Ann Akhmatova + Akwaeke Emezi + New Books
Having spent the past week wanting to slit my own throat so that it stops aching and I stop coughing like a TB patient from vintage Bengali movies, I haven’t got much reading done. Is that going to stop me from holding forth in a newsletter about books and reading? Pffft. #Bengali #GeneticallyInclinedToPontificate
Some of you recommended Amor Towles’s Rules of Civility, starring a Russian immigrant and set in 1930s’ New York. Thank you for this. I’ve added to the imaginary tower of unread books that I am determined to convert into a “read” pile. May the force be with me.
Meanwhile, puncturing the elegant bubble of A Gentleman in Moscow, I wandered to flipping through an old biography of Anna Akhmatova, Anna of All The Russias: The Life of Anna Akhmatova (Vintage, Rs 882) by Elaine Feinstein. It’s a great read because Akhmatova had an incredible life and you can hear about it in this BBC programme. These were terrible, turbulent, changing times. Akhmatova saw and survived so much, I’m amazed she isn’t the subject of a TV/web series. A sleepwalker; her numerous affairs including one with the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani; being called “half nun and half whore” by Stalin’s Minister of Culture; her son being imprisoned and books being pulped because she was seen as anti-state; her refusal to emigrate; the way she ‘wrote’ Requiem (she didn’t dare write it down for fear of the authorities and so told it to friends) … it’s all sorts of dramatic and poignant.
The word landed with a stony thud
Onto my still-beating breast.
Nevermind, I was prepared,
I will manage with the rest.
I have a lot of work to do today;
I need to slaughter memory,
Turn my living soul to stone
Then teach myself to live again. . .
But how. The hot summer rustles
Like a carnival outside my window;
I have long had this premonition
Of a bright day and a deserted house.
~ From Requiem, by Anna Akhmatova
These two, by the way, are among the drawings Modigliani made of Akhmatova.
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Speaking of books unread, I can’t wait to get my hands on Igbo and Tamil writer Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater ever since I read this essay be her on being trans, transitions, mutilation and body confidence.
"There was an ideal my body was supposed to conform to, and I was deviating from it by having surgery. I was rejecting it as a center and choosing something else: a world where the deviation itself was the ideal. I chose it readily. I’ve never minded being a mutilated thing."
There’s such musicality in her sentences, even as they talk of savage sadness and violence. Here’s a bit from a short story Emezi wrote, which was one of the winning entries for the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize:
My head was bleeding and my left eye was red. If God was in me, did He feel this pain I was feeling, both inside and out? Was His blood mixing with mine? If God was in Mama, was He beating me too? Did that mean He was also beating a part of Himself?
I pressed my hands to my face and wiped my eyes until the eyeliner was smeared all over my fingers, until God was out of my face and it was just me lying there alone on the carpet, my mother standing over me, breathing hard, her arms tired and blood on her rings.
Central to Freshwater is the idea of the ogbanje, who occupies the heroine Ada’s body. The word literally translates to “children who come and go” and refers to a kind of evil spirit in Igbo culture. When Ada leaves Nigeria to go and study in America, the ogbanje comes out in full force. Ada tries to find her place in the world while the ogbanje is determined upon manipulating Ada into suicide because that will free both the spirit and the human. I’m very curious to read (and just a little queasy in anticipation of doing so) how Emezi uses Igbo beliefs and the ogbanje to explore ideas of abuse, identity, gender, mental illness and isolation.
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Johann Hari's new book Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression — and the Unexpected Solutions (Bloomsbury, Rs 5999) has on its front and back covers blurbs from the following people:
Elton John
Naomi Klein
Matt Haig
Ariana Huffington
George Monbiot
Brian Eno
Glenn Greenwald
Emma Thompson
Alastair Campbell
Davina McCall
Simon Amstell
It's a fascinating list because of how wide a net it casts. The message being sent out is simple: whoever you are, whatever your interests, buy this book because someone you know and admire thinks this book is amazing. Net result, there’s one part of me that’s like “Ooh! Monbiot, Klein and Emma Thompson!” while another is raising an eyebrow and asking, “Oversell much?”
The publishers are working this hard to win the reader over for a very good reason. Hari was suspended from The Independent for plagiarism in 2012. The fact that Hari could think of writing non-fiction books as his alternative career speaks of a privilege (and salary) that makes me whimper, but let's leave that aside. It's true that the best way to re-establish your credibility is to do work that proves you're not a plagiarist. And so Hari wrote Chasing The Scream in 2015, which received mixed reviews. The criticism was partly of his writing style (which The Guardian likened to the authorial voice of Mills and Boon romances) and of the bias in his research (The New York Times said Hari was in over his head and "unintentionally comical"). Three years later, Bloomsbury, who published Chasing the Scream, has published another book by Hari. The audio interviews for both books were made publicly available by the author.
The topic of Lost Connections is so beautifully in sync with the zeitgeist. However, everyone should hear warning bells when the author writes in his introduction that readers to "please look up and read the scientific studies I'm referencing... Kick the evidence. See if it breaks." Because really, shouldn't someone at Bloomsbury have done this kicking before printing it and a dozen gushing blurbs? Not only am I as a reader meant to read the 300-paged book, but also fact-check it?
Enabled (and exacerbated) by the internet and social media, there are discussions, revelations, confessions, support for and exhibitions about mental health. Even in conservative societies like ours, there is concern and curiosity about how conditions like depression manifest themselves. From what I’ve gathered from some superficial googling, Hari's central thesis is that depression is a result of the disconnectedness that characterises modern lifestyles. Even though the medical establishment has decided depression is a chemical problem, it isn’t and consequently, millions are on anti-depressants that don't really work.
While it is absolutely true that anti-depressants aren't for everyone, Hari’s take seems a bit of a generalisation and flawed. Many of those who have read Lost Connections feel the same. At least some of the facts he's dished out may not be strictly factual. A psychiatrist has come out and said Hari is wrong and another has pointed out that Hari’s generalisations give the wrong impression. If I have to spend hours to "kick the evidence" and figure out for myself whether Hari's thesis is sound after reading his book, then he might as well be self-published. Yet he isn’t.
(You can see Hari's responses to his critics here)
All of which leaves me entirely confused about whether or not this book is worth my time. As is obvious, my reading list is not concise and if Hari’s book on depression is a good one, I absolutely want to read it and you’d imagine it is because hell, he’s got a major mainstream publisher and a star cast of blurbers. Except the flaws being pointed out are so terribly basic. Generalisation and bias are the sort of problems that should be worked out between author and editor when a non-fiction book is at the stage of a first draft.
Recently, two friends of mine — an author and a designer — were arguing about self-publishing. The designer is pro-self publishing and the author against it. I’d thought the author would point out how difficult it is to crack the distribution system as his pro-publisher argument, but my friend had a completely different point. The author argued that if there are publishers in one's chosen genre, then to publish with them is better. It gives the book credibility because it's a stamp of approval because the publishing house considers you worth publishing. To be part of their catalogue is to be on the other side of a velvet rope. If you've self-published, then it’s safe to assume that you've picked that route because no publisher picked you and if you're good, why would that happen? To convince readers to read you and buy you, a publisher is a critically important factor.
This is actually very true, and that it's true is remarkable because statistically speaking, every publisher in the world has produced more meh or crap titles than brilliant ones. That’s just the reality because the bigger the company becomes, the more important volume is and that means not every book will be amazing.
However, reputations are built upon the experiments and decisions that do click. It's worth keeping in mind that major publishing houses command this level of respect because they can boast of a certain legacy — of having backed a brilliant author before they became celebrated, of bringing out authoritative works that stand the test of time. Do books like Lost Connection only bank on that legacy or do they add to it?
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OUT IN FEBRUARY
These are all of Bloomsbury’s releases for this month.
From Quetta to Delhi: A Partition Story
Reena Nanda
Memoir
Rs 350
Partition forced Reena Nanda’s family to move from Quetta Delhi. This book is about how her mother Shakunt Nanda escaped the traumas of the present by retreating into her memories of a happier, pluralist past.
My Allahabad Story
Himendra Nath Verma
Biography
Rs 399
An account of an Irish resident brings out the social life that prevailed in Allahabad hundred years ago and a society made up of the English, Anglo-Indians and Indians. Have fun reconciling that with the Allahabad of today where arguments result in students being beaten to death.
100 Great Indian Poems
Abhay K
Poetry
Rs 399
Apparently, the poems in this book will “give us tangible reminders of how we think, feel, and love.” If you’ve ever wondered why poetry doesn’t sell, look no further than this description. Why on earth would I want a reminder of how “we” think, feel and love? I’m reading these people to know how they think, feel, love and use language. *shakes fist at cloud*
Folk
Zoe Gilbert
Fiction
Rs 499
Loved this volume. If you missed my fawning review of it, let me put it in a nutshell: it’s sinister and quite, quite magical.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
Stuart Turton
Fiction
Rs 599
How do you make a murder mystery stand out from other murder mysteries? Make that fateful day repeat itself, making the same murder happen again and again, until we figure out whodunit. Seriously though, what a great device. Aidan Bishop is tasked with solving the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle, who was killed at gala party thrown by her parents. Until he does, he has to relive that day, each time from the perspective of a different person who was at the party.
A Black Fox Running
Brian Carter
Fiction
Rs 499
A reprint of what is best described as Watership Down but with foxes, an otter, a collie and a deranged dog called Jacko who might well be related to the Hulk. The bit that I do remember is Jacko saying, “Jacko great. He come from stars. Stars love Jacko.” Gotcha. It may sound like a kiddie book with all these animals, but along with the poetic prose, there’s one helluva kill count in this book.
Sail Away
Celia Imrie
Fiction
Rs 599
An ageing actress and an out-of-luck mum end up on a cruise ship. Dodgy dealings follow.
Carnivalesque
Neil Jordan
Fiction
Rs 499
A boy goes to a carnival, gets trapped in the Hall of Mirrors and one of his reflections steps out and goes home with his parents. Sold.
A Thousand Cuts
Thomas Mogford
Fiction
Rs 499
“As the Gibraltarian sun beats relentlessly down, crimes of the past and present collide, relationships are tested and long-buried secrets exposed.” I would like to thank Bloomsbury for this plot summary and will now be looking for sentences in which I can casually drop in the word “Gibraltarian”.
The Lake
Lotte Hammer & Soren Hammer (trans. By Charlotte Barslund)
Fiction
Rs 499
A body floats up in a lake in the Danish countryside. Naturally, what must follow includes human trafficking and mad violence.
The House at Bishopsgate
Katie Hickman
Fiction
Rs 499
A celibate marriage, a woman who has been in a harem, a mysterious woman from Venice and a cursed diamond from Syria come together in 17th century London. This is the third book in a series but works as a standalone too.
Somebody I Used To Know
Wendy Mitchell & Anna Wharton
Memoir
Rs 499
Wendy Mitchell was diagnosed with early-onset dementia when she was 58. This is a chronicle of her life after that diagnosis.
Rise Up Women! The Remarkable Lives of Suffragettes
Diane Atkinson
Non-fiction
Rs 799
Actresses to mill-workers, teachers to doctors, seamstresses to scientists, clerks, bootmakers and sweated workers, Irish, Welsh, Scottish and English — all suffragettes.
Eat the Apple
Matt Young
Memoirs
A powerful coming-of-age story that explores toxic masculinity and maps the insane geography of our times.
Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Kathryn Harkup
Non-fiction
Rs 499
Come on, how do you resist this book? Also, this is an excellent example of titillation through title. Probably not meant for the faint-hearted, given how gory and brutal scientific experiments could be in 18th and 19th centuries.
The Work I Did: A Memoir of the Secretary to Goebbels
Brunhilde Pomsel & Thore D. Hansen (trans. by Shaun Whiteside
Memoir
Rs 499
Pomsel was Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels’s secretary and in her words, “an apolitical girl”. Her life illustrates how far-right politics, authoritarian regimes and dictatorships can rise, and how political apathy can erode democracy. Pomsel died in 2017 when she was 106 years old.
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Dear Reader will be back next week. Thank you for reading.