acquisiton: on a woman's madness:: Astrid Roemer

 

Summary:

On a Woman’s Madness tells the story of Noenka, a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her own choosing. When her abusive husband of just nine days refuses her request for divorce, Noenka flees her hometown in Suriname, on South America’s tropical northeastern coast, for the capital city of Paramaribo. Unsettled and unsupported, her life in this new place is illuminated by romance and new freedoms, but also forever haunted by her past and society’s expectations.

Strikingly translated by Lucy Scott, Astrid Roemer’s classic queer novel is a tentpole of European and post-colonial literature. And amid tales of plantation-dwelling snakes, rare orchids, and star-crossed lovers, it is also a blistering meditation on the cruelties we inflict on those who disobey. Roemer, the first Surinamese winner of the prestigious Dutch Literature Prize, carves out postcolonial Suriname in barbed, resonant fragments. Who is Noenka? Roemer asks us. “I’m Noenka,” she responds resolutely, “which means Never Again.”

Excerpt

The echo that’s been resounding in my stomach for days makes my mood unstable. I can neither sleep nor wake up completely. I can’t concentrate. As if my hormones were at war with each other, my body burns in its most vulnerable strongholds: breast, navel, neck. Everything else is out of whack. I get dressed to go for a walk. When I get outside, I realize I’d rather wash my hair. For fun, I snip an old lock of hair off, burst into tears when I see it there on the bed and decide never again to straighten my hair, never again to wax my armpits, to let my mustache grow.

The author: Astrid Roemer

I can't help but be intrigued by this novel and this author. I am really looking forward to this one.

Happy reading ☕️ 

6 am coffee:: writing and reading

the way I start each morning

It almost feels like the dead of night when I wake up before 6 am to make my coffee and clear my brain for the day ahead. 

Nothin quite feels like that liminal space. 

I've taken to reading one of Gustave Flaubert's Letters with my coffee each morning and it is honestly such a great ritual. At this rate, I will finish the letters for another year! That's okay, it's a wonder feeling to have the company first thing in the morning.

my beloved copy of his letters

Is there an author you don't mind spending a few minutes with as you wake each day?

I really want to challenge the notion that we have to start and immediately work through any written work. We can create a dance with literature that ebbs and flows based off of our reading tastes and emotions.

Anyone come to mind?

Happy reading ☕️ 

october reading plans: re-reads, cozy literature, copious coffee cups, and used books

 

October stockphoto

It's that time of year again where reareading calls to my soul. There is nothing like returning to the comfort of a story that touched your heart or made you think of the human condition in a new or different way.

 I can see the appeal of checking books off of your TBR, but haven't you ever been summoned by a previous read? This need to complete so many books has many deadened the draw to old works. I have no strong opinions about people who read 500 vs 5 books per year or anything like that, but I do feel like an evangelist trying to convert non-rereaders to my cause :)

Because I don't use Goodreads or Storygraph anymore (may return to Storygraph one day), I have no idea how many time I have reread certain books, but like weather patterns, they start to enter my consciousness at certain times of the year.

The Autumn with its whispering winds, and calls for piping hot cinnamon coffee are accompanied by the faint murmurs of Austen's most ignored work Northanger Abbey and Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece Jane Eyre.

These calls stand in union with Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights- a novel that so frustrates me I will spend a lifetime rereading it just to make sense of why it bothers me so much! 

This October... (The Reread Edition)

1. Jane Eyre
2. Wuthering Heights
3. Northanger Abbey
4. Lolita
5. Crime and Punishment* (if there is time and my mental health allows it)

This October...(The New Read Edition)

1. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
2. Altered States by Anita Brookner (returning to this project)
3. Apple in the Dark by Clarice Lispector
4. Ghost Mountain by Rónán Hession
5. Creep by Emma van Straaten 

a stack of my books

My advice for this Autumn 

Ignore that bookish social media urge to rush through novels to increase your total books read. Ignore the feelings of FOMO (if you have them) that everyone is reading this or that.

Slow down.

Grab a cup of coffee or tea, a journal, and a deep breath.

Plan what novels you believe will speak to your heart or ones that really really call out to you.

Reading doesn't have to be a religious experience for you like it is for me, but perhaps if you have had the inkling to reread something but fear you could be reading something new and it will be a waste to reread, quiet that voice down with the opening paragraph from your most beloved novel.

Let this crazy time in the world be soothed by the comfort of a story that you love. 

I know that's what my Fall reading is all about.

Join me. ☕️