Scan barcode
silences's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
i thought the critiques of the eji museum and memorial were so sharp, really articulated what trouillot meant by a relationship to the past that is inadequate to the present moment. also draws together so many great, robust black thinkers. i found this very readable, but got a little tired of the form at the end, and didn't really get the barthes stuff.
zachcarter's review
4.0
While the format isn't really my favorite, Sharpe's analysis is as sharp as ever, and this feels like a natural progression from "In the Wake" and "Monstrous Intimacies". Incredible!
craftyscene's review
Not sure how to rate this. A raw, vulnerable look at what feels like journal entries about her experience growing up in a white suburb and the racist political climate in which we live. She leaves lots to think about in the most urgent way.
mosso's review
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Christina Sharpe is a preeminent writer of our time. Few manage to cover this vast a breadth with such incision. In the Wake was instruction in how to read Ordinary Notes, with the former guiding you through iteration of frame, of definition, of the un/making of "Blackness and Being." Ordinary Notes demands this care of reading, of engagement with multiple and woven meaning.
Sharpe throws the archive into sharp relief, examining its absences and its curatorial frame. Who does the archive forgive? She poses the violence of omission of black history and story and individuality ("ditto") as wholly different from and wholly similar to the violent omission of perpetrator and the truncation of historical through line. Sharpe explores beyond this false end, refusing to situate history as historic. In doing so, she oscillates between scale, inextricably linking the archive with the personal, with her mother, with her grandmother. She is building the alternate world which relishes and makes space for the stories of the Black women/authors who formed her.
Sharpe is incredibly well-read, and this fact is omnipresent throughout the work. In some ways, Ordinary Notes reads like a syllabus, as Sharpe is a teacher, guiding the reader to perpetual "further readings." Having read only a few of the seminal works (Lorde, Hartman, Baldwin) listed throughout, I see the way those authors shape the contours of her ontology. I know I have missed much more, and I'm grateful to Sharpe for her continued teaching.
Sharpe throws the archive into sharp relief, examining its absences and its curatorial frame. Who does the archive forgive? She poses the violence of omission of black history and story and individuality ("ditto") as wholly different from and wholly similar to the violent omission of perpetrator and the truncation of historical through line. Sharpe explores beyond this false end, refusing to situate history as historic. In doing so, she oscillates between scale, inextricably linking the archive with the personal, with her mother, with her grandmother. She is building the alternate world which relishes and makes space for the stories of the Black women/authors who formed her.
Sharpe is incredibly well-read, and this fact is omnipresent throughout the work. In some ways, Ordinary Notes reads like a syllabus, as Sharpe is a teacher, guiding the reader to perpetual "further readings." Having read only a few of the seminal works (Lorde, Hartman, Baldwin) listed throughout, I see the way those authors shape the contours of her ontology. I know I have missed much more, and I'm grateful to Sharpe for her continued teaching.
kimuchi's review
4.0
This is so strange and brilliant. I vacillated constantly between moments of pure light and moments of wondering if this was a book, or something else entirely. Perhaps audio wasn't the right format; I'm not sure. Then again, if Dionne Brand says it's a book, it's a book.
jw2869's review
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Truly impeccable. I knew from the first few notes that this was a book to get in physical form to mark up. I'm so happy I took my time with this book. It was a great reminder that the purpose of some reading is not to consume, but to challenge, to grapple, to think, to wrestle with in order to rise to the level of what the book requires.
This is a book that requires rigor. I read through it using the dictionary function often. Pausing to really sit with the reflections, the connections being made, and the questions being asked. I texted friends often that I don't feel smart enough for some of the notes. I appreciated the challenge. It is a book that you grow and stretch into.
This book is an archive and sits in a lineage that goes backward and forward. A conversation that does not end with the book because there is so much to research and list of other authors to dive into. The world building that is being done in these notes is far from ordinary.
This is a Black book in all the best ways. In talking about Ja’Tovia Gary’s work Sharpe references her "visual and sonic Black aesthetic of care that is subtended by regard." and THAT is what I'm referencing when I say this is a black book. It is centered in and centers a Black way of seeing the world. Thinking about, theorizing, referencing, and SEEING black people with care and regard. This is what makes Christina Sharpe's work palpably different from so much of what is in current mainstream literature. Black people being the primary and cherished audience is such a refreshing position. It is written at a decibel that is available to all but only conceivable to some.
This is a book that requires rigor. I read through it using the dictionary function often. Pausing to really sit with the reflections, the connections being made, and the questions being asked. I texted friends often that I don't feel smart enough for some of the notes. I appreciated the challenge. It is a book that you grow and stretch into.
This book is an archive and sits in a lineage that goes backward and forward. A conversation that does not end with the book because there is so much to research and list of other authors to dive into. The world building that is being done in these notes is far from ordinary.
This is a Black book in all the best ways. In talking about Ja’Tovia Gary’s work Sharpe references her "visual and sonic Black aesthetic of care that is subtended by regard." and THAT is what I'm referencing when I say this is a black book. It is centered in and centers a Black way of seeing the world. Thinking about, theorizing, referencing, and SEEING black people with care and regard. This is what makes Christina Sharpe's work palpably different from so much of what is in current mainstream literature. Black people being the primary and cherished audience is such a refreshing position. It is written at a decibel that is available to all but only conceivable to some.
markgart's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
4.0
cpoole's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Organized by numbered notes, in sections with connected themes, Sharpe recounts anecdotes from her life, stories of unprovoked violence on black individuals, historical events and figures, quotes, musings on art, poetry, and much more to form a narrative on racism, social justice, and cultural critique. Heavy, but important. I have not read nearly as much anti-racism works of late and needed this. Toni Morrison’s Beloved features prominently.