Things I’ve Read

I’ve been trying to work out how to wind down after the end of exams, as just stopping work entirely was like going cold turkey and I couldn’t do it (plus I had some bits and pieces to wrap up). So I finally got around to finishing Eboni Marshall Turman’s Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation, which I’ve been slowly working my way through since January. It’s very dense, but really rewarding — and I found the final chapters on the creation of narratives and building of memory, and her use of choreography and dance to explore the idea of God in us really wonderful and helpful.

I’ve also read Chine McDonald’s God is Not a White Man, which I would very much recommend, particularly as an accessible entry point for the conversation about racism if you’re in the church. It covers all aspects of life, but is written through a Christian lens, so I think its particularly good for those in churches where critical race theory or ‘wokeness’ are seen as unchristian in some way, and the mix of memoir and commentary works very nicely. I think it’s probably less challenging for people coming to thinking about the topic for the first time than something like Ghost Ship (which is no slight on either of them, they’re just doing different things), and also in a slightly different church tradition.

In fiction, I read The Prophets, by Robert Jones Jr, and At Night All Blood is Black, by David Diop. The Diop just won the International Booker, and is slim novel about a Senegalese soldier in the French army in WWI. It explores trauma and identity and because of the central character, it’s not like many other WWI novels. It builds tension steadily across its 150 pages, ending up somewhere I did not expect — and I really liked it.

The Prophets I found harder work, partly because it is in a style of literature that I’m less familiar with — the African-American literature of writers such as Toni Morrison, and partly (I suspect) because I could have stood to read something less intense in the week after exams… It is a beautiful book, though, and I’m excited to read and hear what people have to say about it in the future (especially what they have to say about the fact it’s called The Prophets and lots of its chapters are named after OT books) because there’s so much in it that I think just eludes me, and I had to try and just not worry about that and follow it through to its ending.

Things I’ve Watched

Guys, I went to the cinema! There was popcorn. It was delightful. I went back very specifically for In the Heights and for Fast and the Furious 9. One of them was very good and one of them was not so good, but both of them were an utter blast to watch. It was definitely the weakest Fast and Furious since they suddenly got good with number four, but also, utter nonsense with electro-magnets and cars doing impossible things in Edinburgh (and indeed, in space)? I’m here for it.

In the Heights, on the other hand was genuinely really good and so much fun. I saw the musical at Kings Cross a few years ago, and really enjoyed it, but haven’t lived with the album in the way I have with Hamilton. The film changes and compresses things: there’s less Benny and Nina with the focus being much more firmly on Usnavi and Vanessa, and (for me - who doesn’t remember it featuring in the stage show) a much clearer focus on identity and questions of home, brought out through the DREAM act storyline. There’s a lot of joy, a little bit of sorrow (yes, I sobbed muchly) and some cracking singing and dancing. I wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of Stephen Spielberg’s West Side Story remake to start with, and I suspect it might look quite staid by comparison with this when it finally appears.

In the pile for next month

I’m away from Cambridge for a couple of weeks, accompanied by Brandon Taylor’s new story collection Filthy Animals (because I looooved Real Life) and my kindle, which has about seven billion things on it that I can’t remember. So I might finally get around to Apeirogon or one of Brit Bennett’s novels — or maybe just all of Joan Aiken’s Dido Twite books just for fun.

A photo from last month