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A review by l0u_stips
Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe
5.0
I'm not sure what I can possibly offer as commentary on this book that might capture its light and weight and beauty. It's unspeakably precious and profound. I'm a white reader, and leave with questions and invocations towards grief and unsurprise and deep attention towards the Black note reverberating across dimensions. And a reading list - Dionne Brand, of course (and I thank you, Haidee, for priming me to delight in Sharpe and Brand's mutual regard), more Saidiya Hartman, Rinaldo (and Derek) Walcott, John Keene, Canisia Lubrin, June Jordan (see Note 212).
I think I'll leave Note 234 here, which gives breath to all my hopes and fears:
"Care is complicated, gendered, misused. It is often mobilized to enact violence, not assuage it, yet I cannot surrender it.
"I want acts and accounts of care as shared and distributed risk, as mass refusals of the unbearable life, as total rejections of the dead future."
I think I'll leave Note 234 here, which gives breath to all my hopes and fears:
"Care is complicated, gendered, misused. It is often mobilized to enact violence, not assuage it, yet I cannot surrender it.
"I want acts and accounts of care as shared and distributed risk, as mass refusals of the unbearable life, as total rejections of the dead future."