Wizard of the Crow, by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Oh. My. Gosh. LIFE SOMETIMES, RIGHT?! A few months ago I warned you that I would likely be very busy with my last semester of undergrad, and other things, and that posting would be slow. Little did you (or I!) know, I was actually about to disappear from this blog for months. MONTHS.
I guess the good news about not having been able to do hardly any just-for-fun reading lately is that there’s not very much to catch up on. :/ On the other hand, it’s been really difficult to revitalize my drive to read, which makes me sad. It’s all over now, but I am intellectually exhausted and want to do nothing but watch X-Files (good thing it’s streaming on Netflix!). So, I’m working on that. In the meantime, though, I will try to remember what I can about the last book I did finish, which also happened to be GREAT and will surely remain one of my favorites this year.
Wizard of the Crow takes place in the fictional country of Aburiria, a totalitarian state in which the people suffer under a dictator who squanders all the nation’s resources on a modern Tower of Babel, a structure tall enough to unite The Ruler with the ultimate power and omniscience of God. But he is challenged by a growing number of subversives lead by the unlikely pair of the elusive mystic Kamiti and the practical, confrontational Nyawira. Posing together as The Wizard of the Crow, they begin to diagnose the corrupt government officials and businessmen that seek their help in secrecy with internalized racism and destructive envy of white male power. Finally their reputation leads them straight to The Ruler himself, who is yet to identify them as the source of the political humiliation he is beginning to suffer at the hands of unruly queuing peasants and, worst of all, non-submissive women, in front of his Global Bank acquaintances and the international community at large.
Though the book deals with heavy themes, it is written with a strong sense of humor and never felt anything but lively despite its great length (though I will admit the last hundred pages–of about seven hundred–were a bit pedantic!). I loved his use of magical realism, his dialogue, and especially his female characters. I especially love that they led the resistance by exaggeratedly fulfilling their traditional roles and, later, by establishing an all female people’s court to try and punish perpetrators of domestic violence, revealing links between “the personal and the political”. This kind of satire may seem familiar, but this book feels far from tired.
Though I know little of Kenya’s history, I think it’s fair to read what I do know into this novel. But having just finished a course on the DRC and Rwanda, it seems equally possible to read a bit of post-colonial Africa in general into it. Towards the end, Thiong’o plays explicitly with pan-Africanism, which I think validates that reading. I look forward to learning more about Kenya’a specific past with this book in mind.
Inventive, ranging, and assertive…this chunkster comes highly recommended.
This book counts toward both The Africa Challenge and my own private Kenya project, on which I have fallen far, far behind. Ditto A Year of Feminist Classics, which I plan to catch up on in good time.
Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism, by Barbara Weisberg
In the late 1840′s, Kate (age 12) and Maggie (age 15) excitedly reported that they heard “rappings”, or knocking sounds, emanating invisibly from the walls of their Hydesville, NY home. Not only did the origins of the mysterious sounds defy all scientific explanation, but they seemed to reflect a knowing, responsive consciousness. Tales of the Fox girls’ communication with spirits spread rapidly, and American spiritualism was born. For the rest of their lives as mediums, the Fox sisters spearheaded a movement that would forever change popular ideas about death and the afterlife in both America and Europe, and toured as celebrities in an era when most women were strictly limited to the dependent, domestic sphere of the home.
The Fox sisters pronounced themselves spirit mediums at a time of drastic change in mainstream American life caused by increased mobility, urbanization, religious developments, and problems of social in/equality. These changes prompted Americans to grapple with the following questions (p. 6-7):
Shall we pack our worldly goods and journey westward? Or leave the farm behind and head for the city?
Are our struggles moving us upward on the social ladder, or have our risks only pushed us down a notch?
Is our society advancing toward utopian perfection? Or under new pressures…is it descending into chaos?
Those of us who are women–will we stay placidly at home or step out into the street, into the labor force, into public life?
Those of us who are enslaved–will we remain in bondage or march forward into freedom?
…am I bound for heaven or hell?
…what control do we have over any of our destinations?
Weisberg notes that the Calvinist concept of pre-destination was too unforgiving to satisfy the needs of those so troubled by uncertainty, and a discursive space was opened up wherein “the girls’ appeal surely stemmed in part from the ways they embodied–and intuited–their culture’s anxieties and ambitions” (p. 7). It is little wonder, then, that spiritualism was received most warmly in reformist circles by those already working to stretch the boundaries of society.
Though immensely popular, Kate, Maggie, and their older sister Leah were not without detractors. Indeed, they were subject to a number of invasive investigations, including public searches of their near naked bodies by councils of scientists determined to uncover the secrets of the “fraudulent females” (p. 81). To this day, the truth about the origins of the sisters’ rappings remains unknown; Weisberg engages debate about the authenticity of the events that occurred around the Fox sisters as well as possible explanations for them, but doesn’t dwell on them too much, which I liked. Those lingering questions are intriguing, but there’s so much more to this story worth looking at.
What was most interesting to me were the ways in which the Fox sisters were almost solely responsible for creating a new, public occupation for women: that of the medium. Mediumship was provocative; it took place in close quarters amongst mixed company under dim lights and required hand holding and whispering. It was sexy, intimidating, and provided women an independence through public demonstrations that they might not have gained had they been considered the primary actors in spirit communication and not only “passive media”, constitutionally weak and at the mercy of pushy ghosts. They troubled normative gender ideologies without completely dispelling them. The public was generally ambivalent about them, revering them at times and lambasting them for impropriety at others.
Impressively, Weisberg is able to make sense of the tensions found in mid-19th-century America at large without losing sight of the sisters themselves. As they grew into older, they each experienced the kinds of tragic breakdowns that we’ve sadly come to expect from people who’ve been followed so closely by the media and featured regularly in tabloids throughout the whole of their childhoods, adolescence, and young adulthood. The lively, charismatic sisters eventually fell into conflict with each other (mostly Kate and Maggie with Leah, the significantly older sister who managed their careers before becoming a medium herself and was widely thought to be manipulative and exploitative), succumbed to alcoholism, and died in poverty. Despite the limited knowledge we have of them as individuals, Weisberg highlights what she can of their personalities, lending them strength as complex and memorable people.
Weisberg has written a wonderful biography that manages to tell a story not only about the Fox sisters, who are incredibly fascinating on their own, but also a nation struggling to re-invent itself. The text is littered with fun trivia, too, including the origins of the term “con man” and speculations about the reason for Benjamin Franklin’s status as the most commonly manifested spirit amongst American mediums. This book was the first read for my 19th century spiritualism project, and it was a great place to start. Weisberg provided me with compelling human stories through which to understand the larger cultural shifts that helped the spread of spiritualism and provided an excellent platform, I think, from which to continue my exploration of spiritualism; particularly its gender implications in both the American and European contexts. Recommended for those interested in 19th century America, gender, celebrity, and/or the possibilities of spirit communication!
Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, by bell hooks
Wow. So, after making a quick trip to a cousin’s wedding and having to replace my old computer, it’s been really hard to get back into the rhythm of writing about what I’m reading. It’s been made no less difficult by the amount of school work I need to make up, and by the amount of time I’m spending with my band preparing for SXSW next week. In any case, I woke up early this morning, so let’s see if I can eke out just one post real quick!
Feminism is for Everybody was our first pick for The Year of Feminist Classics 2012. It’s a brief introductory text that covers a number of topics and is both inclusive and honest about the strengths and weaknesses of feminist movement politics. hooks maintains a relaxed tone and seems to speak directly and comfortably to the reader about the relationships between feminism, sexuality, class, race, gender, U.S. history, parenting, love, and more. Short chapters keep the reading brisk and engaged, but remain substantive. In other words, it was a great place to start this year’s project.
hooks wrote this book to be a straightforward primer that would serve to explain some of feminism’s key concepts to the uninitiated or misinformed, and in that sense I’d say she the book is a success. However, it isn’t perfect. I wish she’d done a bit more contextualizing, for example…feminism in the United States didn’t start with the Second Wave in the ’60′s and ’70′s, and this work was very much grounded in a specific era of feminist thought.
On the project discussion page for this month, Amy asked:
do you think this book would convince someone who didn’t identify as a feminist why it is important to do so / that they might want to do so?
I really like what onereadleaf had to say about this. She describes coming to identify personally with feminism as a process, and my experience with it was similar. Many of us have had “click moments”, but for me those had to be followed up by long bouts of introspection and info-seeking before I became comfortable using the term “feminist” to describe myself. So, I don’t know if this book alone would “convert” someone who wasn’t already a feminist or at least interested in feminism, but that’s okay: instead, it works to familiarize the reader with a diverse and conflictual set of related questions and beliefs; to reveal the ways in which the struggle for gender equality is relevant to us all, no matter who we are. It’s a place to start.
But, while I would recommend this to new feminists or people interested in feminism, I would include with it recommendations to more contemporary sources, including blogs. The book is only about ten years old, but as onereadleaf also points out, the internet changed a lot of things for popular feminism and this book predates those changes. The content of the book isn’t outdated because of that, I don’t think, but some of the language marks it as very, very ’80′s to me, which: fair enough! bell hooks is certainly the product of an older time, even if the book is new. I was especially struck by her repeated use of “females” and “males” as nouns, for example, because I only ever see them as adjectives in feminist writing now, IF that. Also, phrases like “white male capitalist patriarchy” are not inaccurate in describing interlinking systems of oppression, but they are just so typically ’80′s (and so typically bell hooks, too). I don’t think these things are a big deal, at all. But they don’t feel entirely current.
And another thing: my recommendations for new feminists or those curious about feminism would need to include specific examples about the ways in which we’re all affected by sexism and the strategies that feminists might use to think about them or act against them, too. hooks is great at introducing feminist sensibility, but she can be very vague about it’s application!
Amy also asks:
hooks defines feminism simply as:
“A movement to end sexist oppression”
What do you think of that…?
I like it. I like that it’s simple and cooperative, rather than individualistic. I like that it’s flexible and open to interpretation. I also like “the struggle toward gender equality”, as it’s more about making something than ending something. I like that hooks argues that feminism is and must always be political, and that she emphasizes activism. I don’t think you have to be an activist to be a feminist, though…unless you consider challenging your own viewpoints, the sexist status quo, and standing up for the gender equality you believe in to be activism 
All in all, I trust and respect bell hooks, and agree with her most of the time if not all (she said something about prostitution in one chapter that made me lift an eyebrow). I think it makes a good introduction to certain feminist issues, particularly those first articulated in the ’60′s and ’70′s which have persisted to trouble us in the early twenty-first century. I would gladly pass it along to those who’d like a primer, but it probably wouldn’t be the only thing I’d give them. A list of other recommendations deserves it’s own post, perhaps one day to come…
For now, please excuse the possibility of another lengthy blog silence. I will try to schedule some updates for when I’m out of town the next few weeks, but no guarantees. I’ve been reading some really great stuff, and can’t wait to talk about it with you eventually!
ETA: OH, I forgot. This book also counts toward the Read and Resist Tucson challenge, as it’s one of the books that was banned there in conjunction with ethnic studies!
Going Quiet…Back Next Week (I Hope)
Hey everyone, just a quick note to let you know that my computer is dead 
I’m also going out of town next weekend, so it might take a little time to get myself all set up with a new one. I’m afraid I’ll be pretty far behind on reviews, both mine and yours, when I get back, but what can you do? I’ll still have intermittent e-mail access, though, so don’t be shy about sending me links to things you think I can’t miss (address can be found at my “about” page), and happy reading to you all in the meantime!
Joining Two Challenges Last Minute
That’s right. At the end of last year, I was aware of few challenges that looked interesting to me, but craving more structured reading I opted for creating two fun projects for myself instead. I’ll still be doing these, but I’m also going to join two new challenges, both because I want to support them and because they overlap significantly with my own projects and with my reading for a Year of Feminist Classics.
The first is Kinna’s Africa Challenge, for which I will read:
5 books. That’s it. There will be no other levels. Of course, participants are encouraged to read more than 5 books. Eligible books include those which are written by African writers, or take place in Africa, or are concerned with Africans and with historical and contemporary African issues. Note that at least 3 books must be written by African writers.
My previously-stated personal goal to read five books by Kenyan authors, and one non-fiction book about Kenya before my travels there next summer/fall, means that if I satisfy those goals I will also satisfy the requirements of the challenge. I’m going to read more than that, though, and include at least one or two books from other countries so as not feel completely that I’m cheating somehow (though I know overlap is okay). I read The Famished Road by Ben Okri last month, too, so I’m already one book into this challenge 
The second I’ll be joining is the Read and Resist Tucson! challenge hosted by Melissa at The Feminist Texican. Like Melissa, I’m outraged about Arizona’s banning of ethnic (Mexican American) studies classes and the subsequent removal of more than eighty books from classrooms and school curriculums–from prominent Chicano/a and Native American authors like Rudolfo Anaya and Sherman Alexie to Howard Zinn and bell hooks–on the grounds that they supposedly:
- Promote the overthrow of the United States government.
- Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.
- Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.
- Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.
The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices, by Xinran
The “opening up” of China in the late ’80′s allowed Xinran, who worked for the state radio system before pursuing a career as a journalist in the U.K., to air a call-in radio show for women called “Words On the Night Breeze”. Nothing like this had existed in China before, and the popularity of the show was unprecedented. Women of all ages at the end of China’s Cultural Revolution, it seemed, were desperate to tell their stories and to listen to each other. This is an assemblage of the stories which most moved Xinran…or most haunted her.
This book was both riveting and harrowing from the beginning. It’s impossible to say anything more about it without noting that it should come stamped with a big, bold, trigger warning for rape, incest, sexual and other graphic abuses of all kinds. As should, maybe, the rest of this post. A girl who hurts herself so that she can stay in the hospital away from her rapist father, who keeps a fly as a pet; a mother who tries for over a week to console her injured daughter, trapped between two walls after an earthquake; sisters so impoverished that they must take turns leaving their cave in the one outfit they share while the others remain naked in the dark: these are the shocking, tearful tales that make up the modern China that Xinran came to know intimately.
Rape. There is SO MUCH rape in these stories, and it’s gruesomely detailed. My stomach did flip-flops as I read, and I thought I might actually make myself sick by finishing this book. There’s no doubt that it’s well-written and entirely gripping, but everyone’s got their limits when it comes to this kind of thing and these stories pushed me a little too far. I realize, of course, that it’s a painful reality that deserves both illumination and confrontation…but these incidents were recreated almost voyeuristically, at times, which made me feel I was committing a further degradation by reading about them. This is an entirely personal reaction, and I don’t feel entirely capable of teasing out what is my own discomfort and what might be inherent to Xinran’s style, but there you have it.
All of these stories, while fascinating in many respects, were cries of silent suffering. Despite the inclusion of stories about women from different class backgrounds, from different regions of China, with different experiences of sexuality and everything else, the presentation of Chinese womanhood that I got from this book was one of pain and horror and not much else at all. It’s possible that I’m being naive: I know little about China or the women who live there. I know these tales of misery and terror are true (though they do read like fiction at times–or am I only trying to comfort myself?) and I’m glad that these voices are no longer hidden–but I kept hoping for counter-examples of happy women, confident women, contented women, even just conflicted women. Surely Xinran must have encountered just a few such women, right?!
A much smaller quibble I had was that I wanted to know much more about Xinran herself. Her story is revealed gradually throughout the telling of others, but it would have been helpful to know more about her from the beginning, so that her own questions and reactions to other women might be put into some sort of context.
So, I don’t know. I started out loving this book, and was really excited about it. A quick look through the book’s reviews on Goodreads suggests that for most readers, that initial mood held them through the end. But it took a heavy toll on me–and I’m sensitive, but not THAT sensitive. Slowly but surely, my estimation of the book sunk. I want to learn more about the condition of women from around the world, even when it’s entirely depressing, disgusting, and disturbing, as it all too often is. But I want to learn more than that stuff, too. In fact, I need to, to get through all the ugliness. I think we all do.
The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy
While I was completely bowled over by Anna Karenina when I read it a few years ago, I was pleased to be able to visit Tolstoy again without having to make such a long-term commitment to him. I will get to War and Peace eventually, but for now I crave nothing more than this short tale was able to provide.
Ivan Ilyich is an ordinary man with average ambitions and realistic expectations who aspires only to live pleasurably and with propriety. As a respected judge, husband, and father, he does his duty and does it well. He bows graciously to the authority of his superiors and enjoys the position of power he maintains in respect to others. He is pleased with himself and with his achievements, until he falls ill as an older man.
Just as there is nothing remarkable about Ivan Ilyich’s life, there is nothing remarkable about his slow struggle toward death. His physical and spiritual decay is monstrous only because it is so banal. Ivan Ilyich considers himself perfectly satisfied in health, but in sickness he questions all the big life choices that have led to the present moment of his dying. He is angry and resentful that he must be a burden to his family, and that, like him, they are unable to fully understand what is happening to him. He sees nothing special in life, yet cannot surrender to leaving it. His last hours are spent producing a terrible scream, an insufferable howling “O” sound that haunts his family for an entirety of three days.
There is nothing interesting about this story, which is what makes it so stunning. An ordinary death is a predictable end to an ordinary life, and yet that ordinariness is itself what is so frightening. What the accused are to the judge, we all eventually become to death (ahem, are you totally bummed out yet?). This is an important reminder for all who can to live extraordinarily; for Ivan Ilyich’s battle is not only against death, but the ways in which it both cloaks and exposes mediocrity in life.
This is an unsettling and articulate investigation of mortality which I’m sure only becomes more disturbing and poignant with time. Recommended, then, with the caveat that this is Heavy Stuff.
…Twitter? *Gulp*
So, here’s the deal. I’ve put off the whole Twitter thing for a while now, and am probably one of the last of my generation (with regular hi-speed internet access!) to do so. I don’t know, I’ve just been stubborn about it! You know how that happens, sometimes? You just decide that you don’t like something for no reason and convince yourself that you’ll never have any use for it?
Well, next week I’m starting a new internship with The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, a non-profit that advocates for small, independent publishers. I’m really excited about it! And one of my Digital Marketing duties is, of course, to tweet for them. So, I’ve made a practice account @bookedallweek. Follow me, if you’d like! Who knows, maybe I’ll even keep the account open a while, if it turns out I have enough to chirp about.
Now, some fun miscellany: The picture I’m using on Twitter is of my bunny, Taco, posing atop my computer case with a paint can and an old copy of The Color Purple that I sacrificed to him about a week ago. He has great taste in books…in NIBBLING them that is! (I couldn’t find my camera, so this dark and fuzzy iPhoto is the best I could do. Sorry!)
The binding on this book fell apart before Taco was able to sink his teeth into it, so no real harm was done to any book in the making of this photo!
I find that it’s surprisingly easy to live with a furry little book-eating monster if I just allow him an old, beat up toss-a-way every now and again to temper his voracious appetite for words.
Under the Net, by Iris Murdoch
Under the Net is a delightful, breezy novel starring Jake Donaghue, a little-known writer who gets by on translation work. When he and his friend Finn are kicked out of the apartment they’d been crashing rent-free, he seeks out his blues-singing ex-girlfriend Anna Quentin in a fit of homeless desperation. So begins a strange series of adventures by which Jake becomes reacquainted with Anna, her movie star sister Sadie, and his old mild-mannered friend Hugo whose philosophical nature he once adored and whom he believes he has regretfully, irrevocably wronged.
Jake is unreliable and irresponsible, perhaps, but completely lovable. He impulsively follows his renewed feelings for Anna all over London and Paris and, in one of the funniest parts of the book, enlists the help of his friend Finn to kidnap a rich bookie’s acting dog to exchange for a stolen typescript at the center of a malicious plot between Sadie and the bookie-turned film investor.
The changing relationships in this novel remind me of the Robertson Davies novels that comprise the Deptford Trilogy, which is high praise coming from me. It’s the mysterious, undefinable and lasting pull that develops between friends, lovers, even enemies, that gives each relationship meaning, and each person meaning in relation to others. It’s as though Jake is searching, throughout the novel, to figure out where he belongs in terms of all these people who have meant something to him…but massive miscommunications and crossed love-lines make the answers to his question that much more elusive. I love how deeply Jake feels friendship; his romanticism is non-threatening and alluring.
This book was fun, lively, and light. I enjoyed it fully, and will be reading Murdoch again soon!
The Famished Road, by Ben Okri
The Famished Road is narrated by Azaro, an abiku spirit child who, according to traditional Yoruba belief, struggles to be born, maintains a close connection to the world of spirits, and is continuously tempted to return to the peaceful, blissful kingdom of the afterlife. Azaro occupies a special plane between life and death, and it is from this unique vantage point that he witnesses the increasing destitution and political violence that overtakes the unnamed West-African city in which he lives.
The book is long, dense and fantastical. I consider myself a fan of magical realism, though I haven’t read any in a very long time. In this case, there were times when that element here was too much for me and it took me a while to become comfortable with the rhythm of the narrative. Once I did, though, I was completely hooked. This story is truly epic. It’s not only about one community or any particular power dispute, but the history of Africa as a whole and it’s continuous attempts at rebirth.
The characters read like vehicles for ideas, which serves the larger purpose of the novel but was a bit distancing for me. I was fascinated by Madame Koto, proprietress of the neighborhood bar who has a mysterious interest in Azaro, and the local photographer, whose work enables visual communication with the rest of the world. But as this is not a character-driven novel, I never felt I learned enough about them. His hardworking parents, and his mania-driven father, especially, made even less sense to me as people.
What I found incredible about this novel, though, was the way in which Okri was able to represent a worldview in which spiritual and material realities exist simultaneously and co-dependently. Historical and political patterns look entirely different from this perspective, as does an imagined future for Africa. The Famished Road was not always an easy read, but it was incredibly thought-provoking and I’m glad I pushed through the difficult parts. This is an ambitious novel of big ideas, and it won’t soon be forgotten.
