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I almost didn’t post about this because there’s so much (well-deserved) talk around it and I doubt anything I say would be useful to another person. Madden’s writing is sublime; I absolutely love her work and will be watching her writing much more closely from now on because I can only imagine good things coming. However, this book hurts. It’s a good example of how experience differs so greatly for many of us even when these fall under the same umbrella. So much of the situations she described with her father felt so familiar in many ways, save one overarching thing: what it was like to be loved. It’s amazing the difference love can make for a child; I always say that if my father had shown one inkling of a sense that I was worth something, that there was a capacity for love, somethings (not everything, of course) would have been easier. Still, it is good to see stories like this to humanize those who struggle with addiction. Just because my own experience was the way it was does not mean people will never get better or be unable to love. They just sometimes do and sometimes there is no happy ending. I think this is a fantastic book and I wholly recommend it. // #bookstagram #igreads #読書 #撮影 #読者 #本 #diversereads #longlivethetribeoffatherlessgirls #tkiramadden
Finished Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City and it was a little up-and-down for me. I like her prose, I like the way she weaves in multiple threads into her work (art, film, biography, memoir) to discuss the ways different people produce something out of their isolation and loneliness. In terms of form, I thought it worked really well. However, Laing definitely has noticeable writing quirks that once you see, you cannot unsee. For one, she LOVES the “x-cum-y” construction (artist-cum-lover, actor-cum-muse, etc) and uses it often enough that it starts to feel cheap. She even writes that easy joke, when discussing an artist-cum-lover, “emphasis on the come” and, reader, I screamed in the apartment alone because I hate that type of cheap wordplay — especially when we’ve already had to suffer through so many similar constructions until she hammers that last nail in the coffin. I also felt that the memoir bits were less effective than the moments where she is focusing on another artists’ life and output. I know her experience in NYC and her experience of loneliness is central to the whole endeavor but there were times where she made connections between her experience and the experiences of these artists and they just didn’t feel equivalent or truly similar in the way I think she believed they are. Overall I really loved the sections focusing on the artists/artwork she thought through but there were moments I struggled to get through. // #bookstagram #bookish #igreads #instaread #igbooks #読書 #撮影 #読者 #本 #thelonelycity
On the little sheet they give you post-surgery they tell you to to avoid doing things like operating heavy machinery (obviously), driving, or signing legal documents 24 hours after you go under anesthesia. At first I was laughing about that, but here are three things I bought during that 24 hour period after the surgery 😂 In my defense, these were things I have been WANTING for a while and I guess the residual anesthesia overcame my impulse control enough to buy them. That black-on-black leopard print shirt definitely sparks intense joy; good job to post-anesthesia Julia’s shopping tastes. // #bookstagram #igreads #読書 #撮影 #読者 #本 #tkiramadden #longlivethetribeoffatherlessgirls #jennyzhang #sourheart #longlivepostanesthesiashopping
Finally feeling better after a minor surgery that happened a week ago. I don’t know what it is about my body, but it seems to heal slower than the experts (and online message board commenters 😆) say. My wisdom teeth removal a decade ago took me months to recuperate from, my cartilage piercing still bled after almost a year, and now this is taking longer than I thought it would UGH. I guess my body just hates being poked and prodded, which I wholly understand. I’m finally moving around a bit and I have been making good progress—I’m all caught up with work, catching up on litmag editing, and editing another personal essay that was just accepted by a publication recently. If nothing else, it’s good to know so much work can be done from bed. It’s crazy how draining healing can be, though; I only worked 3 days this week (and even those days were measured and careful) but I feel completely dead 😂 Thank God for this weekend!// #bookstagram #igreads #instaread #instabook #igbooks #読書 #撮影 #読者 #本 #thelonelycity #olivialaing
Trauma is such a complex thing and though this piece is writing about the writing and sharing of traumatic experience, there’s still a part of me that doesn’t like putting it out in the world. Part of it, I think, is admitting that I went through things; I spent so many years actively working through these things in order to NOT need to constantly be under the weight of it all. I grew up viewing myself a certain way because of how a certain person consistently treated me and I wanted to control the narrative for myself; I wanted to be something other than what was done to me. So depending on when we’ve met, you would know a different ‘cover story’ about me—you would have even known me by a different name in some cases. Most of the time I don’t want to get into why I changed my name to my mother’s maiden name in my early twenties, so I say different stories, simply erasing my white father from the narrative. Most of the stories are true (how we ended up in the US, how we never had contact with any white relatives, how I grew up very close to my Japanese family even though they were a world away) but, in many ways, trying to erase the boogeyman doesn’t make his effects disappear. Things still happened and they defined who I was as a person. This piece is my first baby steps into sharing what I experienced and where my journey of healing began: a mental breakdown at university. This is different from most of what I write, but link is in my bio if you would like to read it. //#bookstagram #igreads #traumastudies
Currently reading 📚 I’m really enjoying Laing’s prose style thus far and I’m always intrigued by how people think through/write through art to consider lived experience, like loneliness. I’m someone who tends to think through life with literature, so most of what I write reflects my process of coming to terms with things using literature as a point of departure. Since that’s my default, I always find it illuminating to read someone who processes the same things through other mediums or objects. I’m not that far along but I’m finding the writing very fluid and easy to get caught up in. // #bookstagram #igreads #olivialaing #thelonelycity #読者 #読書 #本 #撮影
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Tag: edinburgh

Posted on:November 1, 2018November 1, 2018books recommended readings

alexander chee: edinburgh

Most of what I have been writing about over the last several months has focused on trauma and various authors’ ways of making sense of whatever event they experienced, whether that be assault, abuse, or examples of historical violence. This focus may seem like a surprise for some of you but, as I have mentioned […]

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