may be messy and misguided, but most importantly, are relatable because it disregards social expectations. 

Modernism and 'The New Woman':

For several years, there has been a false stereotyping of femininity in society and literature that involved women being weak, submissive homemakers who are merely complementary to men. Since then, gender theorists and sociologists have rejected the claim that the basis of these stereotypes is in the biological differences between men and women. The most prominent work in this field has to be by gender theorist Judith Butler; according to them, gender is neither essential nor biological; it is entirely a performed set of traits giving rise to their Gender Performativity Theory. (Butler, 1997)

As early as 1911, Dora Marsden, in her article 'Bondwomen' (Marsden, 1911), also concluded that women's inferiority is a social construct. However, she argues that the blame for this partly lies with a section of women who instinctively see themselves as inferior. Ellen Glasgow agrees with Marsden and states that a woman's willingness to accept society's norms forms her identity (Glasgow, 1913). Post World War I, the status of women in society changed as they stepped into the workforce and, due to the sudden lack of men, started forging their identities. As a result, the 'new woman' emerged. With financial independence came agency, sexual liberation, intellectual freedom and the realisation that women can be equal to men. This new woman became a source of material for many authors, and modernist literature saw a significant change in the representation of female characters. While female authors adapted quickly to this change, male authors found it difficult to let go of the traditional view of femininity. Even though modernist authors like Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Hemingway found it challenging to break the well-established views of gender roles, they blurred the lines in their most notable works: The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 1925), The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner, 1957), and The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Hemingway, 1961), respectively (Wrenn, 2010). The new woman challenged the male-dominated frameworks in literature. 

According to Susan Stanford Friedman, modernist literature did not emerge only from a particular period in time; it is the literature that comes as a response to a moment of immense upheaval and destabilisation of existing structures (Friedman, 2010). 

"Modernism, for many, became a reflection of and engagement with a wide spectrum of historical changes, including intensified and alienating urbanisation; the cataclysms of world war and technological progress run amok; the rise and fall of European empires; changing gender, class, and race relations; and technological inventions that radically changed the nature of everyday life, work, mobility, and communication." (Friedman,2010)

In the 1960s, second-wave feminists believed that no essential differences existed between men and women; therefore, they demanded a rebellious and deconstructive viewpoint to the fight for equality. As a result, books featured female characters that rejected antiquated ideas about femininity, contradicted stereotypes, and forged identities independent of their families, all while experimenting with form and language. Despite the attempts of these authors, prevailing perspectives about women in literature and society have only changed gradually. 

Feminism and Gender Wars in The Golden Notebook:

The Golden Notebook can be read as a feminist novel even though Lessing herself is critical of the movement and her intention was to write a novel about issues more significant than the sex war. According to Lessing, the novel's central theme is "'breakdown', that sometimes when people 'crack up' it is a way of self-healing" (Lessing, 2013). The Golden Notebook has an experimental structure. A conventional short novel titled 'Free Women' makes up its skeleton. It is divided into five sections, in turn, divided into four notebooks. Each section follows a different part of the character's life. She writes about the character's anxieties as a female socialist author in the black notebook. The red notebook contains evolving thoughts about her communist politics. The yellow notebook consists of the stories she creates from her personal experiences. Lastly, the blue notebook is her diary. 

In the Preface, Lessing says, "But nobody so much as noticed this central theme, because the book was instantly belittled, by friendly reviewers as well as by hostile ones, as being about the sex war, or was claimed by women as a useful weapon in the sex war." (Lessing, 2013) However, this statement ignores that the subject of the novel - the relation between the individual and society - is highly relevant in the contemporary feminist movement. Women have been belittled and victimised because of their lack of social roles and isolation from the more significant political climate. The Women's Liberation Movement's attitude towards this idea is that if a woman is to emerge as an independent individual she must establish this relation to society without interference from men. However, Lessing does not stick to this idea consistently throughout the novel. 

Lessing's angry response to those who held the novel as a weapon in the sex war was to say, "What they would really like me to say is "Ha sisters, I stand with you side by side in your struggle toward the golden dawn where all those beastly men are no more." Do they really want people to make oversimplified statements about men and women? " (Lessing, 1982, cited by McCrum, 2015) Nevertheless, while she says this, critics of Lessing's works have often pointed out that the men in her fiction are painted in the worst possible light and have a limited scope of redemption. Like its author's stance on feminism, the novel's message is complex and sometimes contradictory. However, it is easy to identify the characteristic that made the book a weapon in the hands of strident feminists: Lessing's main character, Anna Wulf.

Anna Wulf says, "I am interested only in stretching myself, in living as fully as I can." (Lessing, 1962, p. 64) According to Lessing, for a woman to live fully, she must also live freely. In Anna, Lessing gives us her conception of a 'free woman'. These women are 'living the kind of life women never lived before' (Lessing, 1962, p. 451). Her description gives rise to a conflict between the way of life she must create to fit her new belief that men and women are equal while battling the profound ideas of women's inferiority. 

Anna insists that her identity be independent of the men with whom she has relationships. However, the way the women in The Golden Notebook look at their sexual relations with men is at variance with their outlook on every other aspect of their lives. An example of Lessing's negative portrayal of men is that all the male characters in The Golden Notebook are afraid of commitment. Where Lessing's feminist stand falters is that the women in the book accept this cruel behaviour as natural and inevitable without stopping to question it. 

Anna is a single mother, yet she refuses to be identified by her motherhood. Her relationship with her daughter, Janet, is ambivalent, and she does not behave in a particular manner to avoid the title of ‘bad mother’. Anna's characterisation shines a light on the frustrations of a single mother juggling her personal needs with those of her child. Anna has agency over her thoughts and actions. And yet, she rationalises the behaviours of the men in her life, especially Michael's response to her maternal responsibilities, by saying, "If I were a man, I'd be the same." (Lessing, 1962, p. 266) The assertion suggests that Lessing believes that biology makes her respond the way she does to Janet, going against the feminist movement's rejection of biological-based gender roles.

As Lessing writes about Anna's relationships, she does not shy away from her sexuality. Lessing believes that women need and deserve sexual pleasure. While Lessing asks "for more physical objectification, rather than less" (Feigel, 2018), she also insists that men look beyond a woman's body and appreciate their minds. This depiction of sexual liberation was one of the significant reasons feminists believed that the novel was Lessing's public declaration of support for the Women's Liberation Movement. Lessing has received criticism for her focus on heterosexual sex and romance. She goes so far as to say that homosexual relationships threaten women's integrity (Libby, 1974).

While Lessing's female friendships are also complicated and messy, the relationships her characters have with other women are the most important in their lives and she explores how these friendships can be a way to extend their being. However, in the end, Lessing's female friendships are always defined by their relations with men. As Anna repeatedly mentions, "our real loyalties are always to men, and not to women." (Lessing, 1962, p. 52)

What makes Anna more unlikeable is that she voices opinions and conducts herself in ways that women are often too scared to because of societal expectations and the fear of being termed 'bad women'. Anna constantly makes decisions that make the reader uncomfortable but what makes her genuinely relatable is that these are decisions that she is uncomfortable with, too. According to Roxane Gay, "Likeability is a very elaborate lie, a code of conduct dictating the proper way to be. The question [of likeability] suggests that characters should not be a reflection of us, but of our better selves." (Gay, 2014) Lessing reclaims this narrative in her work. While writing about Lessing's fictional characters, Judith Kegan Gardiner says, "Lessing sometimes encourages us to empathise with her characters, sometimes incites our antagonism against them" (Gardiner, 1989). However, she never forces them to fit into the restrictive label of likeable. 

Despite this contrary messaging about feminism, what is most important is that Lessing's women are real, not mythical creatures or paragons of virtue one must put on a pedestal. They are flawed in the same way that her female readers are, making them simultaneously despicable and relatable. Lessing's most potent feminist message is that women must look beyond the need to be pleasant, accept the messiness, and live as free women. 

Representation of Unhinged Women in My Year of Rest and Relaxation:

In an interview with Entertainment magazine, while talking about the lack of moral imperative or judgement in her novel, Lapvona (Moshfegh, 2022), Ottessa Moshfegh, easily one of the most sensational contemporary authors, says, "I don't like literature that moralises anything." (Greenblatt, 2022) Moshfegh stands by this philosophy while writing her characters, especially the female ones. Her characters never abide strictly by a moral compass, and her stories do not end on a preachy note meant to give the reader a lesson, even though sometimes her works read like fables.

Not only is Moshfegh's bibliography similar to that of Lessing, with a line-up of short stories and experimental novels, but decades apart, both authors also do not make the reading experience accessible by making their characters pleasant. Moshfegh's characters can be unsettling and may even induce feelings of revulsion. Readers are used to seeing female characters, specifically the central characters of novels, as compassionate beings who behave well. When authors like Moshfegh give us characters, who reject societal norms, we find the experience of reading about them jarring. Moshfegh writes characters repulsed by themselves and repulsive to the readers. In her novel Eileen (Moshfegh, 2015), the titular character constantly studies her 'horse-like face' and 'grotesque figure' in the mirror. She obsessively takes laxatives and then has 'oceanic shits'; she covers her genitalia in layers of cloth and then 'scrabbles to find what is underneath it all' (Moshfegh, 2015). Moshfegh's angry response to critics who call Eileen a disgusting character was, "They wanted me to somehow explain to them how I had the audacity to write a disgusting female character . . ." (Tolentino, 2018) 

The repulsion in My Year of Rest and Relaxation is veiled, arguably thinly. The unnamed central character is thin, blonde, beautiful, wealthy, sophisticated and privileged, yet her actions repulse the readers because of Moshfegh's unrelenting crudeness. "Being pretty only kept me trapped in a world that valued looks above all else," (Moshfegh, 2019, p. 28) says the main character. Moshfegh does not believe in sugarcoating any aspect of the female experience, which brings to mind Lessing's description of menstrual blood and childbirth. 

Reviewers have criticised Moshfegh for supposedly condoning destructive behaviour. But one must remember that when authors depict such characters in their works they do not intend them to be inspirations. Their destructive behaviours and coping mechanisms are not role models. Fiction holds a mirror up to not only the positive things in society but also the negative. Only such representations depict that women are not entirely black or white, they reside somewhere in the grey area, and their personalities are multifaceted depending on their life experiences. Readers and reviewers alike have always made this allowance for male characters in fiction. An unlikeable man is billed as an antihero, but an unlikeable woman is lambasted for her transgressions (Gay, 2014).

In My Year of Rest and Relaxation, the unnamed main character embarks on a year of hibernation-like sleep induced by a cocktail of drugs and the fictional drug, Infermiterol, prescribed by her eccentric therapist. She does this to dull the pain and deal with the trauma of losing her parents. Moshfegh gives us a character that is imprudent, yet we cannot stop reading about her while she goes about this experiment. The novel is set in hopeful, pre-9/11 New York but had it been published at that time or any other cultural era; it probably would not have received the cult-like fame it has. "But it's a dream that's all too relatable in these post-pandemic times, where lockdown, a waning will to work and gnawing existential angst have become familiar parts of the collective consciousness." (Chalklen, 2022) In the post-COVID era when there is increasing exhaustion with the hyper capitalistic girl boss trend, it is not surprising that increasingly women understand the motivations of the unhinged character.

In recent discourse about literature, critics have argued that the term 'unhinged' should not be used for despicable characters in the same way that it is used for characters struggling with their mental health. In her essay, Vera Kurian, author of Never Saw Me Coming (Kurian, 2021a), says, "... we should take a moment and reflect on who is calling any particular woman unhinged. How does any woman manage to stay hinged in a world where she is frequently dismissed, underestimated and attacked?" (Kurian, 2021b) To put both these types of female characters under the same umbrella term runs the risk of furthering the negative stigma surrounding women's breakdowns. However, the term, and by extension, the genre, has moved beyond being just a descriptor for mental state. It is now synonymous with women who rebel against gender normative roles. 

Therefore, Amy Dunne from Gone Girl (Flynn, 2012) is unhinged not only because she decides to frame her cheating husband for her murder but also because she ridicules the 'Cool Girl' trope and criticises men's objectification of women. Irina, the main character of Boy Parts (Clark, 2020), is not unhinged because she takes unethical photos of young boys but also because she flips the assumption that women cannot be abominable. Similarly, Beautiful World Where Are You (Rooney, 2021) does not feature on all the 'Unhinged Woman' lists because one of its central characters, Alice Kelleher, seeks isolation in the wake of a nervous breakdown. Instead, it is because the female characters in this book look at the world and relationships from an unabashedly feminine perspective without living a gender-normative life. Lastly, in Milk Fed (Broder, 2021), the main character, Rachel, is not unhinged because she has an eating disorder but because the book represents lesbian relationships and the complex relationship that can exist between mothers and daughters. 

"I'd wake up to find voice messages on my cell phone from salons or spas confirming appointments I'd booked in my sleep." (Moshfegh, 2019, p. 9) says the unnamed central character of Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation. When the main character blacks out, she rejects the world, including society's expectations of her as a woman in the early 2000s. However, asleep and unconscious, she finds herself adhering to the exact expectations as if they are ingrained into her mind. Moshfegh's representation references the Jungian idea of the collective unconscious. Jung believed that the unconscious mind was inherited from the past collective experiences of humanity rather than through personal experiences, expressed through universal archetypes (Jung, 1947, cited by McLeod, 2018). Moshfegh attempts to point out that we live in a society where it is practically impossible for women to completely withdraw from feminine traits because the patriarchy and gender binary are too deeply rooted. Moshfegh's central character shops for lingerie online while unconscious, even though she finds comfort in the soft cotton of men's pyjamas. She finds that her subconscious self is a conformist who still wants to grotesquely parade herself as a sexual object in front of men. 

Like Lessing's Anna and Molly, the central character of My Year of Rest and Relaxation also has a strained relationship with her friend Reva. "I was both relieved and irritated when Reva showed up, the way you'd feel if someone interrupted you in the middle of suicide" (Moshfegh, 2019, p. 12), the central character says. Moshfegh describes Reva as someone who strives to fit into the label of sophisticated woman, almost going too far to meet this goal and yet she is not a likeable character. By contrasting the two characters and their outlooks towards the world's expectations, Moshfegh argues that there is no winning for women. While some readers might find the main character's decisions ridiculous because she rejects these expectations, they find Reva ridiculous for adhering to them. So Moshfegh's argument is, at its core, the same as Lessing's; to live freely and happily, women cannot keep striving for society's approval. 

What makes the unnamed, unhinged main character of My Year of Rest and Relaxation relatable is not the fact that she decides to sleep away an entire year of her life because that is something she can do because she is a white woman of unavoidable privilege, but due to her rejection of societal expectations. She is so overwhelmed and repulsed by her shallowness that she thinks it will be easier to fall into 'the infinite nothingness’ (Moshfegh, 2019, p. 31) of sleep. "I thought life would be more tolerable if my brain were slower to condemn the world around me." (Moshfegh, 2019, p. 19)

Dissociative Feminism in Popular Culture:

"We know that she performs her pain as if it were a form of art, something outside herself that can be controlled, and yet chooses to revel in it regardless." (Garland, 2022) Emma Garland says this about the women who prescribe to the trend of 'being in your Fleabag era', but her words could be about both the unnamed main character in My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Anna Wulf in The Golden Notebook. This phenomenon of withdrawing within oneself and women revelling in the tragic mess of their lives instead of blaming society's failures for their problems was termed 'dissociative feminism' by Emmeline Clein (Clein, 2019). Moshfegh's main character dissociates when she refuses to confront the issues in her life causing her distress and instead decides to block everything off by sleeping. In a more indirect way, Anna is also dissociating when she talks to Molly about the friction between her desire to be a 'free woman' and the internalised patriarchy holding her back.

Dissociative feminism directly responded to late-stage capitalism's girl-boss feminism as women realised that success was not guaranteed to everyone who worked hard for it because of certain structural inequities that act as disadvantages to specific sections of society. Exhausted with the need to be perfect and functioning under the fear of being called a bad feminist if they put a toe out of line, young girls turned to the idea of dissociation.

In popular culture, the most prominent example of dissociative feminism is in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s acclaimed series, Fleabag. The titular character, played by Waller-Bridge herself, uses dark humour as a defence mechanism against the grief of losing her mother and best friend. She narrates her tragic life experiences with self-deprecating humour and a smirk. At the most climactic moments of her life, she dissociates from the moment to break the fourth wall and talk to the viewers. It is a cinematic portrayal of the mind-body separation of dissociation that young women today use as a defence mechanism. It is only in the show's second season that Fleabag starts dealing with her problems better, and her budding love for an unattainable Catholic Priest stops her from dissociating as he catches her out. The main character realises that true healing can come only through a human connection at the end of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Fleabag comes to a similar conclusion. 

"The logical end of dissociation isn't revolution, it's the void - and that's a very dangerous thing to sleepwalk into, politically speaking." (Garland, 2022)

Critics of dissociative feminism argue that the movement damages the work of the entire feminist movement as, according to them, women get too lost in the performance of it all instead of fighting the very real social frameworks that cause their pain and society's inequalities. Dissociative feminism's main characteristic is passivity. "Passivity is a tenet of white feminism. To be able to approach feminism in a nihilistic way is to be incredibly privileged." (Peyser, 2022) 

Lessing and Moshfegh’s characters are economically and socially privileged, which is visible in their disregard for societal expectations. In the same way that allowances were made for unlikeable men in literature until recently, this brand of nihilistic feminism is an allowance made for privileged women that will not be extended to those without the same privileges. Despite this, readers cannot wholly overlook these narratives since they would fall into the trap they wish to avoid. Fiction cannot be held responsible for finding solutions to all societal evils; thus, it would be counterproductive to succumb to the accusations that these genres are detrimental to the movement. 

Conclusion:

To review, Doris Lessing is arguably the pioneer of a style of writing female characters that is now sixty years later becoming popular with authors like Ottessa Moshfegh. By reclaiming terms initially used to silence women, they are handing over the power to women by allowing them to reject the societal frameworks that have victimised them. The genre, now at the peak of its popularity, also brings forward accounts of mental illness and breakdown where the agency is with the women, which is revolutionary after centuries of men controlling the narrative. 

A reflection of this mindset is visible in today’s popular culture with an increasing number of female characters whose mental instability and misguided decisions are represented unabashedly. At the same time, they are no longer expected to conform to society’s rigid ideas about femininity. There is an increasing acceptance of morally ambiguous female characters which allows there to be a more three-dimensional representation of women. Criticism of the style of writing may be well-intended but fails to acknowledge the fact that fiction authors do not have a responsibility to make their characters role models for their readers. Female characters should be given the same liberty to be misguided that male characters get. Additionally, while dissociative feminism is undeniably a product of privilege,  these stories should not be suppressed due to it. 

While this feminist move has opened up avenues for stories that were previously not heard, there is a long way forward. Readers and the publishing industry must be open to such subversive stories from different strata of society, including voices with significantly lesser privileges. The celebration of unlikeable characters relieves female characters from the pressure of being perfect. In the same way, other groups, for instance, people of different races, castes and classes, also deserve representation that does not compartmentalise them in moral binaries.

Watch this video for an interesting take on the topic.

I, like everyone else I know, have been following the tragic and infuriating events in Gaza since October 7th. Reading the stories, watching the videos, and trying to make some sense of the opposing narratives that are emerging, has been an heartbreaking experience. I can go on and on about my opinions on the whole thing, but I find that futile when voices from the region are being brutally silenced. (Journalists are literally being killed, Pro-Palestine Instagram accounts have been blocked, and a communication blackout in Palestine.) Another example of this silencing is the Frankfurt Book Fair cancelling the celebration of Adania Shibli’s National Book Award finalist and International Booker Prize longlisted title Minor Detail. Almost as soon as this news broke, people everywhere condemned the move and stepped out to buy copies of the book. If this does not tell you the power of the written word and a reader community, I don’t know what will.

A couple of days ago I had a very interesting interaction with a woman on the Jubilee line. While I tried to catch a glimpse of the book she was reading (These Precious Days by Ann Patchett) she was trying to do the same with the book I was reading. To be fair, When God was a Rabbit (by Sarah Winman) is quite an eye-catching name. After exchanging a sheepish laugh I started chatting with her about the books we both enjoy. During the course of this conversation I mentioned always loving the titles published by Fitzcarraldo. Now this is why I love London readers! She told me that just that day Fitzcarraldo Editions had decided to make the e-books of Minor Detail free to download for the duration of the Frankfurt Book Fair. It was a book that I already wanted to read and my interaction with the woman felt like a sign that Minor Detail had to become a part of my #30TubeReads challenge.

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli (translated by Elisabeth Jaquette) is told in two parts. The first half of the book is set in the summer of 1949 in the Negev desert. It is narrated in almost a detached third person voice and follows the commander of an Israeli platoon that has been delegated to patrol the Egyptian border after the announcement of the new Israeli state. The second half of the novel, however, is told in intimate first person. It follows the thoughts, meanderings, and anxieties of an unnamed Palestinian woman, who sets out to uncover the details of an incident that took place in 1949. It is a short book and I read it in one sitting. I think I sat with the feelings induced by the revelation on the last page longer than it took me to actually read the book.

The ‘minor detail’ of the title signifies several different things. It stands for the absolute minute details in which Shibli describes the daily rituals of the commander. In almost identical paragraphs she describes the ways in which the commander cleans himself, his room, and his festering wound. Sentence after sentence paints a picture of the almost mundane activities that the commander seems to go through like clockwork. But at no point does Shibli’s writing get monotonous. Instead the repetitive technique successfully sets up of a seemingly calm pond that is about to be disturbed.

there are some who consider this way of seeing, which is to say, focusing intently on the most minor details, like dust on the desk or fly shit on a painting, as the only way to arrive at the truth and definitive proof of its existence.

After the repeated descriptions of the commander’s schedule, the abduction and rape of a Bedouin girl is almost an afterthought: a ‘minor detail’. Shibli masterfully conveys the message that the regular assault of women was, and still is, so common in war torn Gaza that it is a minor blip in the course of history, considered unworthy of thought or words from the commander or the platoon. This ‘minor detail’ in the course of history is what connects the first half of the novel to the second.

He replies that one day, during a patrol, they found the body of a young Bedouin girl in a nearby well, and explains to me that when Arabs are suspicious about a girl’s behavior, they kill her and throw her body in a well.

In the second half of the novel, the Palestinian protagonist fixates on this footnote in an article written about the platoon and a settlement in the Negev desert and decides to uncover more information about the incident than is available. The incident took place exactly 25 years to the day of her birth, a ‘minor detail’ that causes her fixation with the young girl’s story. This is a date that is mentioned over and over again in the first half of the novel but never in the second half. Shibli once again explores the minor details in history, this time through minute details of every thought that goes through the protagonist’s head as she tells us the story of how the anxious yet curious protagonist goes about uncovering additional details about the brutal incident.

And again, a group of soldiers capture a girl, rape her, then kill her, twenty-five years to the day before I was born; this minor detail, which others might not give a second thought, will stay with me.

This book is as much about ‘borders’ as it is about ‘minor details’. The protagonist has a difficult relationship with borders. But in the course of her story not only does she cross physical borders: that between Israel and Gaza, but also the borders between past and present. She superimposes maps of the area before and after the war, she draws comparisons between the topography of the region, and tries to draw connections between the stories told by different people about the same incidents. In her fixation with one incident, she highlights the social, political, and physical changes that the region has witnessed since the incident itself.

take a deep breath. Well, no going back now, not after crossing so many borders, military ones, geographical ones, physical ones, psychological ones, mental ones.

Another being that crosses that border between past and present, is the image of the dog. The incessant barking of dogs mentioned over and over again in the book is almost like a siren, meant to create a chilling effect and draw attention to the injustices in the book. Shibli’s writing is filled with metaphors like this. For instance, the disturbing details of the commander’s festering wound could be read as a metaphor for the disturbing disintegration of humanity that was a result of the war. Beyond metaphors, Shibli’s writing is also filled with unsettling imagery. In the smell of the petrol that crosses the border between past and present, the spidery web (both real and as a metaphor for fear), and the sand dunes of the desert, her writing creates a discomfiting effect in the readers mind.

The borders imposed between things here are many. One must pay attention to them, and navigate them, which ultimately protects everyone from perilous consequences.

The violence against women in war torn regions is not, in any way, unique to the Israel-Palestine region. In Our Bodies Their Battlefield: What War Does To Women, foreign correspondent Christina Lamb states, "Ever since man has gone to war he has helped himself to the women, whether to humiliate his enemy, wreak revenge, satisfy his lust, or just because he can - indeed rape is so common in war that we speak of the rape of a city to describe its wanton destruction." Rape has been used as a weapon and women’s bodies as the battlefield for the war. Shibli’s exploration of this phenomenon is shocking, yet nuanced.

What makes this novel even more hard-hitting is that it is based on true events. Shibli’s decision to divide the book into two different time periods is representative of the fact that the only way to understand the current socio-political events in the region is by understanding the long history of Israel-Palestine violence. It is not an isolated event and therefore, cannot be judged in isolation from the historical context. This is what makes it even more important that people read Minor Detail by Adania Shibli now as we are bombarded with news and opinions from the region.

Beyond Minor Detail it is essential to read other works by Palestinian authors and give a stage to the voices that are being systemically drowned in the uproar. Some books that I find especially important are: In Search of Fatima by Ghada Karmi, Mural by Mahmoud Darwish, and Salt Houses by Hala Alyan. But here’s a list of other books about the history of Israel and Palestine that you can pick up!

When I read a book like this one I find it difficult to say that I loved it. I thought it was an important book for me to read and I am grateful for the woman on the tube who told me about the free e-book. I just wished I had got her name or social media handle, to reach out to her for more recommendations, if not anything else! I think this is one of the most important additions to the #30TubeReads list.

I read a lot and I like to think that I have got pretty good taste in books. So I knew that at some point during #30TubeReads I would run across someone in the tube who had a similar taste in books to me. And I did. Albeit, it was someone with a similar taste to Diti from 8 years ago. Not to say that I did not absolutely love the experience of reading Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn once again. But some of my enjoyment came from the fact that I was nostalgic for the time that I read it first.

Confession Time: Some 7 years ago, two girls (my best friend and I) were literally thrown out (read: asked to leave, politely) of a Starbucks in Pune for sitting there for 4 and half hours, sharing just one good old-fashioned frappè between them. But their mission for the day went beyond just having a coffee. They were crafting the perfect letters to two authors they thought they were deeply in love with. (In hindsight, I am deeply concerned about my mental stability at that age but I’m going to compartmentalise that for a session with a therapist some time in the future.) They had just finished reading everything written by Gillian Flynn and Sharon Bolton, and they were enthralled.

We did not end up sending those letters. I think I still have drafts of them in a diary from 2016. Since then both authors have lost their shine and charm (because of their disinterest in anything shining or charming). Yet, they remain deliciously dark and devious and the books are still the kind that will keep you up at night to finish them and then for some more time because you cannot get the characters out of your head.

Flynn is most known for the absolute cult classic that is Gone Girl. And for good reason because there are some things about the book and its adaptation starring Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck that live in my head rent-free. (The ‘Cool Girl’ monologue, Flynn’s descriptions of how Nick discovers the extent of Amy’s mastermind plan, the Neil Patrick Harris and Pike scene, and just Pike’s mirror image close-ups at the beginning and end of the movie.) I think that has been one of my Roman Empire books ever since I’ve read it, even though it isn’t one that I talk about very often. I am a snob after all and refuse to admit that I like commercial psychological thrillers, unless I am writing about it on this blog.

This was all my long-winded way of saying that I find Gone Girl a genius example of the genre. But that does not compare to her exploration of the unhinged women in her other works in the same genre. Camille Preaker is unhinged in a way very different from Amy Dunne. She is bleak and traumatised from a very difficult childhood. She has a dark, grey outlook towards life. After the death of her sister, she finds release in marking her skin with words, permanently carving them with the ‘sharp objects’ of the title. Camille is complicated and layered. A protagonist that you cannot completely get behind because she herself is morally reprehensible. But that’s the power of Flynn’s writing. She gives you an extremely scarred and troubled character and asks you to root for her as she lets those traumas influence every action and thought.

A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.

Sharp Objects begins with a sharply witty scene in Camille’s workplace. She is a journalist and her wry editor orders her to go back to her hometown, Wind Gap, to investigate and write about two girls who went missing and were then found dead and without their teeth. Did I mention that she’s just out after a brief stint in a pysch ward? To make matter worse, Camille does not have a very good relationship with her neurotic and hypochondriac mother and still must live with her.

Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women all my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, they have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny plastic hip. Women get consumed.

She also now has a 13-year old half sister who she knows nothing about but feels a sense of sympathy for because Camille is still feeling the repercussions of being being raised by her mother. But when she is installed in her childhood bedroom in Wind Gap she realises that she does not have much in common with her half-sister, who has somehow managed to charm the entire town, and instead finds herself relating to the missing teens.

I just think some women aren't made to be mothers. And some women aren't made to be daughters.

Sharp Objects is a bleary exploration of the scars, both literal and psychological, that childhood leaves behind. Flynn gives you a puzzle to solve and at every turn you feel like you have found the answer. Yet, a few pages later with one small revelation she manages to throw you for a loop. It is not a book for the faint hearted, there are too many graphic descriptions for that. But it is a solid read and a real page turner. It is slow in places, the suspense building in the background, while it seems like nothing is really happening in the plot. However, this is intentional. The book has the effect that it does because of it choppy pacing, without which the story could have been anticlimactic or unsatisfactory.

There was nothing I wanted to do more than be unconscious again, wrapped in black, gone away. I was raw. I felt swollen with potential tears, like a water balloon filled to burst. Begging for a pin prick.

The book is Flynn’s debut. If you have read her other works you can see the places in which she has improved since her first book. I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking that some of the tropes in her work are there just for the shock and disgust value. Her characters are all, unequivocally bad and unlikeable. However, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing these days.

Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes.

“I support women’s rights, but most importantly I support women’s wrongs.” was a quote that I read on the internet a few months ago. As more and more readers reach out for books with unhinged, morally grey characters, I feel like Flynn might just have another day in the spotlight. The main character from Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation does not hold a candle to Camille Preaker. (The rise of the popularity of these book might be the content of many future therapy sessions across the globe but that’s possibly a conversation for another time.) I strongly believe that Sharp Objects must feature on lists of recommendations about such characters and tropes.

They always call depression the blues, but I would have been happy to waken to a periwinkle outlook. Depression to me is urine yellow, washed out, exhausted miles of weak piss.

Post Flynn’s success with Gone Girl several books in the psychological thriller/domestic thriller genre were published with names that featured the word ‘Girl’ to cash in on the former’s popularity. However, most of them (I am looking at you The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins and The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn.) could not live up to the expectations that are set when the author is touted to be the next Gillian Flynn. There has to be more depth to the characters and the psychological elements explored in the book that goes beyond just being dark and bleary. If you enjoy Flynn’s writing I would definitely recommend picking up Now You See Me by Sharon J. Bolton and the entire Lacey Flint series. Another important book that talks about the scars left behind my childhood trauma is My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. In my opinion, Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh is a much more nuanced and gripping example of the unhinged woman trope that is so popular on Bookstagram and Booktok. Two books that shocked me by being devious, yet charming, were My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite and How To Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie. I am giving these recommendations assuming that you have already read Gone Girl and Dark Places by Flynn. If you haven’t, do yourself a favour and pick them up right away!

I actually wrote an essay on the popularity of Unhinged Women Trope during my Masters that I will upload as a separate blog. (Just a shameless plug!)

Third time’s the charm! Although it feels like I cheated because the first book that I enjoyed in the #30TubeReads challenge is one that I have read and loved before. I hope the person reading this book found it has gripping as I did and I’m glad she reminded me of a book that I once loved so much! I might not have enjoyed it as much as younger Diti but I still loved sinking my teeth into the dark story.

If you read my Initial Thoughts about the #30TubeReads, you know that I was pleased this challenge would force me to pick up books out of my comfort zone. This is an example of just that.

Let me talk about the book in question: Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path. (Mostly because I feel guilty for not enjoying the reading process.) Right at the beginning, the book attempts to tug at the reader’s heartstrings. You are forced to admit that life has dealt them multiple hard blows. Winn and her husband, Moth, lose their home and business, their sole source of income, after losing a court case about an unfortunate business investment. As they are still reeling from that shock, Moth’s persistent arm and shoulder pains are diagnosed as a degenerative disease. Winn’s writing shines when describing the heartbreak that comes with the knowledge that she would soon lose her partner of over 20 years to dementia. Only the quietly heartbreaking moments of the love story between husband and wife kept me reading. However, Winn’s writing is also meant to arouse sympathy for their circumstances. Still, something about her repetitive, vague description misses the mark.

At last I understood what homelessness had done for me. It had taken every material thing that I had and left me stripped bare, a blank page at the end of a partly written book. It had also given me a choice, either to leave that page blank or to keep writing the story with hope. I chose hope.

In this moment of bleak hopelessness, Winn and Moth realise they have no other option but to live on the sofas and kindness of their friends and relatives for the foreseeable future. Even after doing everything right for their entire lives, they were homeless, with only Moth’s pension to support them. I would have rolled my eyes at the solution they came up with if this was not a book based on a true story because the couple decided to pack their mere belongings in two rucksacks and go on a walk down the South West Coast Path. Why? I get why escaping from their life could seem like a good idea. I also find some merit in the argument that the walk was something they could do independently when they had no control over any other aspect of their life. But you would imagine that after a degenerative disease diagnosis, they’d want to take a chill pill instead of embarking on a challenging walk and a life of wild camping. Maybe I am just lazy and like modern plumbing a little too much!

It’s touched you, it’s written all over you: you’ve felt the hand of nature. It won’t ever leave you now; you’re salted...People fight the elements, the weather, especially here, but when it’s touched you, when you let it be, you’re never the same again. Good luck, wherever your path takes you.

I am not an outdoorsy person. I’m the kind of person who prefers to carry cans of premixed alcohol and speakers blasting music on every hike. And most importantly, I like being back in the comfort of my home before sunset. So, to begin with, I found it difficult to get on board with the couple’s bright idea based on a book that Winn had once read about a 20-year-old who had done the same walk with his dog. Then, the descriptions began. I like my fair share of poetic descriptions of nature, but when that’s all you get for page after page, you start questioning when it will stop. I tried skimming pages to get to the plot, but after a point, I was not even glancing. I was flipping the pages. Winn’s choice of words is beautiful, but there were too many words, and I would have done better with a stricter editor.

Does it take a time of crisis for us to see the plight of the homeless? Must they be escaping a war zone to be in need? As a people, can we only respond to need if we perceive it to be valid?

In brief breaks between the descriptions of nature and their arduous journey, Winn explores what it means to be homeless. She debunks the misconception that homelessness is a choice; sometimes, it is about the cards dealt to the person. However, Winn attempts to categorise the kinds of homelessness. She constantly looks down on homeless people battling addictions and attempts to distance herself and her husband from ‘that kind of homelessness’. It gets heavy-handed and annoying after the second time she mentions it. I expected the exploration of this social problem to be a little more nuanced, especially since it was finally a part of the book that really sparked my interest.

Our hair was fried and falling out, our nails broken, clothes worn to a thread, but we were alive. Not just breathing through the thirty thousand or so days between life and death, but knowing each minute as it passed, swirling around in an exploration of time.

However, it was unfair of me to expect that from the book. At its core, Winn has written a travelogue, which is not my cup of tea. Additionally, there must be more reason to root for the main couple after the first few chapters. Even the heart-wrenching descriptions of their hunger and trying to make every penny stretch got so repetitive after a point that I could not feel for them anymore. But I could not think for them… As a third-person reader… Why weren’t their kids and friends concerned? I kept getting pulled out of the story because every time the couple was met with a new hurdle, it made me question, with a certain amount of disbelief, why the kids were not constantly in touch with their parents as they embarked on the walk. My Indian upbringing could never!

If we hadn’t done this there’d always have been things we wouldn’t have known, a part of ourselves we wouldn’t have found, resilience we didn’t know we had.

There are some moments in the book, however, that are fun to read. The moment when the seagull snatched a dear piece of pastry hit so close to home. My Brighton traumas were triggered! There were also moments of unexpected laughter as Winn described her encounters with morning dog walkers as she attended her nature’s call several consecutive mornings. How Moth grow stronger and more agile as they cover more ground on the walk was an interesting take on the limitations a diagnosis can impose on a person. The resilience that this book is meant to be about feels highlighted only in these scenes. 

There was quite a lot of the book that I was bored by. But the one thing that was consistently interesting to read was the reactions they were met with from other walkers. Winn complains about how she is mistaken for older than her age; she is in her 50s, and the change in people’s reactions every time she reveals that they are homeless. The shift from the envious glances they receive when the people they meet find out that their aim is to finish the entire path to the looks of distrust and disapproval when they find out the truth highlights the biases that exist in society.

Most people go through their whole lives without answering their own questions: What am I, what do I have within me? The big stuff. What a waste.

The book does pick up pace towards the end, but by the end, I was just waiting to be done with it. It is meant to be a motivating read about the resilience of humans, but it did not manage to do that for me. By the end, I felt cold-hearted because the book failed to move me as much as it clearly did for the hundreds of readers who gave it an exceptional rating on Goodreads.

I’m not a reader of travelogues so I cannot give recommendations to that effect. But I did go through a phase of reading ‘Motivating Books’. (The capitalisation feels necessary.) Several websites recommended The Salt Path as a book for those who enjoyed Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. I think reading the latter is a much more enjoyable experience overall. Educated by Tara Westover was a book that successfully explored the resilience of humans. This might be a controversial opinion, but I thought The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah was an easy read about a complex topic. A good book that discusses the idea of homelessness and displacement from the perspective of refugees is Placeless People: Writings, Rights and Refugees by Lyndsey Stonebridge.

That’s my second review for #30TubeReads! I wonder if the person I saw reading this had more patience than me and was part of the majority that enjoyed the book or was just as bored. Either way, I would not have picked this one if it hadn’t been for her!

When I set myself the #30TubeReads challenge, I was hoping to have a clear judgement about at least the first book I read.

• 10/10 would recommend. 

• Need to give a box of chocolates to the person reading this book.

• Skip this one! 

• The experience was so bad that I hated the person I spotted reading it. 

Any of the above options would have worked. Instead, I’m just confused about the first book that I read. It has resulted in a mixed bag of reactions, which means I am writing the kind of review I hate: very ambiguous. But I’m going to try to do a good job anyway.

Black No More by George S Schuyler is a work of speculative fiction and dark satire about the race problem in America. It is an ambitious classic written by one of the Harlem writers. It explores themes that are, unfortunately, still highly relevant in American politics. When you start seeing parallels between a book written in the 1930s and life in the 2020s, you question how far we have come as a society.

In the introduction of the book, Schuyler explains that the name of the book originates from the then revolutionary product, Kink No More, which was meant to help tame kinky hair and make Black folks in America more Caucasian, however temporarily. This book imagines an alternative world in which a doctor, well, let’s call a spade a spade, a mad scientist called Dr Crookman, finds a way to manipulate the genes responsible for vitiligo to transform African-Americans so they can pass, almost indistinguishably, as white. All this in just three days for an unbelievably affordable price. Obviously, African Americans immediately start saving up to get the treatment, and that’s where the book takes off. 

The happy-go-lucky Negro of song and story was gone forever and in his stead was a nervous, money-grubbing black, stuffing away coin in socks, impatiently awaiting a sufficient sum to pay Dr. Crookman’s fee.

The main character, Max Disher, is a charming Black man who frequents dance dives with his war buddy and pines after the white women who most often reject his advances. The book follows him as he rushes to be the first person to get the Black No More treatment to escape all the disadvantages of being Black in America. After his transformation, Max Disher becomes Matthew Fisher and takes advantage of his new white identity to not only assimilate with the whites around him but also sneak his way into a white supremacist group called the Knights of Nordic, marry the daughter of the leader who once rejected him, and make serious cash out of the same discriminatory ideologies that he was running away from. Credit where credit is due; he is an exceptionally smart guy!

Now he could go anywhere, associate with anybody, be anything he wanted to be.

The book requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief because some things about the procedure are never explained. The readers are meant to believe that the features of the person undergoing the treatment magically change races, too; dialects and languages do the same. If not for the slight hurdle that any child born of a union between a white person and a patient of Black No More will be born Black, everything is perfect. It is an effective assumption since only after this can we truly appreciate the book’s satirical elements. Schuyler’s writing style shines when he attempts to explain these slight concerns. 

The Negroes have disappeared into the body of our citizenry, large numbers have intermarried with the whites and the offspring of these marriages are appearing in increasing numbers.

That was my biggest complaint about the book. The ambitions of it far exceed the execution, which is a shame because Schuyler was clearly a writer capable of enthralling his readers. The first few pages of his describing life in Harlem and the introduction of the revolutionary treatment itself are examples of this. His words bring this world to life, meaning I flew through the first 4 chapters. But then, as he moves forward and tries to fulfil his satirical aspirations, the book falls flat. By that, I don’t mean that there weren’t moments that caught me off guard and forced me to laugh out loud because that did happen quite often. But as he introduces a cast of characters so big that it’s almost like he cannot keep track of everyone, he loses the point he was trying to make. And that’s where the book disappointed me.

There are some scenes that I absolutely loved. There is a moment in the book when Max pretends to be an anthropologist entirely against the principles of Black No More in front of Rev. Givens, the founder of the Knights of Nordic, who at the end of the meeting is highly impressed but still has no idea what an anthropologist is, to begin with. 

Schuyler’s exploration of how black owners of associations and corporations, supposedly against racism, were ultimately reaping the benefits of it is hilarious and sneaky. For example, the scene with the proprietor of a store to make black people appear as white as possible becomes the Vice President of the Race Pride League for the fourth time. 

And, of course, the end of the book might seem simplistic to some. Still, it was hilarious to me as ‘darkening’ became a way for white people to distinguish themselves from those who had undergone the treatment. Essentially, bringing back racism after its supposed abolition. 

What mattered such little things when the very foundation of civilization, white supremacy, was threatened?

And all of this is helped by Shuyler’s style of writing. The book’s central theme highlights how racism is used to divert attention away from economic disparity. The absence of black people unmasks how racial differences keep the masses occupied while the upper class takes advantage of the distraction for their benefit. He’s an astute observer. 

Like most men with a vision, a plan, a program or a remedy, he fondly imagined people to be intelligent enough to accept a good thing when it was offered to them, which was conclusive evidence that he knew little about the human race.

And quite a funny guy!

Schuyler’s satire explores how capitalist corporations take advantage of the race problem. (But a bit further reading has revealed that we should take this with a pinch of salt due to Schuyler’s politics and how that influenced his writing.) Also, there is the apparent hypocrisy in the fact that Max’s desire to be with white women is played for laughs in the book. Still, Schuyler himself was married to a white heiress. There are so many avenues that Schuyler could have explored in the book, which would have probably made the reading experience much more satisfying. Still, he misses the mark because he reduces their impact by barely fleshing them out. The build-up ends with anticlimactic bullet points. I think the most prominent example is his representation of the overall reaction to the effects of Black No More from the white majority in America. 

Before I get into the last point that I’d like to make, I know this book is a product of its time, and I must not judge it by the cultural ideas of today. However, Schuyler’s representation of women kept rubbing me the wrong way. Whether it was that none of the main characters were women, which is still excusable, or how the men in this book speak about women. 

Matthew had won the girl of his dreams and was thoroughly satisfied, except for a slight regret that her grotesque mother wasn’t dead and some disappointment that his spouse was so much more ignorant that she was beautiful.

Some authors explore the grey aspects of life and people. Some divide characters into black and white, pun intended, based on their morals. Schuyler does neither. All his characters are flawed. He will give you a description that is supposed to convince you that the character is worthy of being mocked even before he starts mocking them. It makes for an interesting read but leaves you wanting more substance. 

Several books explore similar ideas and do a better job at it. A recent book that does satire about race in America really well is The Sellout by Paul Beatty. If you want to read Harlem Renaissance writers, I highly recommend Passing by Nella Larsen and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. In a similar vein, though not by a Harlem writer, would be The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. Pick up any book by Toni Morrison, especially The Bluest Eye. And if you like the idea of speculative fiction/non-fiction, I recommend you read Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Sadiya Hartman. 

That’s it for the first book review of #30TubeReads! I would have to thank the person reading this book on the tube for at least introducing me to a Harlem writer I hadn’t heard of before. I wouldn’t have read this book if it hadn’t been for her and this challenge.

I was on an Elizabeth Line tube from Whitechapel towards Central London a couple of weeks ago. Everyone around me was dressed and pre-gamed for fun nights out. At some point, a woman teetering on 6-inch heels and chugging red wine straight from the bottle brushed past me. In the middle of all the chaos associated with the tube on a weekend night, one woman was in her own peaceful bubble. 

She was midway through the chunky classic: The Count of Monte Cristo. Now, that is a dedication that I’m forced to admire. It is not an easy-breezy read that you can make your way through while being distracted by the craziness of the tube. It demands that you pay attention to every word. And there she was, nonchalantly flipping the pages while a group of women headed to a hen party got onto the train.

One of the loveliest things about moving to London was being around people who love reading as much as I do. You cannot get onto a tube at any hour of any day without seeing at least one person flip through a book’s pages. Sometimes, they are thin copies of poetry; sometimes, they are well-thumbed, yellow Penguin paperbacks, newly released hardbacks that some take out from iconic Daunt Books tote bags, and then some casually read chunky door-stoppers. It is a city of book lovers. I subconsciously took book recommendations from the people I crossed paths with for a few minutes on crowded tubes.

Now, let me preface this by saying I am a snob, at least when it comes to people’s taste in books. I might see these people for only a few seconds, but that won’t stop me from creating a story and an image of them based on the books they choose to keep them company on their commute. So, with not much else to do, unless you count applying to 10 jobs a day as work, I decided to set myself a new challenge.

#30TubeReads will be my attempt at reading 30 books I spot on the tube and reviewing them here. I could have made it more difficult for myself by vowing to read the books on the tube, but I decided that I would be taking it too far.

Initial Thoughts:

1. The pool of readers I am attempting to study is varied. For example, the first three books I am reading for the challenge are a speculative fictional satire about race, a true story about a homeless couple attempting to complete the South West Coast Path and a newly released poetry book about going beyond boundaries. I might have a severe case of whiplash by the end of this experience.

2. … which might not be such a bad thing. Ever so often, I realise that I reach out for books in my comfort zone. Books written by authors I know, recommended by Bookstagrammers I trust, and literary fiction I know I’ll love or have already loved. I can’t do that anymore. Every read is forcing me out of that comfort zone. I mean, I absolutely would not be reading poetry otherwise!

3. Therefore, take my review of the poetry book with a massive pinch of salt. But there will be a review! Since that’s the additional advantage of this challenge. I am determined to overcome my procrastination and write reviews for every book I read.

4. It is time I get an answer to how fast I can actually read. Maybe deciding to read 30 books in 30 days in a bit too ambitious. But we will find out!

5. Lastly, you can see my progress with my challenge and how many books I have read for it on my About page.

But till then I decided to collect in one place links to articles that I find interesting every week. In the hopes, that you might like to read about obscure, fascinating things like I do!

1. What to think about the next time you’re at H&M?

   My Indian upbringing means that every article of clothing I own goes through several identity changes before being used as a dishcloth or rug. A little part of me believes that gets me off the hook when it comes to shopping from fast fashion brands. But things aren’t as black and white (shameless plug?) as I’d like them to be.

   What fast fashion costs the world by Ryan Lenora Brown

   Since 2000, the global production of clothing has doubled. Today, the average American buys about 68 new items of clothing a year. Plunge your arms elbow-deep into a pile of jeans at the dunusa, and you’ll find that the thick, un-stretchable denim of vintage Levi’s 501s and ’90s mom jeans is easily distinguishable from a pile of jeggings as pliable as Silly Putty. In the blouses, the silky polyester of ’70s button-downs feels a world away from the gauzy fluff of a Forever 21 blouse.

   But quality is only the beginning of the challenge. Westerners now consume clothing at such a ferocious pace that our own secondhand shops cannot begin to absorb our discards. Today, although we donate only about 15% of our used clothing to charity, domestic thrift stores are still overwhelmed. They can only sell a sliver — about 10% to 20% — of what they receive. The rest is sold to textile recyclers, who turn the lowest-quality items into rags and insulation and press everything else into bales, which are sold to traders across Asia and Africa.

2. People found different ways to cope with Covid.

   Olivia Laing is one of those authors that I’ve always meant to read but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Reading this piece by her, even though it was about a show that I haven’t watched and nor do I intend to, made me want to rectify that immediately. It is a nostalgic read and one that encapsulates the ways in which all of us sought comfort in unusual things during the pandemic.

   True Detective- An investigation by Olivia Laing

   I’d started watching detective shows as a way of managing anxiety, not that I could have articulated it at the time. By the end of the first year of the pandemic nothing felt safe: not a tea party or a train. Storms of panic kept blowing through my nervous system, setting off alarms so powerful it was all I could do not to throw myself to the floor. Hardly any wonder I was addicted to watching scenarios where jeopardy was exposed, then tidied away. There were many procedures I used to bring myself back into working order, the most effective being therapy. By the time I got to “Columbo”, I was getting better. I understood at least some of what had spooked me, and so I could see why this particular show soothed me so much.

3. Women in the Workforce and Remote Work.

   Women are expected to be the primary caregivers to children. (The sentence would have been just as true if I had stopped after caregivers but in this context the last two words matter.) This means that despite cultural changes, technological advancements (like the birth control pill), and changes in workplace culture (hybrid working), women still bear the brunt and their careers are the first to be affected. (It is almost like the system is actively working against us!)

   The Remote Work-Fertility Connection by Stephanie H. Murray

   The digital divide is only one of many factors driving a shift in who is having children. For most of the 20th century, women with the highest level of education—that is, those with the best career prospects—have had the fewest children. But this inverse relationship between education and female fertility is weakening, and some demographers suspect that it will flatten out or even reverse in the coming decades. In some Nordic countries, it already has. To some extent, this shift simply reflects rising education levels; although it was unusual for women to attend college a century ago, it’s the norm now in high-income countries. But the shift is also spurred by rising economic inequality, in which the digital divide plays a part. “The world seems to be moving toward a situation in which affording to have children is for those who are privileged,” Billari said.

   I Tried to Live Like a Tradwife for a Week: Here’s what I Learned by Anne Helen Peterson

   She and her boyfriend have an agreement: He’ll make the money, and she’ll “take care of the house.” And that’s what Kendel films herself doing. She makes the bed. She pops big ice cubes out of one of those silicone trays and into her Stanley cup, then fills it with filtered water. She meditates, runs the dishwasher, and makes a smoothie. She ice-rolls her face, puts on a lot of serums, then dresses in exercise clothes and does a strength workout on the balcony of her luxury apartment. The top comment on one video: “I love your life.” Kendel does all the things you’re supposed to do to look the way women are told they’re supposed to look. But unlike most women her age, Kendel does all these things and she doesn’t have to work. Or, more accurately, if there are some women who are working two, three, or even four jobs—some paid, some unpaid—Kendel is only working one. The job of very hot girlfriend to a very rich man.

   The Other Work Remote Workers Get Done by Stephanie H. Murray

   The appeal of remote work is all too often glossed over as a matter of “quality of life” or “work-life balance.” Those are, of course, important. But that framing also ignores the uncompensated caregiving that Vigil and millions of others provide for America’s young, sick, elderly, and disabled. Their efforts are not just a quality-of-life issue; they’re an enormously important and overlooked part of our economy. For a lot of caregivers, telecommuting allows them to manage a workload that is, if anything, way too big. Remote work, then, isn’t just a question of work-life balance; it’s a question of work-work balance. The traditional conception of “productivity” doesn’t account for this.

   A Nobel for the Story of Women in the Workplace by Noah Smith

   To see how this works, let’s consider that paper, which is entitled “The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women's Career and Marriage Decisions”. In general, if you see a correlation between A) increased birth control use, and B) women getting more education and getting married later, you might wonder which way the causation ran. Maybe women started using birth control because of feminist cultural values, and started getting more education and getting married later for the same reasons? Maybe education would make women want to use birth control more? How do we know that adoption of a technological innovation led to social changes, rather than vice versa?

4. Musings about Solitude.

   Here’s a list of ideas that have always peaked my interest: solitude, seclusion, cancel culture, fame, and exile. Who knew I shared these interests with Rousseau? I don’t pretend to be a very philosophical person but reading this and realising that some of the thoughts that have flitted through my head flitted through the political philosopher’s mind too was quite amusing.

   What Rousseau knew about Solitude by Gavin McCrea

   Rousseau’s expressed distaste for fame and fortune masks an obsession with those whom he believes possess the authority to apportion such fame and fortune. His disregard for the opinion of others is actually a susceptibility to those opinions, a susceptibility of an acuteness that today would be called neurotic. Looking at himself through the eyes of society, he is “a monster,” “a poisoner,” “an assassin,” “a horror of the human race,” “a laughingstock.” He imagines passersby spitting on him. He pictures his contemporaries burying him alive. Rumors about him are, he believes, circulating in the highest echelons: “I heard even the King himself and the Queen were talking about it as if there was no doubt about it.” There is simply no one left in society who does not harbor “some secret animosity” toward him, who does not “take part in the universal conspiracy” against him.

   Responding to these imagined attacks, in the course of his protestations of innocence, Rousseau makes a second discovery. Human judgments, he realizes, are made not about a thing but about one’s perception of a thing: “[I]nstead of me they will never see anyone but the Jean-Jacques they have created and fashioned for themselves so that they can hate me to their heart’s content. I should be wrong then to be upset by the image they have of me; I ought to take no real interest in it, since it is not me that they are seeing.”

5. Not the most Appetising Read.

   There is a story in my family from when I was young that has been narrated so many times that I almost feel like it is a memory now. When I was a toddler my parents once took me to a restaurant and on being served a salad I confusedly declared, “This isn’t food, this is what food eats.” I think I can safely assume that this story reveals that I’m not vegan. But I have always been curious about the green politics of veganism, as well as the ways in which this theory like any other becomes a pawn in the hand of capitalist corporations.

   Open your Mouth to Unicorn Meat by Annie Lowrey

   Until recently, few people were fooled by vegan burgers or expected a cultivated-protein nugget to taste better than chicken. Meat was meat—delicious, ubiquitous, all-American. Fake meat was fake. The bean burgers and not-dogs that began appearing in American grocery stores and on restaurant menus about half a century ago were generally aimed at vegetarians, hippies, and/or health nuts. In many cases, they were not meant to taste like meat; in even more cases, they were not that tasty at all.

   The deepening catastrophe of climate change has made fake meat a matter of moral urgency. By some estimates, 15 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions come directly from animal agriculture. In the late aughts, a number of entrepreneurs cottoned on to the idea of reducing emissions by producing fake meat that carnivores could love. Venture capitalists have pumped billions of dollars into companies such as Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, and Eat Just, which set out to bring advanced materials science to bear on sausages, meatballs, and eggs.

   The Joyful, Punk World of Plant-Based Eating by Lily Meyer

   To say that No Meat Required contains no judgment wouldn’t be quite accurate. Kennedy never blames readers for their present choices, but she has harsh words for big systems: agribusiness, factory farming, the subsidies that hold beef prices down, and the Jones Act provisions that contribute to grocery stores in San Juan that are stocked with expensive imports instead of local products. And although she does not scold her readers, she does want them to see themselves as active participants in improving the way we all eat. In a recent Eater interview, she said that her goal “isn’t converting people to veganism or vegetarianism” but making them aware that addressing climate change—among many other things—“requires the end of industrial animal agriculture,” with its outsize carbon emissions. This awareness prompts another difficult recognition: Early in the book, Kennedy writes that although one person’s consumer choice may currently mean little given the power of the American meat and dairy industries, attending to our eating habits has real value. After all, she argues, if and when food corporations do get forced to emit less, our diets “will change, whether we like it or not. I believe there’s meaning in changing before it gets that bad.”

6. The Era-Defining Aesthetic of “In the Mood for Love” by Kyle Chayka

   This article is a work of art, just like the movie it talks about. I loved the design of it. I loved reading it and I loved its analysis of a movie that has stayed with me for years after I first watched it. The article perfectly describes what makes the ‘vibes’ of In The Mood For Love phenomenal and memorable. It also puts into words, more eloquent than I could have, the Main Character Energy Su and Chow embody. Experience the article! Watch the movie!

   Wong Kar-wai is one director that has always intrigued me. His films are unique, beautiful, and sometimes confusing masterpieces, that reveal new secrets every time you watch them. Why Are Wong Kar-wai Films So Dreamy? is a video that really encapsulates this genius of the director’s work.

Let me say it before anyone else does: I am aware that 6 feels like a weird number to stop at but if I don’t stop myself now I’ll probably keep listing all the interesting articles I have reading recently and this blog will be impossibly long. I hope you have as much fun falling down these rabbit holes as I do!