Here’s a glimpse of some recent reads which lend themselves more to sampling, in a handful of reading sessions, than gobbling in longer periods of time. Not the books which require a sink-into-your-seat focus, the ones which afford the opportunity to window-gaze between pages.
Mungi Ingomane’s Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better Together, The African Way (2020) was the perfect with-tea read for me. The fourteen chapters are short and easily broken into smaller reading sessions.
Mini-chapters with subtitles like “Tiny acts can change narratives”. Or, read from one quotation to the next, like the proverb “It rains on every roof”. Originally described to the author by her grandfather Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the essence of ‘ubuntu’ is: “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up in yours.”
It would have made good reading at any time, but particularly during the pandemic, I appreciated reading about the distinction between ‘hope’ (a sensibility) and ‘optimism’ (a feeling, changeable) and this concept: “Worrying is wishing for what you don’t want to happen, so don’t agonize over the future.”
The book is also a solid reminder of the truth in this Chinua Achebe bit: “African people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans; their societies were not mindless, but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and value and beauty; they had poetry, and above all, they had dignity.”
“As it turned out, I do not have good eyes, though I may have better insight. I think and talk in pictures, so artwork is natural to me.” Germaine Arnaktauyok’s artwork is mesmerizing, always beautiful and often haunting.
The 2015 paperback My Name Is Arnaktauyok, published by Inhabit Media, is short enough to fit on a shelf with hardcover fiction, but it’s longer than most, so viewers can more readily imagine the artworks off the page.
Etchings, pen and ink, coloured pencil and aquatint: there are illustrations of people sledding and parenting, walrus and sled dogs, ivory combs and beadwork, narwhal and northern lights. For a glimpse of the works featured in a solo exhibition by the Yellowknife artist, peek here (there are a few pages, and all the works sold—no wonder, they’re stunning).
Most of the pieces are accompanied by an artist’s statement and there are a few paragraphs of autobiography in each chapter too, in language so direct it seems lyrical; it’s most excellent for artsy browsing and as a reminder that indigenous people have been able to survive and thrive in extreme conditions for centuries.
The introduction to Ahilan’s Then There Were No Witnesses (2018) by translator Geetha Sukumaran was instrumental in my experience of these poems. Without it, I would have marvelled at the original Tamil, now on the facing pages—a beautiful script that makes English look all edges and spaces.
The verses are often very short (this is the first of the poet’s work to be translated into English), the images stark and tragic, but not necessarily distinct in my mind. The remark that a few specific lines about a bloodbath would be immediately understood by Tamil readers, as depicting the final stages of the Sri Lankan armed conflict, broadens my understanding.
Reference made to medieval Tamil literature, connections with other contemporary Tamil poets, mythological allusions, and even what’s missing here but usually found in traditional Tamil poetry (the sea) was all interesting. As a “register of history, a witness to trauma, and a counter-memory written in an inimitable style and diction” kept me company with tea on several mornings.
“I am building a memorial,
not with stone,
not with water,
but with air,
the sound
that trails me forever.”
Semmani
Gender Failure (2014) by Rae Spoon and Ivan E. Coyote (who have collaborated before, on First Spring Grass Fire and Miss Her) is a collection of essays, lyrics, anecdotes and photographs by the travelling duo.
At the time of writing, Spoon has retired from gender, as they put it; Ivan continues to use the personal pronouns she/her for professional reasons (because they do a lot of work in schools and want to broadcast a more complex understanding of gender for others assigned female at birth who might feel like they don’t belong) but prefers they/them outside that context.
One of the most touching elements of these performers’ revelations is, simultaneously, how much they continue to struggle with self-acceptance, but also how much their perceived confidence means to audience members. Most of whom seem to project their own identities onto the performers, seeing parts of themselves in Spoon and Coyote so clearly that it obscures how the performers themselves self-identify.
The desire to belong is moving and expressed with such open-heartedness that when one finishes reading, one wishes that there had been no need to write the book in the first place, no such sense of failure. And simultaneously how grateful so many readers will be, that they have responded to this need by sharing their stories.
These are some of my browse-y or sit-with-tea reads. Now…your turn!
My favourite of these was My Name Is Arnaktauyok. It’s amazing I think, where Indigenous artists are taking ‘European’ art. I can’t think of a similar Australian book, though all my family have some Australian Indigenous art – dot paintings – on their walls. And I regularly get catalogues from a local dealer which are nearly as good. (My favourite artist is Marlene Harold, not that I can afford her. https://www.yinjaa-barni DOT com DOT au/artists/marlene-harold-2).
I’m surrounded by books which I’m planning to read, and I always have two or three which I’m ‘reading’ but which are in fact stuck at that proverbial page 20.
Ohhh, thank you for sharing that link. (Here is the main page, for others who are curious. You can click through to Marlene Harold via their SHOP button to see Bill’s fave.) Her work is beautiful: I can imagine falling into it. Also, I used my currency calculator to see how the conversion works, and it seems like the two countries’ dollars are fairly close, which I don’t remember being true years ago (but I am hardly an expert and do not recall what direction it went, only that when I found book prices on Penguin paperbacks strange, it was a matter of currency conversion). [Insert link to article “How Bookish Children Misconstrue Currency Values” *chuckles*]
I would love to read Gender Failure. Or anything by Ivan Coyote. I own a couple, but still haven’t read them. I find this idea really moving: “how much they continue to struggle with self-acceptance, but also how much their perceived confidence means to audience members.” I only wish they didn’t have to fake their confidence. *Sob*
It does feel like work, but it doesn’t feel like they’re faking confidence, not that proverbial “fake it ’til you make it” scene. It just seems like the audience members see them as totally self-assured whereas Ivan (and Rae) seem to still reflect on a lot of the same questions that trouble the audience members who share their stories with them after shows. And many of the audience members assume that Ivan’s situation and conclusions are the same as theirs but, Ivan and Rae often actually identify differently than the audience members, even though they don’t correct them on the details, because there’s a broader connection that seems to matter more than specific, concrete truths and labels. Which makes me think that maybe we just all need to be more honest when we talk about how much effort and attention it takes to live an authentic life, how many times we have to recentre and redirect and get ourselves back on the path we intended to walk?
That’s pretty much the kind of “fake it” that I meant. I just wish it wasn’t so hard for people to be who they are. I wonder if there is anyone out there who is unapologetically, authentically themselves all the time? I find I’m getting better with age. I’m much better at letting people know what I’m comfortable with and what I’m not, which makes life a lot less stressful.
Less focus on performative stuff would help everyone, eh? When one is feeling lonely and misunderstood, it’s easy to think that’s unique to them, setting them further apart from a group they feel apart from to begin with, but in reality a lot of us are feeling the same way and just handling it differently. Even if that’s, as you say, by getting older. Heheh It reminds me of what so many people think about happy marriages, that they just naturally happen, instead of the reality being that both people create that happiness.
I am always impressed at some people’s ability to read lots of books at once, I am hopeless at that. I always get stuck on just one and the other(s) remain with the bookmark stubbornly at p20. There are lots of books, that benefit from dipping in and out, and are probably to be appreciated more that way. It’s something I need to improve.
If it’s any consolation, that does continue to happen for me too, depending on the size of the stack. Usually I read some in each, every couple of days, just enough to keep connected to the story, but sometimes a book does get stuck and I eventually have to reread those 20 pages (or, sometimes, *sigh* more) when I’m feeling more receptive (or rediscover it at the bottom of an outlying mini-stack LOL).
Dear BIP, I am elated to be back here, and I jumped for joy when I found a snippet about a book originally written in my mother tongue — Tamil. As I read the section on Ahilan’s ‘Then There Were No Witnesses’, I kept nodding, and a bit more vehemently, when you mentioned medieval Tamil literature which is called the Sangam Literature. I am thrilled to know that something translated from the Tamil entered your radar. I often find myself complaining about not enough literature published about Tamil Eelam, but I also see that publishing industry is beginning to feel more courageous these days. I recently read Meena Kandasamy’s ‘The Orders Were To Rape You’ and it explored the Tamil Tigresses’ bravery and their contribution to the Eelam struggle. I hope to read Ahilan’s work someday. I will see if the public library has got a copy in Tamil.
It’s always a pleasure when you drop by, Dee. And I have a photograph that I snapped recently to send to you and really must share. Thank you for broadening my vocabulary here. And for sharing that this is your mother tongue. I think I’ve only seen it written in shop windows previously, so it was a wonder (for me) to observe it on the printed page. There are libraries in the city which have Tamil literature sections and I will make sure to know the routes so if you ever come to visit you can put a stack of books from “home” on your bedside table. Meanwhile, when I’m next able to travel around Toronto, I’ll pull some of those volumes from the shelf and think of you! Meena Kandasamy–that has a different title here, I believe. And now that I’ve gone looking I am also interested in her other books. And it brought up a subject heading which I explored and that resulted in several other books and authors of interest. Nooooooo, I’m still reading Yiyun Li… 🙂
Oh these all sound interesting, esp the Ubuntu one. A bit different, but I always now have a book on the go with my best friend, and we read a chapter or two every Thursday evening, so it goes by in little bits. We’ve found it useful to stop and think about these books rather than racing through them (current read is Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path”).
Just like that! The details might be different, but it’s all about recognizing (and maybe creating or shifting) reading habits, seeing how we respond to different kinds of narratives depending how we spend time with them. You’d love the Ubuntu one, I think. It would also make a lovely, kind gift for anyone who is feeling stressed or stretched these days.
I’m reading a book perfect for short reading spells… The Comfort Book by Matt Haig. It’s hitting the spot!
He’s got a great vibe for that kind of mood, I’d say!
I tend to keep a stack of library books for browsing on the coffee table. Generally these will be image-heavy books that I intend to just skim. Right now I have a book about the Hebrides, illustrated with charming sketches, and a couple of 9/11 books as the big anniversary approaches. I’ll look through cookbooks in the same way.
Exactly that. Those would fit for me, too. Lately I’ve not had as many (I think my last bookbag post was in January?!) and have missed that sense of leafing/moseying. Maybe once I’m past the fall-books-surge…*coughs*