Notes on Literature

Like most people in the world, I like to read, and sometimes, as I read, thoughts and feelings bubble up inside me (yuck!), struggling to escape. I fear that if I deny their escape, they will putrify in the corners of my mind and body, and who knows what that might bring? So, I might as well put them in here, and emblazon them with the respectable title of 'reviews'.

An arbitrary constraint I adhere to when writing reviews is to foreground the fact that literature does not exist in a vacuum, that it is produced in the world, and therefore necessarily refers to reality, or at least its rough co-ordinates.

What this means is that I make it a point to refer to the historical or political circumstances under which the book was written and published, or to another text that resonates with it. That last one's subjective, I'll admit, but I too am a subject of the society I live in, even if I don't get out much. This method often takes me down rabbit holes I wasn't quite anticipating and well, I'm dragging you down with me.

I've added little markers to help categorise the reviews (this is mainly for me, but you can come along too!) so, a little red book [📕] indicates a work of non-fiction while a little blue book [📘] indicates a work of fiction and a little green book [📗] indicates a piece of writing that dwells on more than a single book and its intertextualities. A caterpillar [🐛] indicates that the book was read as part of the Bookbug book club