I've been gone-- I've been reading, writing, suffering, growing. As for the reading...
Fiction and Poetry
In Youth is Pleasure - Denton Welch
Exquisitely written, sensitive, resonant early queer writing. Welch has a unique talent for precise and deep exploration of sensory, tactile, social and psychological minutiae that never gets boring. The dozen or so moments of deranged racism (typical of the late Victorian upper-class culture from which Welch and his characters were composed) are thankfully brief, but painful. In a way, they help to inform a critical read on the rest of the culture we spend so much time exploring in the novel.
The version I read also contained the short memoir "I Left My Grandfather's House", where Welch reconstructs a walking trip he took as a young man, in tremendous and luscious detail. Though it has less of a story, it feels like a more important document in some ways, a fascinating trip into a subjective moment.
The Alchemist - Paul Coelho
The mystical arm of liberal capitalism. Gave up halfway through because this book insults your intelligence and it's not even beautiful.
The Sluts - Dennis Cooper
Fall down an internet gossip rabbit hole with uncle Dennis. An exceedingly fun book to read, I was constantly flipping back and forth to see which stories add up and which don't. Cooper really understands online social dynamics, and the book is still as relevant today as it was in 2004. A story about fantasy, bullshit, mental illness, and gay internet drama. Oh, and it's as haunting and "oh, fuck off!" disgusting at times as you'd expect.
Darryl - Jackie Ess
Fiction verging on poetry. A quick read, but dense with meaning. Made me think hard about my life, the people I love. Darryl's voice is painfully sincere, even in his errors he's sincere. It's beautiful, and even many months later I can remember the characters like I knew them personally.
Berserk: Deluxe Edition: Volumes 1-4
These collect volumes 1-12 from the original Dark Horse printing of the manga, and roughly cover the span of the anime. These deluxe editions are large and the art is magnificent. My local library only had them in stock up to Volume 4, or else I probably would have kept reading.
The 1996 anime is incredible, and pretty faithful, although it presents a more focused vision and a more stoic Guts, with long, quiet, mournful periods of brooding. In the manga, we get a richer and deeper sense of Guts as a person. These comics made me straight-up weep. A three chapter sequence in deluxe volume 3, Confession, Wounds 1 and Wounds 2, was especially great.
The Sleeping Car Porter - Suzette Mayr
It's fine, but I have my reservations. The characters strike me as pretty broad caricatures, which made me read it as an allegory, like it's a train-sized portrait of the history of Black people in Canada. So when our protagonist Baxter, after a whole book of silent suffering subservience is finally saved by an enormous tip from a sympathetic white writer, a tip he'll use as tuition to dentist school so he can live a comfortable life evermore, the tensions he's suffered under are relieved, and so are we as readers. Ah yes, the hardworking immigrants will be rewarded by nice white people and get to enjoy the free, comfortable life that Canada promises. It's no wonder that Scotiabank loved it so much, right? Am I being too harsh?
Scarborough - Catherine Hernandez
Devastating, and familiar to my youth. Not everything rang perfectly true, but this kind of book would be a serious challenge to write, and on the whole it's a vivid, complex, and honest portrait.
A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin
Incredible, of course. A sense of place and magic which is so grounded yet so wonderous that it makes you want to go out an experience your own world as vividly as Le Guin renders Earthsea.
Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delany
I first tried to read this book in my early twenties. I got 150 pages in, then paused to read something else and never returned. This time, starting again from the beginning, I realized that on the first pass I hadn't understood the book at all. I'd been just barely able to follow the story, and was totally incapable of grasping the narrative voice. If I can take this to mean that I've become a better reader, I hope it means my writing might also have improved.
A friend advised me not to treat the book like a puzzle. That's good advice. Dhalgren is more a dreamlike wash than a mystery. That said, I think Delany does a good job of sneaking in grounding details without you noticing, so you don't get completely lost.
The book is massive, and everything it does, it does several times. A circular return to similar scenes, spaces, problems. But I don't wish it was edited down. This is a meditation on writing, on sex, on racism, on violence and suffering and life within a contained apocalypse. It plays with nuclear-level tropes, crossing lines and giving you ample time to think about them, and I still don't know what to make of some of it.
The Tombs of Atuan - Ursula K. Le Guin
Probably my favourite novel. A book which, as I read it, felt like it already lived inside of me. Le Guin's writing is so clean and precise I feel incapable of learning from it, her wisdom too perfectly conveyed to imitate. A refined voice with no hint of pretension... Earthsea is a gift, a realm now inside of me, a place with deep wells of cool water, a boat so sturdy I can feel it under my feet and use it to fare any sea. It's real magic.
Poems - Maya Angelou (Bantam Books, 1986)
A collection of Maya Angelou's first four poetry books: Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie, Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well, And Still I Rise, and Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?
It was long overdue for me to read these. I'd read a couple of Angelou's poems before, as well as I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, which was such an important book for me. But I still wasn't prepared for this beautiful and radical body of work.
Personal favourites: No No No No, Song for the Old Ones, Child Dead in Old Seas, Lady Luncheon Club, Woman Work, The Memory, Caged Bird, Family Affairs.
I Will Destroy You: Poems - Nick Flynn
Not really my thing. At a disadvantage for being read right after the Angelou collection, where her work is vital, biting, driven, while Flynn writes from an anhedonic depression that just isn't what I need from poetry.
Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
Staggering. I've never read much hard sci fi before, and it's honestly amazing how many different branches of science Robinson explores here. Such a fleshed-out world, with political and ecological complexities, and a really clear, exciting story with rounded, interesting characters. Future fiction that is neither utopian nor dystopian, but an exploration of history-making itself, in all its contradictions. Very interested to read more of his work. Some serious ethnic and gender stereotyping going on here, but the point-of-view is so tightly locked to our focal point characters that it's hard to tell what is just a matter of their own biases as opposed to the book's.
Tell Me I'm Worthless - Alison Rumfitt
Fucking amazing. I'm so glad I read this. The structure is divine, the characters' conflicts rich and the depiction of horror, of haunting, of violence and fascism pitch perfect. Genuinely frightening, caused tender parts of myself to bruise and wounds threaten to open up, and then ultimately offered a vision of such a believable hope, an aspirational mode of existence, something that can move us toward liberation even as our world continues to be haunted by Albion. This book rocked me, and I'm glad to have it as a touchstone inside of me going forward.
Rebent Sinner - Ivan Coyote
I'm categorizing this as prose-poetry, but it could also be called memoir. Coyote has a great sense of humour, an eye for detailed, compassionate characterization, and high sensitivity to nuance. The book made me want to see them perform live more than anything. It's a quick, insightful read. I'm grateful for the work they do. From my little bit of experience trying, I know what strength it takes, and I cannot do it.
Non-fiction
The Way of the Boddhisattva - Shantideva (translation from 2006, by the Padmakara Translation Group, Shambhala Publications)
A powerful jolt to the system. Chewing on its uncompromising descriptions of samsara. Curious to read other translations.
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior - Chögyam Trungpa
This one's not for me. It struck me as an attempt to strip the Boddhisattva path of its radical potential, with a significant disrespect for animals and a stubborn lack of compassion or respect for people who are exploited and poor. Instead, it seems designed for a wealthy western liberal consumer base, and demonstrative of many of the usual problems we'd associate with mainstream western meditation culture-- naturalized social hierarchy, exoticized feudal nostalgia, "clean your room" level self-help. I'm suprised Pema Chödrön is a faithful student of Trungpa's work, because her writing had much more to offer.
A Faithful Sea - eds. Adnan A. Husain and K.E. Fleming
Interesting supplemental reading to get a bit of a better picture of the late medieval - early modern Mediterranean, but far from essential reading for someone like me with barely a passing familiarity with the subject matter. Largely intervenes in debates I have no context for whatsoever.
Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition - Glen Sean Coulthard
An excellent education in contemporary Indigenous political struggle in Canada, using Fanon to critique both the "recognition" and the "reconciliation" paradigms, which are by far the two dominant modes by which the Canadian state and other settler institutions interact with Indigenous struggle. There are moves towards "recognition", such as land "acknowledgement" (without repatriation), such as Canadian state "recognition" of Indigenous nationhood (which must always be subordinated to Canadian sovereign statehood). With reconciliation, our main association is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was valuable as a public documentation of truth, but which also sought to "reconcile" Indigenous people to the status quo of colonial rule. Instead of these paradigms, Coulthard puts forth one of "resurgence". In that vein, we're introduced to many other thinkers whom I look forward to reading soon. The book also clarifies a vision for a land-based decolonization movement in such an entrenched settler-colonial situation as ours. Highly recommended for Canadian readers.
Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else) - Olúfémi O. Táíwò
I can see why this book is so popular right now. It packs a nuanced message and political outlook into a tight, accessible format. Relevant to both current cultural and political trends, especially in the USA, and pulls from historical examples that might be less well known (a go-to is the story of the decolonization of Guinea-Bisseau and Cape Verde), it keeps your interest, investment, and attention throughout.
The thesis, as I understand it, is that in any given social situation, large or fine in scale, there are some people who are in a position to take the lion's share of the advantages to be had by the group. Funds, attention, property, discourse will disproportionately accumulate toward these "elites", who leverage their pre-existing power to dictate how these privileges are parsed out. In this book, Táíwò uses this concept of "elite capture" largely to make sense of "identity politics" and its contradictory aspects. "Identity politics" is not just one thing. The term, and related concepts, are wielded differently by different groups. On one side, there are mainstream elites who utilize the idea of "identity politics" in order to co-opt progressive movements for their own ends. This is an opportunistic relationship to identity politics. But then, those very same progressive movements (anti-racist historiography, gender diversity, etc.), with their liberatory goals, are grounded in identity politics. But the latter are virulently villified and attacked by other elites, because of their genuine threat to the status quo.
Much time is spent discussing the problems of "deference politics", probably because this is the problematic instantiation of identity politics most familiar to the progressive academic and organizing audience which Táíwò is explicitly writing for. In its place, Táíwò suggests a "constructive" politics, encouraging the reader toward a more active, rather than passive, form of solidarity, one that breaks free of insular elite conversations in order to learn from and change the broader, shared world.
The book never, for even a second, veers into the reactionary tropes that critiques of "identity politics" tend toward. It takes seriously that radical critiques coming from places of particular and intersecting marginalizations are essential knowledge that we have a responsibility to produce and learn from. It just also asks that we take a power analysis into account, of ourselves and others, and find ways to actively connect with and support the groups whose interests we purport to represent.
In Divided Unity: Haudenosaunee Reclamation at Grand River - Theresa McCarthy
In 2006, the people of Six Nations of Grand River engaged in a protracted land reclamation, with what started as a small group of activists blocking access to a settler construction site on lands which were still being legally contested. This became a widely publicized event, after police and settler attempts at repression escalated the situation immensely. Canadian media largely condemned the people of Six Nations as terrorists, and the settlers in nearby Caledonia as victims of their presence.
This book is not strictly a linear history, nor a journalistic account of the reclamation of Kanonhstaton / the Douglas Creek Estates in Grand River Tract lands, although it contains both. Instead, it is an exploration of these events and their meanings through several different critical lenses. McCarthy starts with a history of "Iroquoianist" anthropology, using concrete evidence to link the arrogance of anthropologists who purported to define Haudenosaunee culture, with the colonial project of genocide and assimilation. These academic constructs are traced through settler culture more broadly, and shown to express themselves even at the site of settler reaction to the Haudenosaunee reclamation of Kanonhstaton.
Then, we work through historical episodes and conflicts within Grand River, and the insights they've produced. Ultimately, we get to an intimate and journalistic telling of the 2006-2007 struggle and its aftermath, and then end on a vision for the postcolonial future we should all hope to build toward.
The book is academic, but on the accessible side of academic (still, not a quick or easy read). It is, however, very interesting, and should be a useful read for anyone interested in Indigenous struggles in a Canadian context. And if you live in Southern Ontario, or remember the coverage of the events of 2006 in Caledonia, this is an especially important book to try to learn from.
We Share Our Matters: Two Centuries of Writing and Resistance at Six Nations of the Grand River - Rick Monture
An accessible, linear history of Six Nations of Grand River, highlighting and critiquing works by many of the most notable writers from the community. An enjoyable read, and one which points to many more readings. While McCarthy's book gets into the 2006 reclamation in much more detail, and provides analytic tools which this book does not, I would recommend reading this one first, because it's much more straightforward and easier read, and full of information that's very useful in understanding Six Nations history and politics.
The Clay We Are Made Of: Haudenosaunee Land Tenure at Grand River - Susan M. Hill
A thorough and scholarly history of Six Nations of Grand River, spanning time immemorial to 1924. Its deepest focus is on the 18th and 19th centuries. Tons of detail and quoting from primary sources make it a little difficult to read at times, but a lot of work has been done to put every piece of information given into a well-ordered context. Tells a coherent story, in rich factual detail, with special attention to legal, political, and economic history. And all grounded by Haudenosaunee culture, values, politics.