Things I've Read

I finally got back into long-form fiction this month, thank you, end of term! I started with Anthony Powell’s A Question of Upbringing. Powell is an old friend: his A Dance to the Music of Time series were the books I read once I was done with my A-Levels, and I’ve been meaning to revisit them all for a while. So it was a delight to go back to the first in the series to get myself into fiction again — known and short, but also not over-familiar — it was so nice to remind myself of how nicely observed these books are, and look at them differently from my perspective now.

I then read Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s In Dependence which is about relationships, dependence and independence in the aftermath of Britain’s ‘formal’ empire. It’s got a nice light touch, but really brings out a lot of the stresses and strains of building relationships (individual and communal) in the light of this history.

And finally, I read the new Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun. I love Ishiguro’s writing, there’s just something so smooth about it, which means you’re involved before you realise it; and I love the ways in which he’s concerned about what it is to be human and how we’re human-ing. This one is nicely insightful on questions of both AI and the choices people make to give those they love the best chance of a ‘good’ future (and whether that future is actually good), and how human relationships stretch and strain in this space. It’s also got an intriguing engagement with belief, which I kind of wish he’d done a little more with, in the end — because the end, when it comes, feels quite abrupt, and I wonder if doing a bit more with the Sun of the title (without getting too heavy handed with it) might have given it a slightly deeper emotional punch.

In other reading news, I also read:

• Julian Barnes’ collection, Pulse, with a reading group. I enjoy Barnes’ longer fiction, more, I think, but this was also a really good collection for a reading group discussion because there’s a lot in there to get into.

• Christian Wiman’s He Held Radical Light, which explores poetry and faith, which I really enjoyed but which I think had more too it in some patches than others. I kind of wish I’d read it about ten years ago, to be honest, when it might have met me more where I was at.

• Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireland, which I really enjoyed and which I think is a really good starting point for thinking about and getting into some of the ongoing conversations about empire and postcolonialism in the UK at present, because it really isn’t as polemical as some of the nonsensical media coverage would have you believe and it does try and grapple with the question of what any positives of the empire might be, given that it cannot be undone, in a way that I think a white British author could not (that is, it avoids the “but the railwaaaaays” lines)

Things I've Watched

It’s so weird how film has so disappeared from my life. There’s a load of stuff I’d like to see, but I just cannot watch new films on my laptop at home, because I can’t seem to focus. I want to be able to go back to the cinema, but its also so strange to think about how to fit it into my life now.

I did, however, re-watch Miller’s Crossing (my favourite Coen brothers film) and In the Mood for Love (by the glorious Wong Kar Wai), both of which were an utter treat — and in complete contrast. I love Miller’s Crossing for its dialogue in particular, and In the Mood for Love for its visuals and mood, so they were very different evenings.

Things I’ve written

Well, gosh, another month in which I wrote something that wasn’t just an essay for a supervisor… Another piece on Jennings’ After Whiteness, in reflecting on re-reading it with a group of fellow ordinands, and another short reflection for Chapel, given just before Easter.

In the pile for next month

I’m in the middle of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Committed, the sequel to The Sympathiser, and I’m looking forwards to bookshops reopening, because I want to go and buy Yaa Gyasi’s new novel and probably some of the Women’s Prize Shortlist (including Detransition, Baby). I’m also considering finally getting around Francis Spufford’s Golden Hill so that I can go on and be about five years behind in reading his new one.

A photo from last month

The magnolia in the court has been particularly fine.