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maises's reviews
54 reviews
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid explores the remnants of European imperialism and how tourism is an extension of capitalistic intent. Her writing is so witty and memorable, with critique passionate and on the nose. Antigua is a small country, a small place, with the lingering effects from colonialism not unique to the colonized but just as blistering and frustrating for people whose odds are constantly stacked against them. Whatever reparations are given, it will never be able to cover what is owed: “As for what we were like before we met you, I no longer care. […] it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you.”
Lastly, I had to see for myself: The library on Market Street remained under construction for years even after the publishing of this book in ‘89. A contract came in 2006, and with it money, but construction delayed until it picked up again seven years later. The Antigua Public Library opened to the public in 2014. “Repairs are pending” lasted exactly forty years.
5.0
“An ugly thing, that is what you are when you become a tourist, an ugly, empty thing […]”
Jamaica Kincaid explores the remnants of European imperialism and how tourism is an extension of capitalistic intent. Her writing is so witty and memorable, with critique passionate and on the nose. Antigua is a small country, a small place, with the lingering effects from colonialism not unique to the colonized but just as blistering and frustrating for people whose odds are constantly stacked against them. Whatever reparations are given, it will never be able to cover what is owed: “As for what we were like before we met you, I no longer care. […] it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you.”
Lastly, I had to see for myself: The library on Market Street remained under construction for years even after the publishing of this book in ‘89. A contract came in 2006, and with it money, but construction delayed until it picked up again seven years later. The Antigua Public Library opened to the public in 2014. “Repairs are pending” lasted exactly forty years.
For isn’t it odd that the only language I have in which to speak of this crime is the language of the criminal who committed the crime? And what can that really mean? For the language of the criminal can contain only the goodness of the criminal’s deed. The language of the criminal can explain and express the deed only from the criminal's point of view. It cannot contain the horror of the deed, the injustice of the deed, the agony, the humiliation inflicted on me.
Medea and Other Plays by Euripides
5.0
Will probably write a proper review later. But this marks me re-reading Alcestis and Hippolytus twice this year, by John Davie and Philip Vellacott. I liked both.
Medea and The Children of Heracles were also very entertaining.
Medea and The Children of Heracles were also very entertaining.
The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas
5.0
“I promise to think about no one but you. To think about everything I know about you. […] There is no one else. I shall never forget what I have promised, as long as you are gone.”
Elizabeth Rokkan’s gorgeous translation of The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas is my first foray into Norwegian fiction, and now definitely not my last. Vesaas deals with the simplest of premises here: Two girls, Siss and Unn, are on the precipice of a life-changing friendship. Then Unn is lost. The story of Unn and the palace of ice and the village’s search for Unn and, most importantly, Siss’ emboldened resolve to keep a promise to a friend—these are all simple beats to a simple narrative, and yet every minuscule thing reverberates twice as loudly, just as the echoing voice in the caverns. Vesaas’ words, brought to life by Rokkan, make this a story worth remembering because, in its essence, it explores grief and what we owe it, as well as the love that it comes from. Absolutely a new favorite.
Four eyes full of gleams and radiance beneath their lashes, filling the looking-glass. Questions shooting out and then hiding again. I don’t know: gleams and radiance, gleaming from you to me, from me to you, and from me to you alone – into the mirror and out again, and never an answer about what this is, never an explanation. Those pouting red lips of yours, no, they’re mine, how alike! Hair done in the same way, and gleams and radiance. It’s ourselves! We can do nothing about it, it’s as if it comes from another world. The picture begins to waver, flows out to the edges, collects itself, no it doesn’t. It’s a mouth smiling. A mouth from another world. No, it isn’t a mouth, it isn’t a smile, nobody knows what it is – it’s only eyelashes open wide above gleams and radiance.
I would like “GLEAMS AND RADIANCE” on my tombstone. Though it may only be effective if there was a mirrored tomb beside mine, with the same exact epitaph. And if they were both made of pure ice.
Run With the Wind by Shion Miura
5.0
“Even when we think we’ve reached the goal, there’s always something beyond it.”
This is a book about running. It is also not. In Miura’s words, lovingly translated by Yui Kajita, “This moment was his and his alone. It’s a world only I can experience, as long as I keep running.” In essence, this is a story on loneliness, and the strength it takes to turn that loneliness into something that revolves around contentment, joy, and love. Run with the Wind is at times too honest and open about its dreams, even romantic, but it isn’t impractical. It’s so hopeful that it scares me.
There is much emphasis here on why Kakeru and all his friends like to run even when it hurts and even when there is no direct benefit to keep going. The metaphor is not so difficult to understand, nor is the reason so metaphysical: they experience a real runner’s high occasionally, and even in a rarer case, something vaguely described as being in the “zone,” in which the body achieves near-inhuman feats with little thinking involved. Strength in body and in mind are huge benefits to long-distance running. They are, probably, the only things to it. But what Miura means by strength and how to pursue it is a struggle all the characters in Run with the Wind deal with internally, rather than physically.
Out of nowhere, Kakeru remembered a snow-covered field he'd seen when he was little. He woke up early one morning and went to a field in the neighborhood to discover the familiar landscape completely transformed by the snow that had settled overnight. Kakeru ran across the fresh, untouched expanse of white. Letting his heart guide him, he ran to make pretty patterns on the snow. That was the first time in his life that he felt joy in running.
Maybe strength was something beautiful that stood poised in a subtle balance, like the patterns on the snow he'd drawn that day.
Miura doesn’t need any complex messaging, because running itself as an activity is not actually complex. Everything is laid out in front of you: you just have to make it. The message, overall, is that running is difficult. It is difficult and it it is done anyway. In the same vein, life is difficult—so are people and one’s relationships with them—but all of it is dealt with one way or another, because life moves linearly and you get somewhere regardless of whether you run or crawl.
Running may be done alone, but the strength needed to run is drawn from all different facets of your life, most notably from the people you love and support you in turn (both in terms of the physical activity and also the very obviously metaphorical one).
Running may be done alone, but the strength needed to run is drawn from all different facets of your life, most notably from the people you love and support you in turn (both in terms of the physical activity and also the very obviously metaphorical one).
Now he knew that running didn’t have to be isolating. Despite being a solitary act, running had the power to connect people, to make them bond in the truest sense of the word. […] To run was to be strong. Strength wasn’t speed; rather, it lay in the runner’s capacity to connect with others while maintaining a sense of solitude.
I needed this book. It was a reprieve to read something this slow (ironically) and I liked being forced to take a breath alongside every lovable character. Their joys were mine. Kajita was able to translate Miura’s prose without compromising how she built her atmospheres or characterizations. There were some scenes in the book so silly and funny and heartfelt that I think my heart may have grown three sizes, Grinch-style. I wish to read more of Shion Miura’s works now, and possibly even Yui Kajita’s in the future.