Hi reader, some quick remarks on a couple of reads.
The Siege by Helen Dunmore (March 2022)
Given current events, it's probably odd timing that I would read a book sympathetic to Russia in wartime - The Siege is set during the Nazi blockade of Leningrad, which spanned almost 900 days and resulted in possibly the highest number of casualties from any battle in human history. The book focuses on a handful of civilians who end up together in one apartment during the first frozen winter, when the reality of starvation defines their every living moment. This was not among my top reads of the year so far, but it left a significant impression on me for the way Dunmore creates the doomed feeling of being in Leningrad at that time. I'll likely carry the memory of how the book creates this mood, so to speak, in the same way I've done with the title story of George Saunders's Tenth of December or the Town half of Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (these being the two examples I can think of at the moment where the story's mood infused my reading experience). If I must choose one of Dunmore's comments for my takeaway, it might be that cities exist so long as everyone remains in agreement that they should, or that a persistent shortage creates a false sense of security in that it becomes so hard to imagine a situation becoming worse than the status quo of the bare minimum. In closing, I'll add a personal note that this particular winter of 2021-22 was for me a notable example of Dunmore's insight that any serious winter is marked by a moment when it feels like spring will never come.
Racism 101 by Nikki Giovanni (May 2021)
I mentioned Giovanni's Gemini a few weeks ago, but in this case I reveal that I recounted my experience a bit out of order - today's book was the one I read first, almost a year ago today. Both books are essay collections from a writer better known for poetry. Of the many essays in this work, I noted "Campus Racism 101" and "Meatloaf: A View of Poetry" for a reread. I'll likely pick up any remaining essay collections of hers in the near future, which I suppose implies that her work is highly recommended by TOA.
I've seen some suggestions in a few comment sections that Racism 101 isn't about either poetry or racism - the former reveals a lack of research before reading, the latter I suppose demonstrates a certain fact about the way readers define or envision how we write about the topic. Let me share a few of the notes I took down from the reading, then you can decide if this book might have covered racism. One revelation noted that believing in people is tough because inevitably people will let you down, while another pointed out that although being a minority in college is tough it's even tougher to eventually lose out on jobs or promotions due to an inferior education. In another section, she mentions the importance of knowing your own perspective rather than trying to represent that of the millions associated with you via race. Do we need more? She asks at one point why if it's easier for minorities to get into college, why are they still the minorities in college? Or why not call the "regular" history curriculum White studies, in order to clarify the distinction with African-American studies? Maybe those commenters were correct about this collection, but I'd like to remind them that there is a full system of secondary school which is a prerequisite to most 101-level coursework.
