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The Waves

My first Virginia Woolf: The Waves

12 December 201719 June 2018 / thelitbooks / Leave a comment

So, yes, The Waves was my first Virginia Woolf ever. I tried to read A Room of One's Own last year but I wasn't in the best physical and intellectual dispositions to make the most of this reading so I just dropped it. So when an acquaintance suggested that I read this novel which is "a wonderful novel, you'll love … Continue reading My first Virginia Woolf: The Waves

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I haven’t participated in #ourdaughtersdaughterssociety discussion in ages. But reading @theopenbookshelf‘s amazing post (go read it if you haven’t yet!) gave me the trigger I needed. So thank you, @sarahs89reads and @paperbacking for inviting us to reflect on women & developing countries — and I want to make it clear that I use ”developing” only in an economic sense and in no way culturally. . Adichie was the first Black female writer I read. It was my second Copernican, as a white young woman living in a rich country, who had never been taught out of her white privilege. . Discovering novels from Black or coloured writers, I became more aware of the gap between the way PoC and Whites are treated in Western societies. Why I’M No Longer Talking... is an essential read to understand what white privilege is exactly and how we, white people, can become useful allies (not just reminding Black people that we were never slavers and we have a Black friend). . Discovering topics that are tapped in to our contemporary world (thanks @mksreading for the linguistic explanation!) made me receive literature in a completely different way. Finally I read things that mattered in my world, things that made me think in more specific terms than “just” grand human emotions that classics arise in us. Not that I want to disparage classic literature, far from it. But I was at a time in my life when I needed to make sense of why I was studying literature when people are dying under bombs. And studying literature from people as different from me as possible, I became more aware of structural racism, white privilege, and the subdued, pervading racism that even I could express in a joke, “without meaning to”. I am now much more aware of the potentially racist (or homophobic or other -phobic) dimension of jokes and I refrain from laughing at the expanse of other humans. . Anyway, all this to say: read. Read women. Read women from other countries than yours, other races, other experiences. It’s one of the greatest benefits of literature. . . —— #bookblogger #bookfeature #writersofcolor #kamilashamsie #chimamandangoziadichie #readwomen #staywithme #whiteprivilege

Again, it seems that some of you have conspired to make me do the #10thingsthatmakemehappy tag and actually, this tag makes me happy so here goes (in no specific order)! Thank you to @bookishcraft @whatsallyreadnext & @booksonblue for tagging me! . 📚 Books! Pretty books, fascinating books, gripping books, books that make me cry or think or change. . ❤️ The way my boyfriend always succeeds in making me laugh when I’m angry. He’s the only person on earth to manage this feat. . 🙏🏼 My Buddhist religion & organisation, and the way chanting twice a day helps me to be stronger, wiser and more courageous to face the hardships life throws at me. . 💅🏼 Nail polishes. With a slight bias for @zoyanailpolish and pink. (This post is not sponsored. I just want to make it known that they are the best and they are vegan) . 🍓Speaking of veganism... I love a good vegan meal, especially if it has Asian flavours. And growing my own fruits (mostly strawberries atm). . 💞 PINK! Pink makes me happy! . 📑 Achieving steps in my PhD research. . 👶🏼 Babies’ and kids’ laughters. . 🐶 The loyalty and unconditional love of dogs. . 👱🏼‍♀️👩🏽 🙆🏽‍♂️Time spent with friends. . EDIT: thanks to @vidz3, I was reminded that DANCING makes me happy! Couldn’t live without dancing! . Bonus: 🤩 BOOKSTAGRAM! You bookworms make me happy! . . Feel free to join in and share what makes you happy. It’ll make you happy! 🤗 . . —— #bookblogger #bookishfeature #bookfeatures #readwomen #writersofcolour #penguinenglishlibrary #pachinko #senseandsensibilty #janeausten #nabokov #zoya #sgi #happy

We’re on Tuesday which usually means #booksandhotdrinkstuesday but this week we had no question. However, having missed that of last week, I decided to post anyway about last week’s topic, when @katha_logisch asked us about the characters of the novels of our Italian buddy read. . Being a collection of essays, In Other Words revolves around Jhumpa Lahiri’s intimate relationship with Italian (trust me, it is a relationship). There are no characters strictly speaking, except for Lahiri and the Italian language. But as I read (leggo) my way through the book, stumbling on the Italian words (parole), wondering about their pronunciation, glimpsing oh so very quickly to the English right page, trying to recognise grammatical patterns, verbal forms, the strangest thing happens: Lahiri’s journey, learning Italian, becomes a mirror (specchio). I’m not yet halfway through the book and Lahiri’s description of how she navigates her way through this foreign language that seems to have chosen her more than she chose it resembles very much the way I navigate my way through her essays. . Happily for me (perhaps less so for skilled Italian readers), the writing is simple, most sentences are short, and many words recognisable (riconoscibile), at least for a French speaker who can also read Spanish. . At this point, there are three characters in In Other Words: Lahiri, Italian and me. And together, we are interlaced in a linguistic quest that, at times, looks like a battle but that speaks also of a deeper love. Having always wanted to learn Italian, I realise that at last, it is within my reach, thanks to Lahiri’s crossing (traversata). . . —— #bookblogger #bookreviewers #bloggingforbooks #bookishfeature #bookfeatures #currentlyreading #nonfiction #bookflatlay #readwomen #writersofcolour #jhumpalahiri #inotherwords #indianwriters #italianliterature #italian

“Nobody eavesdrop an old lady chatter. To them, it’s all one buzzing noise. They think we’re discussing our knee pain and funeral plans.” Says one of the Punjabi widows who actually loves talking about sex (baby!). . When Nikki, a British Punjabi young woman, takes up a job at the local temple to teach women creative writing, she first has to overcome the shock to discover that these women don’t even know how to write their names, and then the surprise at their determination not to learn the alphabet but to share erotic stories and their most intimate fantasies. A safe space is thus created for these usually invisible and silent women, which is surprisingly refreshing and comical. . Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows is a funny little novel that you might like if you’ve enjoyed Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake or Monica Ali’s Brick Lane. Jaswal’s style is more simplistic though, which tended to make me smirk at some moments when conversations were really too casual, and character development slightly too weak for my taste. . That being said, Jaswal swept me off my feet by interweaving topics that are right up my alley, with a comical aspect and a murder mystery. . Erotic Stories deals with the sometimes difficult transcultural adaptation of immigrants’ children and shows, by drawing contrasts between Nikki and her more traditional sister Mindi, that feelings of belonging and one’s sense of place in between two cultures can only be marked by blurred lines. The murder mystery, more than a background story, also allows Jaswal to tackle a taboo subject and show the fragmentation within a tight-knit community, in which some extreme, traditional and threatening members cannot come to terms with modernisation and life in a western country. . Erotic Stories might not be a masterpiece but it was gripping enough for me to devour it in a few days. It had me think and laugh and even though the writing is not very refined, it is still a good book to read! . . More detailed review on my blog. #linkinbio —— #bookblogger #bookreviews #bookreviewers #bloggingforbooks #bookfeatures #literaryfiction #readwomen #writersofcolour #eroticstoriesforpunjabiwidows #ballikaurjaswal

I am back from holidays and the first thing I did was sit down in front of my computer to review A Short History of Myth, released a few days ago and kindly sent to be my @canongatebooks. . In this short non fiction book, Karen Armstrong, who spent several years as a nun and then left ecclesiastical life to write about religions, relates the spiritual evolution of humanity. In a series of short and chronologically ordered chapters, she retraces the steps that led humanity to be distanced from the myths that helped Palaeolithic men to cope with their reality. She analyses how logos progressively replaced the belief in myths and how this belief in logos, in turn, led to the worst catastrophes that humankind could ever imagine (World Wars, Hiroshima, 9/11, to name a few...). She explains how new myths were created, based on nationality, ethnicity and the exclusion & demonising of “the other”. For her, the solution is at the hands of writers: because they use mythical tropes in their novels, they are the ones who can fill the void that humanity suffers from, as long as these myths engage their readers in an active way, not only as passive consumers. . Armstrong also calls for new myths that would elevate humanity, bring a spiritual revolution that seems necessary to save our planet. I can only agree with this because this completely matches my Buddhist beliefs. I expand a little bit more on this topic in my blog article. . Armstrong’s book’s clear structure makes for an easy and pleasant read. It is pedagogical without being academic nor substandard (at least for someone who knew nothing on the subject). It is detailed but does not burden the reader with too many fine points. It has its own kind of storytelling, which is: how did humankind lost its spirituality, and why and how should it recover it. . Link in my bio for a deeper review, and the only reproach I made to Karen Armstrong’s book. . . —— #bookblogger #bookreviews #bloggingforbooks #bookphotography #currentlyreading #karenarmstrong #ashorthistoryofmyth #canongate #thelitbooks #linkinbio #nonfiction

Today is Tuesday and what do we do on Tuesdays?! We drink hot beverages and talk books. Here is another #booksandhotdrinkstuesday post, a conversation hosted by @katha_logisch who this week, invites us to a loose buddy reading. No specific rule, only that it must be related to Italy. . I had been looking for an occasion to buy In Other Words, by Jhumpa Lahiri, so thank you Katha, for you allowed me to do it without too many guilty feelings! 😅 Lahiri is on my PhD syllabus anyway so I would have had to buy it at some point or another. 😌 . In Other Words is a collection of essays, published in 2015, in which Jhumpa Lahiri, an anglophone, Indian writer, winner of the Pulitzer price, reflects on the process of learning another language. She wrote these essays in Italian, and did not want to translate them herself. To my surprise, the English book comprises both the Italian and the English versions, which is quite fortunate since learning Italian is on my bucket list so... I’ll give it a try and see how it goes (says the girl who only knows how to say “tomato” (“pomodoro”) and “young girl” (“ragaza”). 😆 . So errr... Wish me luck? . . Which books related to Italy would you read? Don’t you think Italy is a fit summer topic or am I being cliché? . . —— #bookblogger #bookreviews #bloggingforbooks #bookphotography #currentlyreading #writersofcolour #jhumpalahiri #inotherwords #italian #languagelearning #nonfiction #vintagebooks #pulitzerprize

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Welcome to this little breathing space! This blog is dedicated to books and literature. Help yourself with a nice cup of tea and dive into my literary world. I’ll be happy to respond if you leave a comment!

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