Hi everyone!
I hope you’ve all been well. I’m rolling Feb and March updates into one post as I might as well at this point — the month has rushed by and work has been super busy but I’ll be sure not to miss any posts in future!
I haven’t started writing the next video yet but I’m starting to feel the itch. I only have a year-long contract for my current job and I’m already seven months into it so although I’ll miss it a lot, I’m hoping to move on to something slightly less intense again later in the year which will hopefully give me more time.
One thing my long commute does give me is a lot of time to read, so I’ve been getting through a fair few books:
The first book I read this year was Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key. The author is a British poet and the book is a sort-of memoir or set of musings on the fact that she’s spent most of her adult life to that point (I think she’s around 40) single. The idea is that the book is structured around Joni Mitchell’s album Blue, one that had a big impact on Key and her developing perception of love and intimacy in youth.
I was really interested in this book in concept and want to acknowledge the vulnerability it takes to share something like this but found it really poorly executed. It’s marketed as a celebration of single life and new perspective on what love is/toppling of the hierarchical view of relationships with romantic relationships being prised as the most important. In reality, the author actually seems less happy that most at her time spent single and it feels like a lot of the book is spent wallowing without any real insights (and this is despite the author apparently actually have more of a wealth of meaningful non-romantic relationships and supportive people in her life than many). The book definitely didn’t have much of a positive spin but even this would’ve been okay if there were a bit more clarity to the message or else beauty in the writing. At risk of sounding harsh, there was neither. It felt far too navel-gazing for me.
The next book I read was The Shutter of Snow by Emily Holmes Colman. This was a bookshop-browsing discovery and I was very excited and intrigued as it’s a fictionalised depiction of the author’s experience of post-partum psychosis and institutionalisation, published all the way back in 1930. What I didn’t realise was that the novel utilises a stream of consciousness writing style representing the author’s own state of mind and is quite abstract. Worth the read for its significance and there’s some very free, creative use of language but not one that left a huge impression on me.
After that I read the classic Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino – there were a few pages I really liked here along with the overall idea of the book but not a favourite. Still glad I read it.
Finally, I just finished Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis. This was unfortunately another dud. I saw it in one bookshop, thought it sounded interesting, read the first page and wasn’t sure of the writing, then ended up buying it anyway after a long time looking around another bookshop on another day. It had been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize and I thought it could be a fun read. I definitely sped through it but have many criticisms.
This is a book about a British lecturer going to work for the UN to deradicalise women who had joined ISIS and been captured, so extremely interesting and made moreso by the author having real-life experience of this (though more from an academic and advisory standpoint than frontline from what I understand). The protagonist has just been broken up with and moves from the UK to Iraq for the job but connects with a young woman at the camp from East London.
This overall hit so many points of interest for me but the book had a young adult tone and took a comedic angle that felt too at odds with the subject matter at points, with some very questionable humour. The protagonist felt ill-formed, overly dislikable, unsympathetic and inept, most of which could be forgiven if intended but I didn’t get the sense any of it particularly was. I enjoyed the first half of the book quite a lot if sometimes against my better judgement and felt a level of investment in the characters, but the ensemble cast was as quickly deprioritised and most of the relationships within the story didn’t get true development. More than anything, the protagonist felt shallow and lacking in self-awareness and so the relationships felt similarly superficial. The pacing and overall roadmap for the story felt confused…
I’m not usually so brazenly critical but this was a poor novel and I question how it was published in this form, if not to capitalise on the shock value of its subject matter, which is simultaneously never actually meaningfully explored (even through the single woman from the camp the novel gives the time of day to). I felt unsure of what message I was supposed to take away. I can’t recommend this one.
I’ve also been to the cinema a few times recently – I was first invited by friends to see the Japanese film Tampopo, which is about a trucker happening upon a ramen restaurant run by a single mother and making a project of improving it. It’s a funny film and an ode, from what I’ve read, to the central role food plays in our lives – the plot is interspliced with sometimes unrelated scenes to do with food in one way or another. Also about food and sexuality? This film is quite beloved but I think went over my head (I am not a film buff). I thought it was fine but didn’t have any strong feelings about it.
Finally, I saw If I had Legs I’d Kick You with some friends who wanted to go. And finally I have something positive to say! This film was excellent. I essentially didn’t know what it was about going in and hadn’t even seen the trailer, though had been warned it was quite intense. It was. The only other experience with media I can call to mind that’s as stressful is Perfect Blue. I felt very glad I was seeing it on a Saturday night and not a day where I had work in the morning. The film is essentially about a therapist whose life is falling apart, and primarily her relationship to motherhood. She’s all but a single mother to a child with a feeding disorder. I thought this was an incredible and sharply honest exploration of the experience of being a mother and how it can contrast with the idea of it – it sent me down a whole rabbit hole of reading about people’s experiences of parenting and gave me real pause for thought thinking about my own feelings about ever being a parent. In that sense, it’s one of the pieces of media that’s had a greater impact on me in recent years. I also found the film fascinatingly psychoanalytic in its exploration of the subconscious, repression and the use of a certain central motif. The two friends I saw it with and I were all lost for words when credits rolled, but all loved it and had lots to say about it. I went on to recommend it to most of my (psychology) team at work lol. Amazing performance from the lead actress. Highly recommended *if* you’re prepared to feel stressed out of your mind and think seriously about whether you want kids!
That's all of this month's updates. Have a wonderful April everyone!