frogwithlittlehammer's reviews
237 reviews

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing

informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

I would not have picked up a book on art history if not for the mention of Edward Hopper. So I enjoyed his chapter the most, but I ended up learning a lot about the other artists as well, and I especially found the work of Henry Darger moving. Otherwise, while The Lonely City is technically well written and offers good information, I found it rather boring and poorly presented/paced. At least if I’ve learned anything from reading the book though, it’s that I’m not lonely, at least not in the way that Laing experiences. 

She defines loneliness primarily as the idea that you’re someone who exists on the margins, seen as an outcast and therefore unwelcome, maybe even repulsive. A “lonely” person is someone who desires intimacy and closeness but can’t attain this with anyone because of their rejection from society. Laing even brings up speech as a large conduit of loneliness. “The idea that language is a game at which some players are more skilled than others has a bearing on the vexed relationship between loneliness and speech.” In this way, sure, I’ve never undergone like, ostracization, because fortunately I’ve always been good at talking to people. I still disagree with Laing’s definition though. The cure for loneliness is not acceptance into society, but rather it’s the symptom of society. There is no greater affliction that harbors such fervent want, and like bell Hooks says, “Keeping people in a constant state of lack, in perpetual desire, strengthens the marketplace economy. Lovelessness is a boon to consumerism.”

I kind of rolled my eyes at the ending of the book, about being open and kind and rejecting social stigmas, as if loneliness is something we can combat personally. Though I did like that she makes a point to talk about accepting periods of being lonely rather than frantically seeking to mask and resolve the shame associated with feeling that way. So yeah, a bit too all over the place yet slow for my liking, but rather good for its art commentary.

King Kong Théorie by Virginie Despentes

dark

3.5

Il existe une différence entre la féministe sexuellement positive et la salope auto proclamée punk qui veut rationaliser ses habitudes et désirs. Elle a agi comme si le sexe est la seule façon de comprendre fait d’être une femme et aussi le seul moyen d’accéder au pouvoir mâle. Et le pire, c’est que Despentes n’est pas même moche, pas du tout! Assez chouette en fait. 

Je dirais que le livre est un récit d’une expérience individuelle, plutôt qu’un manifeste féministe. Elle écrit très très bien—ou du moins de manière extrêmement convaincante—mais je sais pas, il manquait quelque chose. Il y avait quelques points sur la dévalorisation du travail émotionnel qui m’ont beaucoup plu mais à part ça.. Peut être que je suis pas une femme suffisamment colérique et tellement, il en faut donc beaucoup pour me bouleverser dans ce sens-là, alors qu’il est clair qu’elle se nourrit de colère.

Les Nuits blanches by Fyodor Dostoevsky

reflective sad

3.5

Честно говоря, я удивлена, что это даже Достоевский?? Где бог и глубина? Ну да, все еще мне очень жаль людей, которые так чувствуют. 

Normal People by Sally Rooney

emotional reflective

3.75

Really this is startlingly boring compared to how much I enjoy Conversations with Friends and Beautiful World, Where Are You. Stilted writing, yeah, but still, great content. 

I really felt the power dynamics between class and love were well explored, portraying how pulling ahead in one does not guarantee your security in the other. It makes me think about Rooney’s quip about love in her (superior) debut novel, something like, “love is the discursive practice, unpaid labor is the effect.” Which had me overall reflecting about how frustrated I can get in relationships, where the subject of wealth is ignored because love is this supposed equalizer. I suppose for people like myself,  who grew up having to think about money, it’s instinctual to offer up gestures of love to replace the objects of material value, and if eventually we are privileged (yuck I know) enough to afford the later, we are more liberal with this as well. Eventually, when you realize love is exploited as emotional labor in almost all parties of life, these habits are shed from the more sensitive folks. But for all of my friends who grew up comfortably, there has always existed a large degree of  transactionality in our relationships, and I find that material generosity does not arrear until disparity is explicitly discussed (sorry I guess to my rich friends who are reading this.) And even further, this responsibility to have “The Talk” is always delegated to the person of lower class status—because how uncool is it for a rich person to personally acknowledge they are one. The scene where Connell goes home for the summer instead of asking Marianne if he can move in, was such a genius and poignant representation of this dynamic. The frustration in the other’s failing to offer, the powerlessness of love, the feelings of inferiority because of lack. 

There is no doubt that I am interested in money in the same way I am interested in love. They are both seductive in their incomprehension, irrationality, and fictitious nature. There’s a quote by Francois La Rouchefoucald that says, “There are people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard love talked about.” For me, the same thing applies to the amassing of wealth; it is that much of an inane concept.

But where the novel falls flat in it’s unrealistic dialogue and characters you want to shake straight, it compensates by depicting the difficult and irreplaceable transition one ensues when finally opening yourself up to someone who understands the raw you. The sad truth of it is, many people will live their lives without ever experiencing such closeness. And the sadder truth is, for those who do, that relationship will often not survive this baring of flesh and soul. It’s both ugly and beautiful to see someone so harshly bare, probably even sublime. Rooney explores this expertly. I know a common criticism of Normal People is how everything would have been fixed if Connell and Marianne would have only spoken to each other. But when words will never be able to adequately express what you ontologically understand of another person, what means do we possess, if any, to overcome this dissonance?

Okay so this review really digressed from being a review, but, in the end, I devoured the book in the hopes of finding some new sense of redemption in the arc of Connell and Marianne’s relationship. I think whether that happens or not is individual to every reader, which is kind of a nice thing. 

Outline by Rachel Cusk

reflective

3.75

Very fortuitous that all of her interviewees speak in just her cadence, huh. Almost DNFed as I thought it would be better suited for when I one day travel to Athens and also because if I’m going to be reading in English I am looking for a trashy and campy thing. But I continued because I enjoyed too much her insights on love and marriage. On the latter she writes, “You build a whole structure on a period of intensity that’s never repeated.” And from this quote on I have been developing the thought that I have an alarmingly large capacity to love after all, as this is all I do. 

It’s funny, because of how much I haven’t been reading in English this year, I felt so much on autopilot while reading Outline, as if I’d written this book myself and it was just an old journal I was paging through. Then, I was sitting in my regular cafe reading this and eavesdropping on the wizard of a barista who was handling with finesse both the rush and pleasant conversations with many insufferable people and I thought how much I missed haphazardly affective interactions with strangers, who I could compare myself to and distinguish myself from in order to understand better my identity. 

Oops I am getting introspective again, seems unfortunately it’s that time of year when I’ve got trigger fingers and restless legs and an overactive cerebrality about me. 

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

funny reflective

4.0

Parfois je me dis, je ne me débattrais pas à voir que je n’ai aucune compréhension de cette vie. Mais par contre, des autres fois je lis des choses comme Madame Bovary (mœurs de province!) et pour vrai dire, j’entends très bien ce que c’est le fatalité des femmes. Alors je m’inquiète un peu sur le fait que quelqu’un me l’a recommandé, comme un livre qui me ferai du bien.. j’en ai marre avec des mecs qui pensent que je devrais me calmer et me stabiliser. 

Really, it’s incredible how long ago this book was written, seeing how relatable it remains today. It’s laugh out loud funny, it’s realist, and portrays every woman’s worst nightmare and inevitable future (marrying a man who loves you and then resorting to having torrid affairs with men who can’t make a decision if their life depended on it.) I mean, no not really, but she IS just like me in that she has no concept of money and can’t comprehend the mystique of credit culture.

It was extra special when I was visiting Turgenev’s datcha after reading a bit of Madame Bovary in the forest, and I realized they were quite the pair of pen pals, Flaubert and Turgenev. I am definitely a book narcissist, in that the reading experience is the most enhanced when I feel like the book was written directly for me. Prends pour exemple, « Elle souhaitait à la fois mourir et habiter Paris . » C’est juste, ça. This one goes into the hopeless hedonist heroine genre that I adore so much.

Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett

funny reflective

4.25

Exactly what I would expect from an uprooted (by her own volition) British woman with two uppity first names. Many people would read this and think she was a bit depressed or at least extremely disillusioned with life, that she has a less than ideal relationship with drinking, and that one ought to get a fountain pen. I would say to those people: no*, maybe**, definitely***. It was a scary read at times, because she was thinking the things I have thought and consequentially wrote the novella that I wish I would have written. But of course it was flawlessly executed, except the last couple of stories where I lost some interest but still, it was an immersive read which played around with linear time in subtly amusing ways. Fitzcarraldo knows how to pick freakish women who leave the best impressions. 

*no, because if the answer was yes that would mean I was depressed and I have solidly determined with the help of no one else that that is just not that case anymore and that I am just apathetic. Me and Miss Claire-Louise are apathetic for the same reason that French people whine in perpetuity; that is, as a side effect of living in an incomprehensible and unjust late-capitalist world. 

**maybe, because I have been thinking lately if I shouldn’t approach drinking alcohol like I have been doing in Paris. That is, early in the day before work, alone on an empty stomach, and as a means to be able to get things done with more ease. 

***definitely, because after her passage about fountain pens I started to fantasize about collecting stains from royal and algae ish and despicably bloody inks because, as opposed to food and grease stains, I guess I find ink stains are indulgent and refined. So I bought from passage Molière a little German number, swampy green with gold inscription and nib, that pops right into the pocket of my purse (or my pants!) and I hope great sappy things will flow out of it. 

Fragments d'un discours amoureux by Roland Barthes

challenging funny reflective slow-paced

4.5

L’amour est un chien de l’enfer (Bukowski). Qu'est-ce que l'enfer? Je soutiens que c'est la souffrance de ne pouvoir aimer (Dostoevsky). Tout ce que je comprends, je ne le comprends que parce que j'aime. Tout existe seulement parce que j'aime. Tout est lié par l'amour seul (Tolstoy). L’amour est une maladie qui n’a que l’amour pour remède (Joyce Carol Oates). Mais l’amour est aussi un langage. Et, selon Barthes, “le langage est une peau: je frotte mon langage contre l’autre. Comme si j’avais des mots en guise de doigts, ou des doigts au bout de mes mots.” Il y a beaucoup de bonnes citations dans le livre comme celles-ci, lesquelles te demandent bien, si on peut rationaliser l’amour, ou en revanche, pourquoi on choisit de pas le faire. 

While it is technically about a deconstruction of love, as Eugenides’ Madeleine Hanna points out, it reads like a diary about love. More so however, for me, it proves how separate love and sex are. One of the sections that spoke to me the most was vérité, where you almost primarily desire knowing someone entièrement, and perhaps someone knowing you in all your truth as well. I think this is what love is, outside of the games and charades of waiting (another good section) and signs (yet another great section) and tears and lust. Parisians have a more heightened sense de l’amour—as La Rouchefoucald points out—because of the stories we are told about love. It becomes second nature, first skin, to express it in the streets. As if to say, yes! I am not the one who waits (non plus…)! I used to think I had a hand-on-the-stove like aversion to pda because j’avais la honte d’être tellement intime. Now, I think it’s because I still don’t understand why we equate love with physicality, and why we feel the need to profess it as such in public.

It relates a bit to the section, je-t-aime. We verbalize our love seeking only to hear a response in the affirmative, so that after the first time the phrase (which may as well be a word) is uttered, all meaning is lost. Which is hard to cope with, because all humans would like to do is find un moyen suffisant pour éprouver notre amour, malgré si c’est impossible, tu vois. (There were too many Freudisms on the subject cited in the book for my liking, but still it evokes an almost unsettling paradox.) 

En tout cas, je blablate un peu maintenant. I plan to return to Fragments continuously over the future, as is required for any work of someone of Barthes’ magnitude. 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

funny

4.5

Everyone is a little bit too mean at times and the book was clearly a way for the author to vent his prepubescent woes but at the end of the day, when zoo wee mama still got me laughing 15 years later… i mean say less.

La Chute by Albert Camus
Did not finish book. Stopped at 32%.

I feel like I’ve already read too many internal monologues by man who self aggrandize personal issues as a representation of the human condition. I will continue to read them in the future but not this one here and now. (lol says the one who just started White Nights by Dostoevsky)