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A review by kjboldon
Tell Me a Riddle, Requa I, and Other Works by Tillie Olsen
4.75
Some of these pieces are nearly 100 years old and yet so timely, so beautifully, painfully written. Olsen was writing about intersectional challenges of race and poverty and sexism before we even had words for these.
Edited to add in 2023. When I read this last year, I stopped when I got to Requa 1. There was some burning reason I needed to read Tell Me a Riddle so when I finished that story and tried to enter Requa 1, I got bounced right out by its challenges.
This year, as I'm having a run at the <200ers on my shelves, I remembered I hadn't finished this short book. I dove into Requa 1, somehow expecting something fantastical and LeGuin-ish, not realizing that the one was merely a signal that it was to be the first part of 3. 2 was lost, 3 never written. Yet it's the harshest realism set in the 30s California. It's written in provocative and experimental prose that play with POV and stream of consciousness and line breaks and punctuation. Stevie of Requa 1 could very well be the singled-out child in LeGuin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. This is followed by a few nonfiction pieces to round out the book.
Once again I wonder: what might the world have received, if Tillie Olsen (and so many others) had gotten support with childcare, as a mother and a parent? The questions she raised in Silences continue to echo, decades later.
Edited to add in 2023. When I read this last year, I stopped when I got to Requa 1. There was some burning reason I needed to read Tell Me a Riddle so when I finished that story and tried to enter Requa 1, I got bounced right out by its challenges.
This year, as I'm having a run at the <200ers on my shelves, I remembered I hadn't finished this short book. I dove into Requa 1, somehow expecting something fantastical and LeGuin-ish, not realizing that the one was merely a signal that it was to be the first part of 3. 2 was lost, 3 never written. Yet it's the harshest realism set in the 30s California. It's written in provocative and experimental prose that play with POV and stream of consciousness and line breaks and punctuation. Stevie of Requa 1 could very well be the singled-out child in LeGuin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. This is followed by a few nonfiction pieces to round out the book.
Once again I wonder: what might the world have received, if Tillie Olsen (and so many others) had gotten support with childcare, as a mother and a parent? The questions she raised in Silences continue to echo, decades later.