Hello!!!
First post, inspired by a multitude of things. I recently saw a tweet (that I cannot for the life of me find again) where somebody said that they missed early 2000s blogging, where it felt like typing into a void — no expectations about followers, readers, stats, ‘reach’, etc. That’s part of the reason why I loved Imogen Binnie’s Nevada so much; her protagonist blogs and doesn’t really care who reads it, she just needs somewhere to put her thoughts. I guess that’s what I’m looking for here, just somewhere to type out my thoughts on the thing that takes up like 90% of my free time — reading, book culture, criticism, and so forth. Usually I do that on twitter, but I’m kind of off socials at the moment and I’m also conscious of how aware I am of likes and engagement in those kinds of spaces. This isn’t devoid of all of that but I won’t have someone immediately ready to brawl with me because I said someone’s book is shit.
What I’ve been reading and what I think about it
I’m still plodding through Ivanhoe (1819), which started off extremely fun but is now turning into a bit of a slog. It’s probably because I haven’t really been in the mood for it, put it down for about a week, and then came back to it having completely forgot which knight was who. Also the volume of jousting in it has greatly decreased, and I found that to be a scream. I’m aiming to finish it in the next couple of days so I might fall back in love with it.
Last night I stayed up late and finished Jean Rhys’ After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (1931). I love Jean Rhys; I recently read Voyage in the Dark (1934) and it was easily one of the best things I’ve ever read,and I love Good Morning Midnight (1939) and Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) . Mackenzie is also brilliant but didn’t have the same breadth as Voyage, which included an immense amount of themes and touched on a huge range of emotions for such a slim novel.
After Leaving Mr.Mackenzie is, as most Rhys novels are, about a woman called Julia living between Paris and London, who relies on the generosity of wealthy men and who is lightly alcoholic. The novel begins with the end of an affair with a Mr. Mackenzie, a man who has grown bored of her as she ages and becomes more volatile and unpredictable. As in Midnight, Julia is separated from her husband and there is talk of a baby dying, the details of which are not shared in great detail.
As I started counting off the themes that recur throughout Rhys’ body of work (alcoholism, Paris, London, marriage separation, women born in the colonies, wealthy men traumatised from the war, infant death, a fascination with clothing and what it can represent, hotels, boarding houses, fear of ageing, cafes…), I kind of realised that she spent much of her career essentially writing the same novel over and over again. Wide Sargasso Sea is probably the biggest departure, but it still utilises the theme of a woman being born in the West Indies and feeling out of it when she moves to England, which is explored in Voyage in the Dark.
I don’t mind this at all about Rhys; in fact, it is one of the reasons why I admire her so much. It brings to mind some of the discussion surrounding Sally Rooney (and there is a lot of discussion). After she published Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021), people were quick to point out that she had once again focused on young Irish women, educated at Trinity who enjoy travelling, writing, reading and being sad. Even I, who would defend Rooney with my life, thought that it would be nice to see something a tiny bit different, and have had many discussions over what she could do next. Essays? An historical novel? (I would die for both). After finishing Mackenzie, however, I’m reconsidering this stance.
As anyone should be, I’m in favour of art for art’s sake, and I try to divorce my understanding of texts from commercialism. I don’t really care who the audience is for a book, whether it will sell, whether it conforms to the rules of a genre and so on so forth — I just care if it is well written. Everything I’ve read from Rhys and Rooney has been well written. The idea of a body of work being ‘samey’, therefore, shouldn’t really matter, because I’m not bored by either of these writers when they produce a story similar to the last one. Caring about that is, in my opinion, rooted in a concern with audience, as if we’re all rude, spoiled kings shouting at a jester for using jokes about the same subject. Why should we deny an author the right to create a career-long project that rehashes the same themes and settings?
What’s on my radar (but don’t hold me to it)
This section is for books that I’m thinking about reading soon, but might not so don’t write me angry letters.
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca (2021). I bought this on a recent trip to London from Gay’s The Word after seeing it recommended by a few trusted sources. I’m thinking of reading it in October during the Halloween season (which, quite frankly, has started now)
Still Life by Zoe Wicomb (2020). This was gifted to me by Peninsula Press (thank u!!) Drawn to this for a number of reasons; I’ve heard good things about Wicomb and the blurb makes it sound like my vibe completely; it’s about an author writing an autobiography of a Scottish poet and abolitionist, and who delves into colonial history.
City of Darkness, City of Light by Marge Piercy. I’ve had this book for literal years and never got round to it — I was going to read it a few months ago but I’d recently finished up a PhD chapter on Victorian French Revolution texts and I was absolutely not in the mood to read something else set during that period. Really into quality historical fiction atm though so I might read it soon. Might.
Hi Jess, just read an article about Substack in the Guardian newspaper and decided to sign up for your newsletter. I've read your first post and last week's, to get my bearings. It looks good - something I will enjoy receiving once a week I think.