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timhoiland's review against another edition
5.0
Chalk it up to my TCK upbringing, but I am continually drawn to the work of authors and artists who live and create between cultures. That helps to explain why I’ve so appreciated Teju Cole's writing and photography. Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, Cole now lives and works in the United States. But he carries both cultures inside of him, always:
"In Lagos, I was a regular middle-class kid. My first language was Yoruba, and I had Nigerian citizenship from birth. Yet I was also an American, the only one in my family – a fact and a privilege that my parents often alluded to. I didn’t dwell on it. I tried to wear it as easily as I could, like someone who is third in line to the throne: aware of extravagant possibilities but not counting on any particular outcome."
Cole will never not be Nigerian. He will never not be American. Identity for him will never not be complicated.
I relate to that. And I relate to this:
"My parents live in Lagos, Nigeria. Sometimes, when I miss them or miss home, I go to Google Maps and trace the highway that leads from Lagos Island to our family’s house in the northern part of the city. I find our street amid the complicated jumble of brown lines just east of the bus terminal. I can make out the shape of the house, the tree in front of it, the surrounding fence. I hover there, 'visiting home.'"
I’ve done the same thing so many times: tracing the road to the rural village in Guatemala where we used to live, finding various apartments in Guatemala City, or tracking down other meaningful places in Pennsylvania, California, Washington, and Texas. "Visiting" home(s).
I’m sure this shared sense of "in-betweenness," of liminality, is why I resonate with so much of what Cole has to say in his essay collection, Known and Strange Things. Even when he writes about people (Tomas Tranströmer), places (Shanghai), and topics (French cinema) in which I’m not particularly invested – or comes to conclusions I don’t share (atheism) – he always holds my attention. He’s a talented writer with a brilliant mind.
There’s so much in this collection I wish I could share with you, but we’d be here all day. So I’ll leave it at that.
"In Lagos, I was a regular middle-class kid. My first language was Yoruba, and I had Nigerian citizenship from birth. Yet I was also an American, the only one in my family – a fact and a privilege that my parents often alluded to. I didn’t dwell on it. I tried to wear it as easily as I could, like someone who is third in line to the throne: aware of extravagant possibilities but not counting on any particular outcome."
Cole will never not be Nigerian. He will never not be American. Identity for him will never not be complicated.
I relate to that. And I relate to this:
"My parents live in Lagos, Nigeria. Sometimes, when I miss them or miss home, I go to Google Maps and trace the highway that leads from Lagos Island to our family’s house in the northern part of the city. I find our street amid the complicated jumble of brown lines just east of the bus terminal. I can make out the shape of the house, the tree in front of it, the surrounding fence. I hover there, 'visiting home.'"
I’ve done the same thing so many times: tracing the road to the rural village in Guatemala where we used to live, finding various apartments in Guatemala City, or tracking down other meaningful places in Pennsylvania, California, Washington, and Texas. "Visiting" home(s).
I’m sure this shared sense of "in-betweenness," of liminality, is why I resonate with so much of what Cole has to say in his essay collection, Known and Strange Things. Even when he writes about people (Tomas Tranströmer), places (Shanghai), and topics (French cinema) in which I’m not particularly invested – or comes to conclusions I don’t share (atheism) – he always holds my attention. He’s a talented writer with a brilliant mind.
There’s so much in this collection I wish I could share with you, but we’d be here all day. So I’ll leave it at that.
seahorsemojinow's review against another edition
4.0
I finished this on the ride home from the airport, so even though I didn't slide this one in 2019, I still finished it before the 'holiday' was over, which was my overall goal!
Gotta be honest, the first half of the book was hard to get through. I appreciated Cole's appreciation for beauty, and I was glad of what I read, but after a long period of reading the book I just was never seeming to look forward to the next bite. His words, messages, and storytelling were all good - but very complete in themselves, and uncompelling in their urge to read more.
But by the second half of the book, I was way more engaged. I think part of it was that I needed to get used to Cole, himself, and the space he occupies in the stories he tells. He intentionally, self-consciously, fills up the spaces in his narratives with himself because that is how he sees stories, and I think that is incredibly admirable, as well as just effective - in both narration and photography. But it did mean that I needed to spend some time getting to like Cole himself, which is not a way that I naturally feel towards most authors.
The later essays, though, were extremely entrancing. The ones about photography were not the most interesting to me, as someone who isn't particularly moved by that medium, but even still I was charmed by Cole's exploration of the craft, ruminations on art, and poetic deconstructions. And I was so taken in by the essays on politics, especially as they provided a window into a different time, different moment, different space than I could ever hope to understand inhabiting, and in the come-up to this fucking election, a lot of it was really heartening to read (surprisingly). It was comforting to hold the hand of someone speaking from 8, 10, 12 years ago, dealing with pressing, scary issues and learning how to live through them.
The reflections on torture, imperialism, and genocide were truly some of the best writing on the subject I've ever encountered. Heartbreaking, validating, inspiring. One of the best things Cole does is hold out grief in his hands and make you wonder at how the weight of it feels.
Two quick notes - as a Gay, wasn't quite convinced that he really knew what he was talking about when it came time for him to talk about LGBT+ people. There was a use of the word "tr*nsvest*te," which was totally unnecessary, and flattening. I think he only had the best of intentions, but it was one aspect that alienated me just slightly.
Gotta be honest, the first half of the book was hard to get through. I appreciated Cole's appreciation for beauty, and I was glad of what I read, but after a long period of reading the book I just was never seeming to look forward to the next bite. His words, messages, and storytelling were all good - but very complete in themselves, and uncompelling in their urge to read more.
But by the second half of the book, I was way more engaged. I think part of it was that I needed to get used to Cole, himself, and the space he occupies in the stories he tells. He intentionally, self-consciously, fills up the spaces in his narratives with himself because that is how he sees stories, and I think that is incredibly admirable, as well as just effective - in both narration and photography. But it did mean that I needed to spend some time getting to like Cole himself, which is not a way that I naturally feel towards most authors.
The later essays, though, were extremely entrancing. The ones about photography were not the most interesting to me, as someone who isn't particularly moved by that medium, but even still I was charmed by Cole's exploration of the craft, ruminations on art, and poetic deconstructions. And I was so taken in by the essays on politics, especially as they provided a window into a different time, different moment, different space than I could ever hope to understand inhabiting, and in the come-up to this fucking election, a lot of it was really heartening to read (surprisingly). It was comforting to hold the hand of someone speaking from 8, 10, 12 years ago, dealing with pressing, scary issues and learning how to live through them.
The reflections on torture, imperialism, and genocide were truly some of the best writing on the subject I've ever encountered. Heartbreaking, validating, inspiring. One of the best things Cole does is hold out grief in his hands and make you wonder at how the weight of it feels.
Two quick notes - as a Gay, wasn't quite convinced that he really knew what he was talking about when it came time for him to talk about LGBT+ people. There was a use of the word "tr*nsvest*te," which was totally unnecessary, and flattening. I think he only had the best of intentions, but it was one aspect that alienated me just slightly.
joaniemaloney's review
5.0
An essay collection worth reading again and again and again, worth visiting at different points in my life in the future, having experienced and learned more. I'd read anything Teju Cole writes. Reading his words reminds me of just how much there is to be discovered out there and the joy of gravitating towards the odds and ends, details that capture your imagination, that won't let you go. His observations are such pleasures to read. I already knew this but there is still so, so, so much that I have to read still and I'm looking forward to revisiting these essays. I knew buying a copy would be a smart decision. It shall be well-thumbed through as the years pass, I can guarantee it.
PS: also I only just found out he has an instagram and beyond the beautiful photos, some even have captions attached which are very much like teeny essays in themselves. yessss.
PS: also I only just found out he has an instagram and beyond the beautiful photos, some even have captions attached which are very much like teeny essays in themselves. yessss.
daynpitseleh's review against another edition
4.0
I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Probably 3 1/2 stars, rounded up to four
This is a great collection of essays, but I think it really shines on the broader topics rather than focusing on specific authors or artists. The first section of essays were my least favorite, because it was often hard to relate to the essays that were discussing books I hadn't read. The second section of essays on photography was easier to relate to, because although I didn't often know the photographs or artists in question, I could relate to the questions Cole raised about art. The third section, loosed based around places, was my favorite section, as Cole took on broader topics such as Kony 2012 and border control. The collection shows Cole's range and his marvelous way with words.
Probably 3 1/2 stars, rounded up to four
This is a great collection of essays, but I think it really shines on the broader topics rather than focusing on specific authors or artists. The first section of essays were my least favorite, because it was often hard to relate to the essays that were discussing books I hadn't read. The second section of essays on photography was easier to relate to, because although I didn't often know the photographs or artists in question, I could relate to the questions Cole raised about art. The third section, loosed based around places, was my favorite section, as Cole took on broader topics such as Kony 2012 and border control. The collection shows Cole's range and his marvelous way with words.
thearbiter89's review against another edition
4.0
Known and Strange Things is a collection of essays, some long, some surprisingly brief, by the Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole. The essays are split into three broad categories - essays about literature and poetry, essays about photography, and commentaries about the world we live in. The subjects that his essays touch upon are wide-ranging but mostly focus on race, identity, the dynamic of the powerful in relation to the powerless; the vapidity of Instagram, and other topics of import.
As with many such works, what is relatable is often what lingers longer and more indelibly on the mind. To that end, Cole's essays on poets and photographers leave imprints of varying levels of permanence. When he waxes about the rarefied wordplay of poets or pontificates on the sublimity of a photographer's oeuvre, the result is less illuminating than when he speaks about his experiences as a black man wandering through the streets of Leukerbad, Switzerland, in the footsteps of his spiritual literary forebear, James Baldwin, or discusses a photographer's use of Instagram as an experiment in an artistic medium, in stolid (yet pitiful) opposition to the reams of prodigious vacuity that pours forth from the universe of its other users.
The most lasting imprints are left by the essays for the sake of which I bought the book - those that relate writer to world. Cole's recounting of his reactions to the 2008 election is a study in ambivalence, contrasting the symbolic power of this victory with its apparent tokenism. His essay on drone strikes, orchestrated by what was probably the most professorial, thoughtful, and empathetic president in modern times (as evidenced by his choice in literature), was a revelatory moment of what it must have felt to be a conscientious citizen of America during those times, embroiled in an endless, staining war, trying to reconcile the Obama of change with the Obama that adds names (with full, compassionate apprehension of the costs to human life) to the kill list.
And of course, the essay on the white savior industrial complex illuminates the phenomenon of the powerful salving their conscience through interventions in victimised third world countries, while blissfully unaware of their role in perpetrating the conditions that lead to such privation in the first place. That almost Chomskyite concept, polemical in its extremity as it is, illuminates powerfully a kernel of truth often obscured by the incessant signalling of virtue from its perpetrators (although in my view, it would be more accurately, but clunkily, termed the "first-world savior industrial complex", given that this kind of thinking is not limited to the Anglo-Saxon world).
Cole writes with an impassioned pen, sometimes verging on the needlessly verbose, more rarely seemingly almost in thrall to the wending pathways of his superlative prose to write more of it in the same vein, culminating in a crescendo of rhetorical flourish that resonates with a metaphor introduced pages before. It is at times a frustrating read, but other times manages to capture the meanings of things with a striking clarity in the space of a single chunk of prose - a penchant that has worked well for him in the truncated twitter age.
Though I don't think his photography is all that great (sorry).
I give this: 4 out of 5 Yashicas
As with many such works, what is relatable is often what lingers longer and more indelibly on the mind. To that end, Cole's essays on poets and photographers leave imprints of varying levels of permanence. When he waxes about the rarefied wordplay of poets or pontificates on the sublimity of a photographer's oeuvre, the result is less illuminating than when he speaks about his experiences as a black man wandering through the streets of Leukerbad, Switzerland, in the footsteps of his spiritual literary forebear, James Baldwin, or discusses a photographer's use of Instagram as an experiment in an artistic medium, in stolid (yet pitiful) opposition to the reams of prodigious vacuity that pours forth from the universe of its other users.
The most lasting imprints are left by the essays for the sake of which I bought the book - those that relate writer to world. Cole's recounting of his reactions to the 2008 election is a study in ambivalence, contrasting the symbolic power of this victory with its apparent tokenism. His essay on drone strikes, orchestrated by what was probably the most professorial, thoughtful, and empathetic president in modern times (as evidenced by his choice in literature), was a revelatory moment of what it must have felt to be a conscientious citizen of America during those times, embroiled in an endless, staining war, trying to reconcile the Obama of change with the Obama that adds names (with full, compassionate apprehension of the costs to human life) to the kill list.
And of course, the essay on the white savior industrial complex illuminates the phenomenon of the powerful salving their conscience through interventions in victimised third world countries, while blissfully unaware of their role in perpetrating the conditions that lead to such privation in the first place. That almost Chomskyite concept, polemical in its extremity as it is, illuminates powerfully a kernel of truth often obscured by the incessant signalling of virtue from its perpetrators (although in my view, it would be more accurately, but clunkily, termed the "first-world savior industrial complex", given that this kind of thinking is not limited to the Anglo-Saxon world).
Cole writes with an impassioned pen, sometimes verging on the needlessly verbose, more rarely seemingly almost in thrall to the wending pathways of his superlative prose to write more of it in the same vein, culminating in a crescendo of rhetorical flourish that resonates with a metaphor introduced pages before. It is at times a frustrating read, but other times manages to capture the meanings of things with a striking clarity in the space of a single chunk of prose - a penchant that has worked well for him in the truncated twitter age.
Though I don't think his photography is all that great (sorry).
I give this: 4 out of 5 Yashicas
jackwwang's review against another edition
5.0
Good essay collections, unlike good novels, make me want to write more. Teju Cole's essays are the shining example of why one does not write "after you've thought things through... [but rather] you write to think things through." If only... my thinking things through can be so thoughtful and provoking as Cole's thinking things through.
In a lot of ways I see in Cole a kindred sole: his affection for cities, with their rich deep histories, efficient use of resources, cultivation of tolerance. His sensibility towards travel, the desire to dress well on flights, talk to cab drivers, and care to keep one's imagination open when arriving in new destinations. His fondness and
Cole's craft for the written sentence and paragraph is noticeably wondrous. To convey that a series of images he described do add up to a theme, he sneaks in a miracle of a sentence: "If you set enough tangents around a circle, you begin to re-create the shape of the circle itself." I think I'm in love.
Perhaps the most remarkable, is that Cole has the rare talent, through his essays, to actually change minds. I've only felt this once before, with the essays of David Foster Wallace. "The White Savior Industrial Complex" is an astonishing compelling piece of writing that challenges to the core the way I thought about the knee jerk charity impulse I share with most other North Americans. "Perplexed, perplexed" is, if not persuasive, just an incredibly compelling piece of writing about the deeply disturbing nature of mob violence. Cole's thoughts STICK with you, through good craftsmanship, incredible imagery, and let me happily acknowledge, the depth and richness of the thoughts themselves. Cole's thinking about the world is worth knowing, so read this book.
In a lot of ways I see in Cole a kindred sole: his affection for cities, with their rich deep histories, efficient use of resources, cultivation of tolerance. His sensibility towards travel, the desire to dress well on flights, talk to cab drivers, and care to keep one's imagination open when arriving in new destinations. His fondness and
Cole's craft for the written sentence and paragraph is noticeably wondrous. To convey that a series of images he described do add up to a theme, he sneaks in a miracle of a sentence: "If you set enough tangents around a circle, you begin to re-create the shape of the circle itself." I think I'm in love.
Perhaps the most remarkable, is that Cole has the rare talent, through his essays, to actually change minds. I've only felt this once before, with the essays of David Foster Wallace. "The White Savior Industrial Complex" is an astonishing compelling piece of writing that challenges to the core the way I thought about the knee jerk charity impulse I share with most other North Americans. "Perplexed, perplexed" is, if not persuasive, just an incredibly compelling piece of writing about the deeply disturbing nature of mob violence. Cole's thoughts STICK with you, through good craftsmanship, incredible imagery, and let me happily acknowledge, the depth and richness of the thoughts themselves. Cole's thinking about the world is worth knowing, so read this book.
jrboudreau's review against another edition
4.0
This collection of essays are generally excellent, which is no surprise coming from Cole. His ideas and writing benefit from a deep mind and his empathetic approach to humanity. Especially of interest is to trace his account of the end of the Bush administration, the Obama years, and the beginnings of the our current Trump era. His essay on the border is a reminder that our current issues there didn't begin with the President, he's only magnified and already cruel system. There were some essay that didn't connect with me as directly, as with any collection, but all of them were gorgeous reads.
Also, I added so many books and authors to my "I need to check this out" list because of this book, for which I am also grateful.
Also, I added so many books and authors to my "I need to check this out" list because of this book, for which I am also grateful.
waltercoleslaw's review against another edition
5.0
A beautiful and necessary book of essays. I particularly loved the essays about photography in the age of Google image search, the concept of Fernweh, and his essay on the night President Obama was elected in 2008 (which I read the day after this year's catastrophic election). Cole's ideas, insights, and images stay with you.
emlizzy's review
4.0
This easy collection is like the best kind of collage - disparate pieces (which actually have much more in common than may initially seem) come together to create a collection that is a beautiful composition - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This collection is really about discourse and thinking - how to interact with, think about, and process the world outside of ourselves.
As I read, I found myself in a near constant state of taking notes of things I wanted to look up and learn more about later (including revisiting my Sebald books through a new lens of appreciation). My amazon wishlist is also significantly longer than it was when I started.
Note: if literary criticism and discourse on the meaning/importance of photography and art doesn't interest you, this collection may not be for you.
As I read, I found myself in a near constant state of taking notes of things I wanted to look up and learn more about later (including revisiting my Sebald books through a new lens of appreciation). My amazon wishlist is also significantly longer than it was when I started.
Note: if literary criticism and discourse on the meaning/importance of photography and art doesn't interest you, this collection may not be for you.