“We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him. (...) We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”
If I was acquainted with Orwellian terms such as Newspeak and Big Brother, I didn’t expect so much despair to inhabit the dystopian and upsetting novel that is 1984.
In a post-revolution world, the date of which remains unclear because the Party keeps altering the past and denying changes, Winston, a Party member, tries to make sense of his deeply incrusted instinct that life oughtn’t be like this, that constant surveillance shouldn’t be the norm, that being always unemotional and uncompromisingly devoted to the Party is inhuman. Winston longs to be a human, to hope, to love, to live, but Spies and traitors are everywhere, condemning everybody to an utter solitude.
1984 explores what happens when the few are intoxicated with power, when the mass is carefully kept in an uneducated and economically weak state (sounds familiar?), and when a party controls everything, from your emotions to your daily chores to the past. Winston is a cog in this huge machine and his job, precisely, consists in altering the past according to the Party’s often contradictory’s orders. When history is modified & commodified on a daily basis, truth is diluted. Events don’t mean anything, only what’s left of it on written documents do, and these documents are constantly being re-written. Therefore, only the Party knows, so the Party becomes the truth.
Human landmarks disappear with each piece of historical truth, and Orwell’s obsessive question as to whether we can remain human in such circumstances leads us to the most chilling conclusion. A book that is more relevant today than ever.
Read more on the blog, #linkinbio.
Oh and #zoyarayne is the same colour as BB’s eye. Coincidence? .
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Dear friends I’m back!
The last 2 weeks have been epic, what with my iPhone being stolen (and me thinking I’m above such mundane things as backups, I lost all my pictures), my classes to prep, exams to mark, round-trips to Paris, and the daily chores in-between.... here you are: little time to read, even less to post. But for #ourdaughtersdaughterssociety, @sarahs89reads and @paperbacking invite us to talk about #WOC in honour of #BlackHistoryMonth and I thought I could make a post about my #PhDresearch.
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The stack you are gazing at, friends, is composed of my research books. My tentative title is: “towards transculturalism: the representation of alterity in the works of Adichie, Ali, Lahiri & Smith.” My very basic question at first was: how do we meet, genuinely meet, one another, when despite sharing the same language, we don’t have the same culture, hence the same frame informing the way we see the world? From this starting point, I wandered, and I am now trying to untangle a contradiction I see in the beautiful, humanistic but also optimistic definition of transculturalism by a Russian literary theorist and the representations of alterity and of transculturalism in the novels & short stories of these female writers.
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Because I only study female writers (I don’t know how this happened because I wasn’t consciously AGAINST including male writers), I will get to explore issues of intersectionality: how is society doubly punishing you when you’ve been, as Trevor Noah would say, “born a crime”, that is: woman and coloured.
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I’m exploring different cultures, from the Caribbeans to Nigeria to India and Bangladesh, different religions, and focusing on the migration to the US or the UK, and on the troubles it causes in one’s sense of belonging.
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All these ideas fascinate and passionate me. Now, writing an insightful, structured, well-developed dissertation will be another matter but... I shall not be defeated!
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#zoyairis is in the background for you to keep on admiring!
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This picture was initially taken for #ourdaughtersdaughterssociety, hosted by @sarahs89reads and @paperbacking, in which we were to talk about our anticipated feminist reads, and I thought I would pay a tribute to the women I read, here, on bookstagram.
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Today was my special day, and I received lots of messages from friends, old and new, and from my family. One of these messages, this morning, upset me so much that I cried, crushed by an immense sadness, for a long while. I saved myself from drowning in tears like every workaholic does: I worked. The sadness was washed away and I had the loveliest evening with my brother.
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But what happened here, on this virtual platform, this space that doesn’t exist but on my screen yet brings me so much joy, is yet another thing. Love pouring from all over the world, messages, wishes, recommendations, shoutouts, kindness, support. You, fellow book readers, amazing, smart, courageous women (for mostly you are women), you who illuminate my days and shorten my nights (😂), THANK YOU. I can’t name all of you, you know who you are. Thank you for being such special friends, for opening me up to the world. Alliances of women from all races and origins are the strongest ones, and I’m not saying this to be “marketable”, I truly believe it.
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New followers: hello and thank you for trusting me! I hope you are here to stay!
I will most certainly host a birthday-thank-you-giveaway soon. Is there a special book you would like to see?
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Too busy watching the snow fall, I couldn’t post earlier my #booksandhotdrinkstuesday post: @katha_logisch asks us today if we read theatre.
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Now let me tell you an absolute secret. I adore acting. I actually wanted to be an actress, back in the time when these dreams were allowed. But as much as I love acting, I hate reading plays. As @kemysbookshelf put it, the texts seem dry, empty, like clothes waiting to be filled by bodies and voices.
And as much as I love acting, I don’t like going to the theatre much. I’m more fascinated by the illusion of reality better, represented in movies, than the obvious acting techniques developed on stage. So I’m a picky spectator. However, and that’s very unoriginal, I do appreciate the classical staging of la Comédie Française, especially in comedies. Their antics will always make me laugh.
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There are very few playwrights whose texts I enjoy. One of them is Beckett. How not to admire Beckett’s volubility, Beckett’s poetry, Beckett’s philosophy, Beckett’s humour, Beckett’s despair, condensed in his plays? How not to want to read, pause, ponder, re-read and savour each sentence? .
Finally, one of the rare plays that I truly enjoyed reading (not Racine, not Molière, not Corneille, Marivaux only on a good day) is Isaac de Benserade. This forgotten playwright rewrote Iphis and Iante in the most sassy & hilarious manner. Reading it filled me with delight — a delight of which I was remembered when I read Ali Smith’s rewriting of this fascinating myth, Girl Meets Boy (see further down my feed for review).
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And you? Do you, can you read theatre?
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Despite the 70-ish unread books I own. Despite my packed reading plan. Despite my many readalongs. Despite my dying bank account... I ordered my copy of The Things I Would Tell You.
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I’ve been meaning to read it ever since @sofia_reading mentioned it in one of her stories (highlighted, I think). I will need it for my PhD and I’m beyond excited to dive into Muslim women texts, which I have never read yet. AND, it’s @oursharedshelf’s choice for January and February. Anything that @emmawatson chooses, I am bound to love.
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I want to warmly thank Chloé from @saqibooks for helping me placing my order. Rarely have I been such a liability. I mixed up “State” and “Country” and wrote an email to ask if they shipped to France (I know. I know.🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️), and then I made no less than THREE mistakes in the address, sending panicked emails to Chloé who kindly corrected them (on a Saturday!). Chloé, if you rolled your eyes more than once, I totally understand you. Still, Chloé wrote a personal message for me, and added this adorable bookmark. You’ve gotta love these indie publishers! Thank you Chloé!!
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Will you take part in @oursharedshelf’s book club? I sure took the book with me to Paris (along with three others because you never know in which mood you will be!).
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Happy Sunday peeps!
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Mrs Dalloway was my second attempt with Virginia Woolf and once again, I was not disappointed for having given a writer a second chance. This novel is so rich, dense and intense that one read is not enough to properly acknowledge its qualities, but I’ll try nonetheless.
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Knowing that the novel takes place during one day, we mustn’t expect much about the plot and indeed, Woolf quickly enthralls you by placing you in the centre of consciousness of her characters. You are immediately captivated by the mesmerising effects of familiarity and utter strangeness. Woolf’s writing is about itself: while almost nothing happens, you are fascinated by the precision, the lyricism, the poetry, the realism. Facts remain between brackets. You are invited into the intimacy of Mrs Dalloway, Septimus Warren Smith and other characters, and they provide a filter to reality.
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The forces of life and death occupy the novel, knotting a tension that seemingly opposes the main characters, Clarissa and Septimus. Clarissa would be on the luminous life side, buying flowers, preparing the night’s festivities, while Septimus, who hears voices, who can’t feel anymore, who can’t bear the weight of life, lurks on the death’s side. But this stark opposition crackles when we get to know each character better, when we understand that the same depression threatens them, and that both had to repress homosexual loves because of social conventions.
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The Big Ben, striking the hours regularly, mechanically, unemotionally, reminds everyone, reader included, that time moves on, inexorably and that if time is passing and death approaches, life goes on, too.
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More detailed review on the blog. #linkinbio
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