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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
slow-paced
I know I should write a detailed review with reasons and everything.
But . . .
Rebecca Solnit gives me hope for humanity.
But . . .
Rebecca Solnit gives me hope for humanity.
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Heart wrenching, powerful, hopeful, anchored in truth and beautifully executed research. This book felt personal and intimate.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, War, Pandemic/Epidemic
I selected this book simply because it was available from my library‘s audiobook collection, and I was astonished by how much I loved it and how deeply it moved me. I can really relate to many of Solnit’s experiences; we come from similar positions vis-à-vis the central culture in terms of activism, friendships, interest in art, etc., although she is about a decade older than I, I believe. This memoir is skillfully woven to encompass her early upbringing lightly but meaningfully, while addressing the evolution of her career, writing, fame and beliefs/positions. I recommend it for people wanting to understand Solnit, wanting to understand circa 1980 San Francisco, or needing a bit of hope in these grim times.
I love love love Rebecca Solnit, and had been looking forward to this book for a long time. But I found myself feeling like it was a bit of a slog. I’m sorry, I still love you Rebecca.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Solnit has been a powerful voice for a number of years now. I am grateful for her advocacy and impact.
This might be the perfect memoir/personal essay. Reading the first chapter, I was a bit disappointed. OK, I love Rebecca Solnit and learning about her past as a beginning author would be interesting no matter what. That's what I thought I was getting. But then the second chapter... Bang! She shows how the themes we know her for arise from daily experience on the street and in the publishing world. Filled with beautiful sentences--both aphoristic and just witty--this is a book to cherish. Did I say I love Rebecca Solnit? After this book I love her more.
I am grateful to #netgalley for my copy of this book, which I was offered in exchange for an honest review.
How we read depends on how we feel: what we’re drawn to, how we’re spending the time during a week in March when it’s raining nonstop and all the talk in the news seems negative. Would it have been different for me to read this memoir during a bright week in June, with a bit more hope in the air?
So maybe it wasn’t the right time for me.
This is a memoir by Rebecca Solnit, an American writer whose work I’ve wanted to dip into. She has written widely- on walking, activism, the environment, feminism, art. The term #mansplaining was inspired by her 2008 essay ‘Men explain things to me’ which is worth reading. It’s sharp, funny & true. As a woman, like most of us, I’ve had the experience of ‘mansplaining’, someone explaining things to me from my field of work (which they’re not involved in). So I’m with her on that.
But despite my hope with this book, it didn’t work for me. I look to memoirs to imagine myself in a person’s life. Their everyday life; how things feel to them when they happen. That’s missing here. This reads like a coming of age story about Solnit becoming a writer- but told from a distance. There is little detail, texture, everydayness here. I could see what Rebecca Solnit’s politics are, but I couldn’t capture what she’s like as a person. I couldn’t get a sense of her.
Solnit is at her best when discussing her love of reading:
“Alone, immersed in a book, I was faceless, everyone, anyone, unbounded, elsewhere, free of meetings. I wanted to be someone, to make a face and a self and a voice, but I loved these moments of reprieve”.
Going back to my own mood & expectations when reading this, I note one more phrase from the book:
“It’s the reader who brings the book to life”.
How we read depends on how we feel: what we’re drawn to, how we’re spending the time during a week in March when it’s raining nonstop and all the talk in the news seems negative. Would it have been different for me to read this memoir during a bright week in June, with a bit more hope in the air?
So maybe it wasn’t the right time for me.
This is a memoir by Rebecca Solnit, an American writer whose work I’ve wanted to dip into. She has written widely- on walking, activism, the environment, feminism, art. The term #mansplaining was inspired by her 2008 essay ‘Men explain things to me’ which is worth reading. It’s sharp, funny & true. As a woman, like most of us, I’ve had the experience of ‘mansplaining’, someone explaining things to me from my field of work (which they’re not involved in). So I’m with her on that.
But despite my hope with this book, it didn’t work for me. I look to memoirs to imagine myself in a person’s life. Their everyday life; how things feel to them when they happen. That’s missing here. This reads like a coming of age story about Solnit becoming a writer- but told from a distance. There is little detail, texture, everydayness here. I could see what Rebecca Solnit’s politics are, but I couldn’t capture what she’s like as a person. I couldn’t get a sense of her.
Solnit is at her best when discussing her love of reading:
“Alone, immersed in a book, I was faceless, everyone, anyone, unbounded, elsewhere, free of meetings. I wanted to be someone, to make a face and a self and a voice, but I loved these moments of reprieve”.
Going back to my own mood & expectations when reading this, I note one more phrase from the book:
“It’s the reader who brings the book to life”.
It is the fourth book I read by Solnit and really enjoy her writing style. In this book, she writes about her experience of being a young women and how the (patriarchal) society treats young women as non-existence. She expresses something that many young women have felt, yet may not have associated with how society treats women, but rather on their own shortcomings.
"this lack of credibility, this distrust of my capacity to represent myself and interpret the world, was part of the erosion of space in which I could exist and of my confidence in myself and the possibility that there was a place for me in the world".
She links this de facto lack of credibility given to young women to the victim-blaming attitude in case of men violence against women. "So much of what makes young women good targets is self-doubt and self-effacement. [...] But I was young and trained not to make a fuss and to let others determine what was acceptable and even to determine what was real."
Solnit's writing on gender heavily draws on personal experience, stories she heard and her personal observations, which makes a strong writing as she manages to express beautifully our experiences as women which we often struggle to put into eloquent words. However, her writing on gender is at times lacking in research and data, yet it does not make it less pertinent.
"this lack of credibility, this distrust of my capacity to represent myself and interpret the world, was part of the erosion of space in which I could exist and of my confidence in myself and the possibility that there was a place for me in the world".
She links this de facto lack of credibility given to young women to the victim-blaming attitude in case of men violence against women. "So much of what makes young women good targets is self-doubt and self-effacement. [...] But I was young and trained not to make a fuss and to let others determine what was acceptable and even to determine what was real."
Solnit's writing on gender heavily draws on personal experience, stories she heard and her personal observations, which makes a strong writing as she manages to express beautifully our experiences as women which we often struggle to put into eloquent words. However, her writing on gender is at times lacking in research and data, yet it does not make it less pertinent.