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novella42's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
Absolutely fantastic. I'm going to be thinking about so many of the concepts from this book for years. Especially the idea of the "unexpected reader."
I tried describing this book to someone as "How to read from a decolonizing, anti-racist lens" but that doesn't even begin to cover it. It really shifted my perspective on a lot of things.
Her observations and sarcasm are sharp as a scalpel. I loved the part about how she feels being a BIPOC writer today is as much an existential grievance as it is a labor dispute:
I tried describing this book to someone as "How to read from a decolonizing, anti-racist lens" but that doesn't even begin to cover it. It really shifted my perspective on a lot of things.
Her observations and sarcasm are sharp as a scalpel. I loved the part about how she feels being a BIPOC writer today is as much an existential grievance as it is a labor dispute:
Writers of color often find themselves doing the second, unspoken and unsalaried job of not just being a professional writer, but a Professional Person of Color, in the most performative sense—handy to have on hand for panels or journal issues about race or power or revolution, so the festival or literary journal doesn't appear totally racist; handy to praise publicly and singularly, so as to draw less attention to the white audience, rapt in the seats too expensive for local readers of color.
She opened my mind to nuances around the "representation matters" hashtag I've been using for years, both for my own queer, disabled, neurodivergent identities, and also in building anti-racism practice. This doesn't fully capture it, but still—
The way we reckon with our history has a bearing on how we reckon with each other, and how we reckon with our art—the kind of art we’re able to imagine, the ability of our art to truly imagine us. In the wake of this contemporary political climate and the heightened awareness it has ushered in, the full-scale moral, aesthetic, and intellectual vacuity of Representation Matters Art—the crumbs that representation throws at us—only becomes more glaring. I’m more interested in solidarity, even if I don’t quite yet know myself what I mean by it, just the feeling I get from it—the startling, quenching relief of it; the force of its surprise, like being loved... Solidarity is not nothing. It is a labor—like building a person, a love, a body of knowledge. And that labor, its peopled dailiness, has a tangible, vibrating effect in the world, radiating liveliness like a furnace throws off heat in the cold. And the art that I truly love, the art that has saved me, never made me just feel represented. It did not speak to my vanity, my desperation to be seen positively at any cost. It made me feel—solid. It told me I was minor, and showed me my debts. It held me together.
I do still think representation matters, but I agree with her completely that it's not nearly enough. I know what it felt like to me as a kid to see insipid token representation of a white boy in a hospital wheelchair in the background of TV shows. I know what it felt like to see positive and more thoughtful representations of disability more recently. But it pales in comparison with seeing characters get to be whole people, messy, with fully-faceted identities beyond the marginalized identity we share. We cannot be human if all we're allowed is the tiny pedestal of positive representation. Having been "inspiration porn" for others many times over, I can say, the experience is absolutely suffocating.
I am debating giving this book 5 stars, because it absolutely achieved what the author set out to achieve. If I'm rating it for me, I need to put it at 4.75 because her preferred sentence structure is so winding that I frequently got lost and had to keep re-reading passages two, three times or more. I believe it slowed the book down considerably, but maybe that was an effect she wanted. For us to slow down and really sit with the concepts as she unfolded them.
Sometimes reading this book felt like watching reverse origami in slow motion. Poetic, precise, academic but lovely in its own unique form of storytelling. Moving from a shape we think we know, like the ubiquitous paper crane, until it's all spread out before you with all the intricate lines showing how it comes together, how and why it was made. And how much deeper your appreciation becomes, both of the crane and the art that made it.
I found that going back and forth between formats helped me make progress when I got stuck on her long sentences. I originally borrowed a hardback from the library, and loved it so much that after a few chapters I ended up buying the Kindle with the add-on audiobook. It helped so much to be able to highlight and get quick definitions of the more academic terms or pull up Wikipedia entries for more context on her various historical or cultural references. And when the sentences began to look like labyrinths to me, I switched to the author-read audiobook and her conversational tone was far easier to parse.
I did a Buddy Read and will be meeting a friend soon to discuss the book, so I may try updating my review when I've had more time to process.
That last chapter, though. "It’s his confidence in his own context that is Odysseus’s greatest strength, his greatest privilege, and his greatest cruelty. He may be traveling, but he’s not a migrant. Man of many resources, worldly-wise, skilled in diplomacy, lover of stolen wealth and sadistic games—Odysseus always has a home to return to. Wherever he goes is civilization, to the despair of everyone else." I'll never see the Odyssey the same way ever again. And honestly, thank God.
Now I have this shifted perspective, I cannot imagine wanting my old views back.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, War, Xenophobia, Cultural appropriation, Death, Sexism, Racism, Genocide, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, and Racial slurs
Moderate: Police brutality, Classism, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, and Grief
Minor: Addiction, Cursing, Pedophilia, Religious bigotry, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Pandemic/Epidemic, Violence, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Trafficking, and Grief
friends2lovers's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Colonisation, Xenophobia, Classism, and Racism
savvylit's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
How to Read Now is an incredibly thought-provoking essay collection about how we read. Elaine Castillo, herself a lifelong bookworm, explores the ways that everyone can seek to be better readers. Taking a decolonial approach, Castillo demands that we consider who it is that our popular literature serves. She also lambasts the idea of separating the art from the artist, instead proposing that doing so is both damaging and prejudiced. She reminds us that it is simply not possible to remove a work from its political context. Castillo writes that "this kind of nonpolitical storytelling - and the stunted readership it demands - asks us to uphold the lie that certain bodies, certain characters, certain stories, remain depoliticized, neutral, and universal. It asks us to keep those bodies, characters, stories, forever safe from politics -- forever safe, period."
Additional essays go on to support this conclusion and explore it even further. In the essay "Reality is All We Have to Love," Castillo shows how becoming better, more critical readers can be both a hopeful and powerful thing. In "The Children of Polyphemus," Castillo discusses how beautiful and freeing it is to discover the voices of the silenced once you look closely enough.
Overall, this collection was enjoyable and provocative. Castillo, in addition to being a brilliant critic, is also quite funny. There were many times when I laughed out loud at her sarcastic commentary. Anyone who identifies as a reader or lover of literature absolutely must check out How to Read Now!
Additional essays go on to support this conclusion and explore it even further. In the essay "Reality is All We Have to Love," Castillo shows how becoming better, more critical readers can be both a hopeful and powerful thing. In "The Children of Polyphemus," Castillo discusses how beautiful and freeing it is to discover the voices of the silenced once you look closely enough.
Overall, this collection was enjoyable and provocative. Castillo, in addition to being a brilliant critic, is also quite funny. There were many times when I laughed out loud at her sarcastic commentary. Anyone who identifies as a reader or lover of literature absolutely must check out How to Read Now!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, Racism, Classism, and Colonisation
Moderate: Violence and War
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