I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to get a grip on my house: books to the charity shop, lots of stuff in the bin, and quite a few things sold on Vinted. All it seems to have achieved is a few gaps on the bookcase. I will plod on with it.'Four Seasons in Japan' by Nick Bradley was a graduation gift for Monkey sensei, that I don't think she read. It is a story within a story, of Flo, working as a translator in Japan, who finds a book on the subway and decides to make it her next project, and has to track down the somewhat elusive author for permission. It is also the book she is translating, a quiet tale of the relationship between a young man and his grandmother, both struggling to make sense of the death of his father. Lovely book, read it for some peace of mind.
I read about Kathleen Jamie a few weeks ago when she was featured on the 'Poem of the Week' in the Guardian and the library had 'Findings', which I have hugely enjoyed. It is a selection of writings about her observations and experiences of the natural world, all happening as part of her everyday life of caring for her family and ill husband. I particularly liked the one concerning Skara Brae on Orkney, having visited it myself about 40 years ago, but here is a little bit about peregrine falcons:"By Easter Sunday, the run of hot weather had broken. A bitter east wind blew from the sea. As is the custom, we hard-boiled some eggs and the youngsters painted them and we went to the park to roll the eggs downhill. Few people were there, though, and we soon dispersed. I saw the male peregrine in the afternoon being pursued around the cliff by a single crow. The crow veered off and went to sit in a tree, but it must have left the peregrine piqued, because he circled alone two or three times more, stooping as though in scorn at whatever happened to be flying beneath him. A jackdaw jinked away with its life. Then the peregrine flew up and away over the hill, and was silhouetted for a long moment against the misty sunlight. An hour later he was back. On another ledge, six feet below, was what looked like a burst cushion pigeon-pink-grey." (p.37)
'The Authority Gap' by Mary Ann Sieghart was another of those books that is so depressing because you get laid out for you the systematically misogynistic structures and attitudes that exist within society that we are literally just scratching the surface of. I sometimes wonder if the suffragettes had any idea what they started by simply asking for the vote, and if they knew how long the road was going to be. Here we are 100 years later ... and the fight goes on. I skim read some of it, both because it was depressing, but also because it got a bit repetitive; seemingly endless examples of women being demeaned, belittled and ignored, even when occupying the most senior positions in business and government. Plucked at random, the experience of Laura Bates (Everyday Sexism Project): "Bates was once invited to give a presentation to a group of MPs, who were meeting specifically to deal with gender equality, and therefore, you might assume would all take the issue seriously. 'I'd been invited to give evidence to them because of the fact that I had curated the largest dataset of its kind that had ever existed of women's experiences of gender inequality. I spoke at length about various forms of harassment, of abuse and sexual violence. And at the end of this meeting, an MP in a very important position came up to me and quietly told me that he felt that I was very "glass half empty", that I had a very negative approach. And that if I really wanted to make change, I should think carefully about ways to make my message more appealing to men. And he felt I sounded quite haranguing.'" (p.56-7)
We all so enjoyed 'Convenience Store Woman' (my goodness, six years ago!) so I found 'Earthlings' by Sayaka Murata ... and kind of wish I hadn't. Monkey Sensei did warn me that it was going to be weird. That was quite an understatement. I am not sure if I would even recommend it. Natsuke, a seemingly ordinary girl, comes to believe she is an alien, but that was not the worrying part. The horrible treatment by her family and abuse by a teacher was much more distressing. The close bond she forms with her cousin on the annual family trip to her grandparents turns her life upside down, and even the means by which she copes with societies demands of her can't save her. It's like watching a car crash in slow motion. "My town is a factory for the production of human babies. People live in nests packed closely together. It's just like the silkworm room at Granny's house. The nests are lined up neatly in rows, and each contains a breeding pair of male and female humans and their babies. I live in one of these nests too." (p.35)
Let me end with a poem by Kathleen Jamie (taken from 'Other Ways to Leave the Room', a small collection containing poems by Kathleen, Don Patterson and Nick Laird)
The Green Woman
Until we're restored to ourselves
by weaning, the skin jade
only where it's hidden
under jewellery, the areoles still tinged,
- there's a word for women like us
It's suggestive of the lush
ditch, or even an ordeal,
- as though we'd risen,
tied to a ducking-stool,
gasping, weed-smeared, proven.
Stay safe. Be kind. Take your overdue books back to the library.
