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4.49 AVERAGE
4.49 AVERAGE
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Must read. Exactly what I needed after my mastectomy experience. Will be rereading again. Many of her experiences unfortunately still apply today.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
'We are equally destroyed by false happiness and false breasts, and the passive acceptance of false values which corrupt our lives and distort our experiences'
This is Audre Lorde's visceral account of her breast cancer diagnosis and mastectomy, including the ensuing physical pain and mental anguish, and her need to confront and give words to her experience. Her refusal to be coerced into wearing a prothesis led her to explore deeply her relationship with her body and how this is affected by external patriarchal pressures, which culminate in a nurse telling her that her lack of prothesis damaged the 'morale of the office'.
Like in her memoir, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre refuses to fit herself into societal structures that were not designed to contain her. Essential reading, now more than ever.
This is Audre Lorde's visceral account of her breast cancer diagnosis and mastectomy, including the ensuing physical pain and mental anguish, and her need to confront and give words to her experience. Her refusal to be coerced into wearing a prothesis led her to explore deeply her relationship with her body and how this is affected by external patriarchal pressures, which culminate in a nurse telling her that her lack of prothesis damaged the 'morale of the office'.
Like in her memoir, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre refuses to fit herself into societal structures that were not designed to contain her. Essential reading, now more than ever.
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Body shaming, Cancer, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Lesbophobia, Abandonment, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body horror, Blood
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
DO NOT MISS IT!
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Audre Lorde's The Cancer Journals is a personal, vulnerable record of Lorde's coming to terms with the reality of having breast cancer and the pain of mastectomy. It is also her valuable insight into how one can accept mortality and continue to embrace life, how one can turn pain and vulnerability into strength, and how women can fill the silences imposed on them by sharing their voices. I was particularly struck by Audre Lorde's courage in viewing her most painful moments (the physical pain of mastectomy, the fear of impending death) as a tool she could use in her lifelong resistance against oppression. Her argument that we should not let our differences impede us from speaking up and sharing our voices also stood out to me.
Audre Lorde's exploration of the silences surrounding breast cancer was especially informative in understanding how silence could be used to oppress. As breast cancer is perceived as a disease that affects women, women with breast cancer are expected to mask their experiences- they are pressured not to speak about what they felt, and the treatment of breast cancer is focused on how women could look as if they were never affected by it. Lorde's critique that the pressure on women to wear prostheses mirrors society's view of women as objects to be seen, and that cancer is regarded as a punishment for a patient's faults rather than a result of structural causes (animal fat, pollution, etc), resonated with me as well. Her assertion that true happiness cannot come from pretending that the violence and oppression of the world do not exist rings true even to this day.
Audre Lorde's exploration of the silences surrounding breast cancer was especially informative in understanding how silence could be used to oppress. As breast cancer is perceived as a disease that affects women, women with breast cancer are expected to mask their experiences- they are pressured not to speak about what they felt, and the treatment of breast cancer is focused on how women could look as if they were never affected by it. Lorde's critique that the pressure on women to wear prostheses mirrors society's view of women as objects to be seen, and that cancer is regarded as a punishment for a patient's faults rather than a result of structural causes (animal fat, pollution, etc), resonated with me as well. Her assertion that true happiness cannot come from pretending that the violence and oppression of the world do not exist rings true even to this day.
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
The last essay in particular really touched me but it was a bit slow going in the beginning
“[…] and either I would love my body one-breasted now, or remain forever alien to myself.”
This is my first time reading anything of Audre Lorde’s, and I chose a very raw and intimate book to get acquainted with her. Her feelings of alienation, desperation, helplessness, anger, and, most of all, pain, have been such visceral experiences to read. Cancer in itself is so common and also so not, a foreign thing and also something always present, somehow, biding its time. How Lorde “deals” with the ordeal of having breast cancer, undergoing a mastectomy, then living in a world that isn’t capable of properly acknowledging or speaking to that specific pain really hurt. Because of cancer, she is forced to face death and its stark realities in a way not many people have—and she does so in a way that is so real and recognizable. I love the inclusion of her journal entries at the time, and how she adds a reflection about what she felt at the time, noting her reactions and turning them over in study to support her further point. Lorde is frank about how relying on her support system saves her; she is full of love for her community as well as they have love for her, and it is heartwarming to such solidarity.
Castaneda talks of living with death as your guide, that sharp awareness engendered by the full possibility of any given chance and moment. For me, that means being not ready for death-but able to get ready instantly, and always to balance the "I wants" with the "I haves." I am learning to speak my pieces, to inject into the living world my convictions of what is necessary and what I think is important without concern (of the enervating kind) for whether or not it is understood, tolerated, correct or heard before. Although of course being incorrect is always the hardest, but even that is becoming less important. The world will not stop if I make a mistake.