June Reading . . . Yep, I’m Late. . .

Of course, I’m late. What else would I expect, given the established pattern here? But I’m still showing up, and I hope that counts for something. .  .

Again, just posting photos of the relevant pages in my Reading Journal. Let me know if you try to read these and find some portions indecipherable. I’ll be happy to transcribe small sections for you or answer questions about a title that invites your curiosity.

No further ado, then.

35 on my year’s Reading List is Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light.  Besides the journal entry below, I posted on Instagram — an excerpt that made me chuckle and another that I admire for its complex layered observations about time and beauty, thoughts about what persists. . .

Book 36 was Emma Healey’s Whistle in the Dark.  If you haven’t yet read Healey’s Elizabeth is Missing (which I wrote about here), I highly recommend that mystery novel.  Her second novel isn’t quite as compelling, for me at least, but still entertaining and thought-provoking.

#37, Donna Leon’s Earthly Remains — I’m aware that I really need to start dragging my heels with this series because I’m coming perilously close to the end of titles.  And for me, they’re only getting richer as Guido and Paulo move further into middle age, their children almost ready to leave home, their bodies beginning to show the years. In the volume before this, Brunetti had a chance to get out rowing one day and was exhilarated by the experience (although in serious agony for the following two days of protesting muscles). In this title, some beautiful passages that describe more rowing as Brunetti seeks respite from obligations on a nearby island — I posted an example here.

38. And Cherie Dimaline’s The Empire of Wild.  A wild romp of a novel that will make you laugh and make you think while it introduces you to new landscapes and mythologies. Dimaline is a Métis writer and activist who prefers to identify as a writer of indigenous stories rather than as a Canadian writer.  Colonization’s continuing damage and destruction, ongoing systemic racism, the presumed supremacy of imposed Euro-centric/Western culture are undoubtedly targeted in her work, but she will entertain you on every page. (check out my Instagram post for examples of her descriptive writing — the metaphors!)

39.  The last book I read in June has sat on my nightstand since our return from France over a year ago. I picked it up a few times and read ten or fifteen pages, but the stylistic challenges Cixous’ work presents were more challenging for me in French, and I kept putting it back down. Last month, though, I got an email from the friend who’d invited me to accompany her to a reading by this feminist icon at the wonderful Mollat bookstore in Bordeaux. My friend had similarly put off reading her copy of 1938, nuits, but as she finally dug into it, had started to do some research and found that the interview and reading at Mollat’s had been recorded. The link she sent me motivated me to pick the book up again with more serious intentions.

And, as so often happens, once I committed, the words exercised their power and I was quickly engaged, compelled even. Cixous writes (as she has before) of memory and family and trauma in an elusive style, suggestively autobiographical, confessional, conversational. Layers of allusion to history and mythology and literature . . .

Anyone else enjoy the austerity of French book covers? They speak volumes (ha!) about the intrinsic value of the written word, don’t they?

Having studied and admired Cixous’ work (her essay The Medusa’s Laugh is a requisite on syllabi in feminist thinking, critical theory, cultural studies courses — or at the very least, a reference to her écriture feminine), it was very cool to hear her speak in a relatively intimate setting. And then to chat with her for a few seconds as she signed my copy. . .

Now that I’m finished it, I’m going to view the video of last year’s reading and see how much more of it I can understand. . . . My French aural comprehension is very much a work in progress.

There! Now that I’ve posted my June reading, my next post will be my half-year Reading List, in case you’re looking for some Beach Reading. Not that many of us are heading to the beach this year. Maybe a big beach towel spread on the living-room floor . . .

Your turn now. Any comments about any of my June titles?  And of course I’m always curious about what you’re reading, as if my TBR list isn’t daunting enough. . . Favourite books lately? And if you’re not reading at the beach, where have you been curling up with your books?