Reviews with content warning for Sexism - After Sappho: Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

After Sappho: Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize by Selby Wynn Schwartz

11 reviews

hollymileham's review against another edition

challenging hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i am absolutely blown away. this is one of my most favourite and precious reads ever. the way it traces women/lesbian history throughout time linking everyone together is so perfect. what a romantic and lovely way to describe what it is to be sapphic. this means so much to me i could go on and on. i will never read anything like this ever again, this is one of a kind

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gvstyris's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

We dreamed of islands where we could write poems that kept our lovers up all night. In our letters, we murmured the fragments of our desires to each other, breaking the lines in our impatience. We were going to be Sappho, but how did Sappho begin to become herself?

After Sappho centers a cast of white sapphic historical figures as they grapple with their position in 19th/20th century Europe. My primary takeaway from this novel - or perhaps more accurately, series of vignettes - was its appreciation for different mediums of art, particularly as a form of escapism and political/emotional expression. Schwartz's usage of first person plural pronouns to position the narrator as a Greek chorus also highlighted the communal aspect of the search for queer liberation and joy, which was another standout for me. I understand why this book is validating for so many people.

Despite that, I struggled in the reading process quite a lot. The non-linear storytelling is difficult to follow, especially as each woman's story is interconnected and their trajectories are relatively similar. I repeatedly lost interest and came close to DNFing, but persevered because the novel picked up quite significantly once we reached the First World War. I also imagine that the focus on white women was deliberate given Schwartz's academic background, but it definitely felt like a missed opportunity to me.

As someone who usually adores non-linear novels (especially if they're all vibes and no plot!), I'm a bit surprised this missed the mark for me as much as it did. Unfortunately, I've just read better, and am now craving a re-read of Girl, Woman, Other.

That being said, Schwartz's prose is gorgeous. A couple other highlights:

But some of us have always seen the modern world as a sea meant to drown us.

The only thing she feared was compromise, the soothing voice that licks down rage until it is nothing but a small smooth lump in your hand.

There is always this risk, in life, that we have our parts in a tragedy and we do not know it.

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grace_cr1's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

This book is beautifully written, the language is varied and poetic. This book is also quite a dense and somewhat inaccessible read, it was difficult to remember the amount of people named throughout the novel and so was hard to follow. I recommend this book but its definitely a novel you have to be in the mood to read 📚

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mmcloe's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

A little disappointing on the whole, especially seeing the extensive citation of Saidiya Hartman in the acknowledgments. One of the things that makes speculative fabulation so brilliant is the capacity to illuminate the stories of those mutilated and plastered over by the archives, using storytelling to push back and heal against this mutilation.

This book's work really only focused on those who have been vindicated by the archives - the brilliant writers and early feminists who have been the subject of countless scholarly evaluations. And in doing so, the author glossed over much of the less savory aspects of these people's lives and ideologies. Overall, a relatively straight approach to historical queerness.

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thebankofbooks's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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booking_along's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

this is so different and strange but somehow worked very well for me and dragged me in and along for the ride this book was.

it was such an unexpected read in all ways a book can be.

it was an emotional read, i felt for the women, was yet again reminded that i just can’t understand our history and still continues fight of women being seen as human beings and at least as worth of being treated as such by men as men seem and deemed themselves as.

the different characters were fantastic even if i can’t really explain way?

the writing was strange but worked and it’s just… this book is an experience that you just have to be willing to go along with and let yourself be swept up in.

i honestly can not understand why this wasn’t shortlisted for the 2022 book but especially “treacle walker” was.

but k am very thankful for the long lost to have brought it to my attention since i didn’t even know about it or hear about it before that!

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serendipitysbooks's review

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

After Sappho, arguably the most experimental of the Booker longlisted novels, won’t be for every reader. I, however, was fascinated by this collective, speculative, interlinked biography of some incredibly creative, unconventional, fiercely intelligent, and queer women, which spans the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Given the title and the connections with Sappho the fragmentary nature of this work, where snippets of different lives interweave with each other, seems appropriate. While some of the women featured in this book were already familiar to me - Virginia Woolf, Isadora Duncan - many were women I’d never heard of, which tells you something about the fate of women in the historical record and the fact that I’m less familiar with women from continental Europe than those from the US and UK. I’m sure there will be much debate about the women who weren’t included - this book is very white. Obviously I loved learning about their lives, and happily spent time Googling, not because I had to in order to understand the book, but because it inspired me to learn more. The way in which these women expressed themselves whether through dance, writing or painting, they way they discussed and debated ideas in salons, and especially they way they pushed back against the social mores and laws of the day which attempted to limit what they could do and how they could live was inspiring. As was the support they gave to each other and the love - platonic, romantic and sexual- that they shared. I also loved the use of first person plural, a really effective way of including the reader in the story, emphasising that the women featured were not the only ones but were actually part of a larger whole, and encouraging the reader to continue their legacy. This book is meticulously researched so in many ways it reads like non-fiction. Yet its fragmentary nature and the prose itself give it a poetic feel. These two statements sound contradictory yet the reading experience was never jarring. Rather it was a joyous (deliberately so), feminist, inspiring, genre-bending delight.

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