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A review by jw2869
Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe
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.