Book: Red, White & Royal Blue Author: Casey McQuiston
I fell head over heels in love with the endearing premise of this book even before I read it. The love story of the First Son of the United States and the British Prince — the stuff of dreams. So we have two delightful protagonists, Alex and Henry, with some political intrigue thrown in.
The narrative goes like this:
Alex Claremont the charismatic FSOTUS has hated Prince Henry all his life, or so he likes to believe. Then one day the two meet at a wedding. After an embarrassing misadventure, the two are put together to repair their damaged reputations through a picture-perfect (though fake), instragrammable friendship. That’s when they begin to open up to each other, share the struggles of constantly being in the public eye and lo and behold! sparks fly.
However, as always, the path of true love cannot but be strewn with thorns. Given their positions, the thorns are pricklier than ever.
Alex dreams of a career in politics and the odds are already rather precarious since he is half Mexican. Plus, he has to come to terms with his sexuality.
Prince Henry has always known he was gay but coming out doesn’t seem like an option. Getting the British Royal court to accept that their most eligible bachelor, their Prince Charming is gay is no easy task.
My thoughts
Red, White & Royal Blue was the 2019 winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards. I was looking for a light easy romance and it seemed perfect. And yet it didn’t have me gushing as I’d thought it would.
The story is told in the third person, mostly through Alex’s perspective. He’s smart and witty with a quicksilver tongue. I loved how clear and focussed he was in what he wanted from life. That said, Henry remained my favourite. I loved every bit of his understated, rather geeky persona and his subtle, very British sense of humour. I loved how keyed in he was about queer history. McQuiston weaves it in beautifully in the back and forth conversations he has with Alex.
There are a host of side characters. The First Family McQuiston builds up is delightfully warm and mushy.
As far as the British characters go, she was a tad bit unfair, settling for caricaturish stereotypes in her attempt at getting to the quintessential British stiff upper lip. All apart from Henry of course, who I thought was quite perfect.
My major beef with the book, and this was a big one, was the over liberal use of swear words. Despite being pegged as Young Adult fiction, it was peppered with the f*** word. That rankled. I couldn’t come to terms with families talking like that to each other not just in moments of stress but even otherwise.
Also, the rendezvous of the two lovelorn boys seemed highly improbable. I cannot see how two such prominent people could just ‘slip away’ during public events. However, I’m willing to forgive that in the name of creative license.
Those two factors took away from my enjoyment of the book, however, I do see why a romantic young adult would find it quite perfect.
Last thought: A mushy read for romantic YAs.
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We’re celebrating Rakshabandhan in India today – a day dedicated to sibling/s. And I bring you ten siblings I loved from some of my favourite books.
We all know the classics — Jo and Meg from Little Women, Jane and Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice, Scout and Jem from To Kill a Mockingbird. I thought I’d look into some of the more recent works — over the last few deacdes. Something written in my lifetime, at least. That might not be really recent but it’ll have to work :-). Here goes:
Fred and George Weasley from the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
Who better, to kick off my list with? I had to have them. Identical twins, who’re not just physically alike but also in every other way you can think of. They were together in every plan, every prank completing each other’s thoughts.
On a side note if you’re a Potterhead and want to see in what ways they were not alike, check out this article here. It’s fascinating, I tell you.
Anna and Kate Fitzgerald from My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Anna was genetically conceived to keep Kate alive – that’s how closely intertwined were the lives of these two sisters. Kate, the older one, suffers from blood and bone marrow cancer and Anna is brought into the world to save Kate’s life by donating her umbilical cord blood. However, the bond they share goes beyond medical procedures.
Katniss and Prim Everdeen from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Katniss is the quintessential older sister; almost too perfect to be true. She’s tough and bold and smart. She’s the provider while Prim is the baby of the family. Katniss volunteers in place of her sister to participate in the Hunger Games, preferring to court death rather than allowing Prim to do so.
Augie and Olivia (Via) Pullman from Wonder by RJ Palacio
Although Augie was the protagonist of this fantastic book I loved Via a tad bit more than him. It couldn’t have been easy living with brother who required the entire attention of both her parents. Via struggles with feelings of resentment and then guilt. Yet she’s there for Augie when he needs her.
Lou and Treena (Katrina) from Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
My sister and I argued at length about whether Lou and Treena deserved to be on this list. She insisted they didn’t get along at all. Which is so not true. I mean they had their differences, Lou struggled with her complexes; Treena was clearly the smarter of the two. She (Treena) takes over Lou’s room and Lou resents that. But, but but — remember It was Treena who came up with the idea of Lou taking Will on those trips. She also supports Lou’s decision to accompany Will.
Sam and Patrick in The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chobsky
How many brother-sister duos do you see hanging out together in school? That should be proof enough of Sam and Patrick’s closeness. These step-siblings stick close together, they watch football together, they party together and are privy to each- other’s secrets.
Margot and Lara Jean from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
I am still feeling a little bad for leaving out Kitty. After all it was she who started off the whole sequence of events and was aroundmore often. However Margot and Lara Jean’s relationship is more mature. I loved their skype conversations and the way Margot advises Lara Jean. Oh they have their differences but Margot is there for Lara Jean when she really needs her. And that’s what matters in the end. Also, in the third book when Lara Jean tries to break up with she is mimicking Margot – that’s the kind of influence Margot has on her.
Alex and June from Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
The first son and daughter of the United States, Alex and June, are another one of my favourite siblings. Alex revels in his mom’s position as the President of the United States. He aims to be a politician himself and loves the hubbub of her office. June, on the other hand, wants to be a journalist, and likes to distance herself just a little bit from it all. What I love about them is that they’re different and yet they are able to connect just as perfect siblings should.
For my last two I’m picking up two books I loved by Indian authors.
Zoya and Zorawar from The Zoya Factor by Anuja Chauhan
If you haven’t read this delightfully Indian cocktail of cricket, advertising and superstition with a dash of romance and Shah Rukh Khan, well then, your life is incomplete. Zoya and Zoravar are absolutely adorable. He calls her ‘Gaalu’ for her cubby cheeks and she says, ‘Basically, Zoravar’s thing in life is to make fun of me.’ That sums up their relationship.
Diya and Anu from Hot Chocolate is Thicker Than Blood by Rupa Gulab
This one’s another delightful set of chalk and cheese siblings. Diya is the older sister, the good girl with straight As and just as straight silky hair while Anu is the one who’s perpetually in detention with curly hair (that grows horizontally). And that makes her certain she’s adopted. They sisters bond over cups of hot chocolate and it doesn’t really matter if one of them is adopted because after all hot chocolate is thicker than blood. I really must do a proper review of this one.
Even as I’m hitting publish I have a feeling I’ve left some out. So tell me which ones are your favourite.
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After a bit of break, I’m back to reading African American history.
Most of us have a vague idea of how scores of Africans were sold in European and American markets. We are familiar with slavery through books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin or, in a more glorified form, in Gone with the Wind. We read these books, ‘It was terrible’, we say, we shake our heads and then we get on with life.
It’s not until a book like The Book of Negroes comes along, that the horror of it all sinks in. In its entirety. It’s then that we truly begin to understand, just a little bit, what it would have been like.
For that, this book, is a must read.
Set in the 18th-19th century, we hear the story in flashback through Aminata Diallo, daughter of a talented midwife and a jeweller.
While on her way home from a neighbouring village, 11-year-old Aminata is kidnapped. Then on begins a long and arduous journey for her. Along with a group of other village folk, she is yoked by the neck and made to walk.
Aminata befriends a young boy Chekura who is helping the kidnappers. He is sympathetic towards her, bringing her food and water.
After months of walking, goaded along with whip-lashes from their captors they reach the sea. They are then loaded onto ships that sail to Carolina. Ironically, Chekura is also put in along with other Africans, becoming a prisoner himself.
Aminata survives the harrowing ship voyage as also a slave rebellion and lands on the shores of Carolina. She is sold off to Appleby, a ranch owner. She’s a smart young girl, quick to pick up skills, eager to learn new ways and new languages. She has picked up midwifery from her mother and that renders her invaluable.
However, not her intellect, nor any of her skills can protect her from her fate as a slave. She’s beaten and raped and separated from her husband; her child sold off. She moves from Carolina to Nova Scotia and she survives, as does her dream of going back to her village in Africa.
What I thought of it
The Book of Negroes lays bare the cruel practice of Slavery in all detail. It talks about how people from Africa were kidnapped, coerced, shipped, treated worse than animals and bought and sold across America.
The writing is lucid and flows easily. It’s simple and it kept me turning the pages. It is the story that remains the hero of the book. Aminata’s journey is execptional and yet hundreds of millions of blacks faced the same fate, cheated over and over again of their right to exist as humans. Despite its heart-breaking subject, the book manages to maintain an underlying upbeat spirit, perhaps due to it’s protagonist.
Aminata’s character embues the book with optimism, rendering it readable
Right from the beginning it is clear that Aminata is a gifted child. She grows up to be smart and intelligent. Her skill at mid-wifery, her mother’s gift to her, and then later, the gift of education put her in a league above the other black people. It ensures for her, a better life than most others. Which is why the book doesn’t turn into a weep-fest. It did however make me wonder how much worse it would have been for the vast majority of other slaves who were illiterate, uneducated and barely skilled. Would they have had any bright spots in their lives at all? That was a frightening thought.
The African Diversity
We often make the mistake of clubbing the entire African continent as one entity. The book brought home its diversity. It was good to be reminded that there were multiple tribes with multiple languages, dialects and religions. Not every slave could even understand what another one was saying. Also, it was Africans who were capturing other Africans. So to think that all of them were victims would be wrong.
In the end the book is about humanity
On the surface of it, this is a story of the white man against the black, and yet in the end it is about respecting another human, no matter his race or colour. Also, to lay the blame solely at the door of Europeans or Americans would be wrong. Almost every race, at some point, has people trying to prove their supremacy and to undermine others for power or money. Like I pointed out earlier, a lot of Africans were involved in the slave trade too. Closer home in India, the caste system was just a variation of slavery as were practices like bonded labour. None of us are truly exempt from blame.
The book is a reminder that every human deserves to be respected.
Last thought: Read this for a glimpse of African history.
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It’s time for Book Bytes and today I am making a departure from my usual format of sharing a single quote from a book. In fact I was reminded of these quotes, not from a book, but from a series based on a book.
It’s Anne of the Green Gables/Anne with an E.
I read the first of this book series (yeah it is a book series with 6 books and then some more based on Anne’s children) long ago but then I was reminded of it recently when I read an excerpt in my children’s text book (again!). And then when I saw the series I absolutely adored it.
The series veered away from the original book. And that made me want to dislike it. However when I relaxed my rigid bookish mind I found I quite liked the changes; Mathew not dying was my favourite one, Aunt Josephine’s and Cole came a close second and also that Diana ends up going to college (she doesn’t in the original book).
I found this new version more in keeping with the times. It did take away from the authenticity but well.. like I said, I didn’t mind.
Sharing some quotes that are my absolute favourites.
On Tough Times
“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy something if you make up your mind firmly that you will. Of course, you must make up your mind firmly. I’ve made up my mind to enjoy this drive”
Sometimes life hides gifts in the darkest of places.
— Anne Shirley
On Self Worth
“I’m loved now, but when I wasn’t, it didn’t mean I wasn’t worthy of it.”
—Anne Shirley
‘‘If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, but your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”
— Jane Eyre
I cannot begin to say how much I loved these two. The second one is quoted by Anne a number of times through the book.
On Change
“I reckon every new idea was modern once, until it wasn’t.”
—Matthew Cuthbert
Mathew was one of my favourite characters. He was the perfect foil for Marilla’s short tempered personality and Anne’s ebulience. Kindred spirits need an anchor and Mathew was perfect.
On Love
I’ve never bought into that “You Just Know” notion. Love is a tricky thing. Sometimes it feels like an undeniable force that hits between the eyes and doesn’t let up. Other times, it’s malleable, questionable. It’s truth hidden in and amongst external obstacles and internal circumstances that’ve formed who you are, what you expect in the world, and how you can accept love. Oh, to say the least, it’s complicated. And if a mind’s abuzz with pressure and deadlines and “What if this and that,” I imagine love’s truth would be a near-impossible thing to feel. I wonder if, when all’s quiet in your mind, you’ll find your answer.
— Aunt Josephine
It’s a long one but it descriibes love so aptly.
So tell me, have you read/watched Anne? Do you have a favourite quote?
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Book: The Book of Fate Author: Parinoush Saniee Translated by: Sara Khalili
Young Massoumeh moves with her family to Tehran from the small conservative town of Qum. The older daughter from among five siblings (three brothers and two sisters), Massoumeh loves to study. Her father supports her, however her mysogynistic brothers and her mother are against it, only wanting her to get married. Insulting and hitting the girls of the family isn’t unusual.
Even with her limited freedom, modern Tehran, is exciting to Massoumeh. It’s here that she finds her best friend, Parvaneh, and also her first innocent crush.
Soon enough, her crush is discovered by her family. She’s beaten up mercilessly and married off to a man she hasn’t even seen.
Her luck turns when she finds that her husband is way more modern than her own family. He is a communist dissident struggling against the oppressive rule of the Shah of Iran.
He champions the equality of women and, to Massoumeh’s delight, he pushes her to further her studies. They have two sons and life seems good For a while but then her husband is found out by the Shah’s men and is caught and persecuted.
Left alone to care for her children Massoumeh soldiers along through the revolution. She finds a job to support her small family even as she continues to dream about finishing her University education. Even after her husband is released, life remains a struggle for her.
The Book of Fate is Massoumeh’s story as she navigates life in turbulent Iran.
My thoughts
Originally written in Persian, this book has been translated into a dozen languages. It was banned in Iran for a while.
The Book of Fate is as much a story of Iran as it is that of young Massoumeh.
The story of Iran
I was only vaguely aware of the history of Iran. The Book of Fate proved to be the perfect way to get to know it. Massoumeh’s fate is entwined with that of her country through her husband and her children. There’s nothing poetic or romantic about the narrative. So if you’re expecting Shafakish descriptions you will be disappointed. The Book of Fate tells of life in Iran as it is without making it the focus of the book. Through Massoumeh we watch the Communists and the Conservative Islamic Leaders come together in the the revolution against the Shah of Iran. We watch as it becomes a success and Khomeini comes to power. And then we watch the crumbling of communist dreams and their terrible persecution under this new conservative rule. That is followed by the Iraq war.
Massoumeh’s character
I liked Massoumeh. She isn’t a revolutionary. She’d have been happy not having anything to do with the politics of the country. She doesn’t want her husband or her sons and daughter to become great rebels. She isn’t special or brave or heroic in a Joan-of-Arc kind of way.
And yet she is.
She is brave in an ‘every-day every-woman’ kind of way. She is modern in her thinking, in that she understands the importance of education, she understands the need for women to be independent. When her husband is taken prisoner she doesn’t mope around, she doesn’t reach out for help to either her family or her in-laws. She goes out and she finds work. She braves the jibes and barbs that come her way. And she takes care of her family. She is kind and thoughtful. And that is her strength. Her growth from a shy timid teenager to an independent woman was nothing short of miraculous.
She has flaws.
Of course she has flaws. Her upbringing and her years of conditioning hold her back. Like I said, she isn’t a revolutionary. She is conscious of what society thinks of her and expects of her, and she makes sure she remains a ‘good’ girl at all times.
To me, that made her relatable. I might not have agreed with her decisions (specially the ending of the book) but I could see where she was coming from.
This isn’t a book about the repression of women
A lot of reviews peg this one as a book on the repression of women in a patriarchal society. That would be true but only to a small extent. I like to think of it as a book about the triumphs of a woman in a patriarchal society. I’d like to see it more as an uplifting read than a heartbreaking one. Yeah there are heartbreaks, lots of them, and struggles too and yet I didn’t need to pity Massoumeh.
Last Thought: Read it for Massoumeh’s story and for a crash course in the history of Iran.
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As part of my pledge to read more books from diverse authors, I picked up Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. I had seen it on more than one book list while I was trying to build my own. That, and the title which sounded light and happy, lead me to pick this one. Although the book wasn’t exactly light and happy, it wasn’t heavy either, it took me by surprise.
Such a Fun Age tells the story….
….of Emira – a black twenty-five-year-old, aimless and unambitious, yet to find her calling in life. In the meanwhile, she holds two part-time jobs, one of which is that of a baby-sitter for Alix Chamberlain’s three-year-old daughter Briar.
One evening while Emira is at the supermarket with Briar, a security guard detains her suspecting her of having kidnapped the child. A panicked Emira calls Briar’s father even as a man, Kelly, videotapes the incident.
The episode shakes up Alix who decides that she needs to take a greater interest in Emira’s life. Her stilted attempts at starting up a conversation puzzle Emira who has no need for this friendship. All she cares for is Briar, who she has a real and deep affection for.
Alix’s interest gradually grows into something bordering on a crush as she constantly tries to talk to Emira, gifts her expensive wine, tries to decode her interest in music, and looks through her phone when she isn’t around.
Things come to a head when Alix crosses all boundaries to ‘manage’ Emira’s life.
My thoughts
Such a Fun Age is hard to review, not because it doesn’t have much to say but because it evokes too many thoughts and you just want to talk about it rather than analyse it objectively. Which is why this will be more of a book discussion than a book review.
Bear with me, please.
We get to read the book through two perspectives, Emira’s and Alix’s
The difference between the two women couldn’t have been more stark and it’s not just about them being black or white. While Alix is a social media influencer, Emira doesn’t even have social media accounts. Alix is wealthy while Emira worries about her insurance. Reid brings out the difference beautifully, almost as if there can be no meeting point between the two.
That’s what it is at the beginning of the book.
Emira is as dismissive of Alix as Alix is of her. If anything, she doesn’t quite like her because Alix seems to prefer only her younger, calmer daughter while Emira’s ‘favourite human being’ is Briar, the older one precocious and talkative as she is.
While Alix changes after the supermarket incident, Emira doesn’t. On the contrary, she tries to pull away further because she doesn’t see babysitting as a permanent position. That is frustrating for Alix who is desperate to befriend her.
Also thrown into the mix, is Alix’s rather complicated childhood
When Alix was young, her family comes into a sudden inheritance and her parents go on a spending spree, to her acute embarrassment. Over the years, she learns to be comfortable with her wealth to the extent that she begins to take it, as well as the privilege that comes with it, for granted. Also, she turns into a bit of a snob. Of course all of this, without being aware of it.
When she sets about befriending Emira she starts looking at herself from Emira’s perspective and perhaps, on some subconscious level, the discomfort with her privilege returns, even while at a conscious level she remains unaware of it. With that, returns the embarrassment of her wealth. She takes great pains to convince Emira that she doesn’t splurge, that she’s a thrifty shopper, not that Emira is bothered at all.
Reid’s writing brings out all of that without actually mentioning any of it. That is exactly what good writing is. The undertones, the conscious and sub conscious motivations are all there for the reader to pick up on.
I have to talk about the incident at the supermarket
The reactions of the various characters to the incident took me by surprise. Emira has no wish to share the video with the world. The racist slur bothers her, but what troubles her more is her lack of a proper job which she feels would have given her some sort of standing in life, protecting her from incidents like that one. ’This wouldn’t have happened if you had a real f****** job,’ she muses to herself. In fact she is more worried that Briar would be taken from her than apalled at the incident itself. Perhaps because the scenario may not have been unusual for her. And that is just sad.
Alix and Kelly, (the man who records the incident) on the other hand are keen for some kind of a redressal. Alix stops shopping at the supermarket while Kelly suggests legal action or getting the guard dismissed, or going to the media.
I liked that this incident didn’t become the central point of the book in the way I had thought it would. That would have been predictable. Rather, it triggers something entirely unexpected.
The friendships in Such a Fun Age
Alix has a set of three friends who are almost cliquey in the way they interact. Even though Alix reaches out to them for every decision, specially when it has to do with Emira, I didn’t get a warm vibe from the group. It was somewhat similar with Emira who also has three friends she hangs out with. However, it is only with one of them (Zara) that I see a real connection.
The ending…
….was a little tame but then it was somewhat in keeping with Emira’s character. It would have been odd if she had suddenly turned into an ambitious go-getter with a high-flying job. However, with her knack for children, I’d seen her as a full-time nanny. Come to think of it the job Alix offered her was quite perfect. But I’ll let that go.
If you like books that explore diversity you might want to read my review of Girl, Woman, Other.
Good Intentions aren’t everything
That is my biggest takeaway. The worst situations in the book arise from the best intentions. There’s the white woman who calls for the security guard at the supermarket with the intention of protecting Briar.
Then there’s Alix who feels her interest in Emira gives her some kind of right to manage her life. So consumed is she with her own good intentions that she doesn’t bother to check if that’s what Emira wants. In fact, no one is bothered about what Emira wants, not Alix or Kelly or Tamra (Alix’s friend who is also black and so feels she can have a say in Emira’s ‘upliftment’).
Before I wrap up I have one small complaint (there always is one, right?)
It’s the dialogue. Look at this: “Why you tryna play one-drop rule right now?” I don’t know if this is how youngsters these days talk to each other but it didn’t work for me.
Also, I still haven’t been able to work out the thought behind the title.
That aside, Such a Fun Age is a wonderfully layered account making it hard to put characters into protagonist-antagonist brackets. It talks about race and class and privilege without getting heavy or preachy.
If you’ve read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’ve reviewed it leave your link in the comments and I’ll drop by.
Last Thought: If books on race and class interest you, this one is a must-read.
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Women. Women of all shapes Women of all sizes. Women of all ages and colours – black and white and all shades between. Women of all sexes. Yes, that! Women who aren’t women at all, women who are men, men who are women. Women who refuse to be defined by this binary structure. In Girl, Woman, Other.
This is one beautiful book.
Girl, Woman, Other charts the lives of twelve British women of colour, their struggles and their wins.
It begins with ….…
…..Amma’s story, a lesbian theatre person, actor and director. It is the opening night of her feminist play The Last Amazon of Dahomey. Among the audience, we find most of our characters, though we aren’t aware of it just yet. As we turn the pages we are introduced to them in turn. The narratives overlap sometimes with the women showing up as cameos in others’ stories, taking centre stage in their own.
Amma is there again in the end, wrapping up the book at the After Party of the play along with most of the characters and we get to bid adieu to them all.
My thoughts
I’ve had this book since December and I’ve started it more than once, then abandoned it each time after a few pages. This time around I decided to stick to it and I’m ever so glad! It evened out after the first fifty pages or so and then on, I found it hard to put it down. Each story is captivating in a whole different way.
The writing style…
…had me lost for a while. Written as poetic prose – prose written and expressed like free-flowing poetry without capitalisation or full stops – it takes a little getting used to. However a few pages down I stopped being hampered by it and began to enjoy its beauty.
The women (and I use that word very loosely)……
…..are flawed. Most of them carry the baggage of prejudices, some due to events in their lives, others purely due to their origin. There’s Bummi, insisting her daughter marry a Nigerian. There’s Shirley a ‘boring’ old school teacher and Carol the banker, successful yet never quite at ease with herself or her identity, no matter where she is. There’s Morgan a social media influencer who refuses to be tied down with man/woman tag. And many more.
I found myself invested in the characters, loving them despite, or perhaps because of their flaws. Evaristo builds each character so that I could see where they were coming from, why they acted a certain way and, when one understands a character, one gets to love them. Not all stories had happy ever afters, not in the conventional sense at least, yet none of them left me feeling dissatisfied.
The book has to be re-read
It just isn’t enough to read it once. I went back and read the first chapter after I finished and then I read Morgans chapter again, because that was my favourite. I will probably be reading bits and pieces, looking for the characters as they enter and exit stories other than their own.
A few things that didn’t seem right
There were some small bits that didn’t quite come together. For instance, there was a part where one of the characters, Morgan, gets into drug addiction, the serious kind. And then one day the reality of his situation sinks in and, while his parents are away on a vacation, he gives it up. Just like that. Evaristo makes it sound easy, too easy. In an almost similar repetitive sequence another character Carol, who seems to have fallen into a depression after she is raped, gets back to normal in the space of a paragraph. ‘I quote: It was like she woke up from like a bad dream..’ with no trigger, no help from anyone, nothing. People change, grow, get a grip on life, I understand that. However for it to happen in a flash seemed improbable.
Also, while I did love the characters, there were a few too many and I was constantly mixing them up, specially in the beginning. As the book progressed, however, they took on personality. Which is why I’ll reiterate, don’t let the beginning of the book stop you from moving ahead.
Despite all of that…
….the book forced me to re-evaluate my thoughts not just on women of colour but on all women, on sexuality and equality and the way people form connections and relationships. It brought home the fact that families come in many forms, that a lesbian woman and a gay man who are friends, can together have a child and that was a family too.
Girl, Woman, Other envelops you like a warm patchwork quilt of engrossing stories.
In one of her interviews, Evarista said she deliberately included twelve women as protagonists, that she wanted to include as many women as she possibly could. If there was a book that dispelled Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s fears, of the dangers of a single story, this would very much be it.
Last thought: This booker winner must be read.
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I’ve been re-reading the biography of Naseeruddin Shah, the actor. I have enjoyed watching his films and some of them have stayed with me even though I watched them decades ago – Sparsh and Masoom to name two off the top of my head.
In his autobiography he talks with a candour seldom seen in film actors. But this is not a review. Today I pick a piece where he talks about his childhood.
Never a good student, he failed twice in grade 9. Here’s what he had to say about his tryst with academics.
I excelled in English but that was all. Maths was totally beyond me as were Physics and Chemistry, and as for Trigonometry……! It’s kind of bemusing to wonder how come it never occurred to any of my teachers to investigate the curious case of this child who always got the highest marks in the class in English literature and composition, yet failed in grammar.
– Naseeruddin Shah, And Then One Day – A Memoir
How could teachers have missed this?
What’s more food for thought, is that even now, when much is said to have changed in the academic world, things remain pretty much the same. Even with less than 30 children in a class students suffer from lack of evaluation that goes beyond text book knowledge. Even now Maths and Science remain the badge of honour worn proudly only by ‘smart students’.
The only positive change, as I see, is that there are more options available beyond maths and science. That is heartening, however it will be decades before societal perceptions in India change.
Do you think the Indian education system has changed over the years?
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It was barely a surprise to be reminded of the existence of racism, I knew that, already. However, that it can be so brutal, so cruel and so clearly played out that someone could make a video, yet not be able to stop it – that was the horror of it.
It was like a page from The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas.
Only, this was real life where a real man lost his life.
Since then, it has been heartening to see thousands of protestors out on the streets. I promised myself I’d do what I do best – write about it, read about it, mostly read – as many stories as I could, acquaint myself with as many perspectives as I possibly could.
I began to think back to the books I’d read on racism. The first one to come to mind was obviously To Kill A Mockingbird. I’ve read it more than once, watched the film, quoted from it over and over again.
Yet when I thought about it, I couldn’t find George Floyd in it.
There’s Atticus and there’s Scout and Boo Radley but where was George Floyd? Oh, there was Tom Robinson, tucked away somewhere, but he was barely there. I wanted to hear his voice. What was he feeling? What was he thinking? What was his family going through? I found barely anything.
If an anti-racism book doesn’t get the oppressed to speak out, if it continues to speak for them, it’s barely serving its purpose. It can only be a start, a small start in the right direction, nothing more.
Believe me when I say that it has taken a lot of introspection and some amount of courage to say this about a favourite book of mine.
I understand those were different times…
… that Tom really didn’t have a voice back then. I understand that a white man’s support would have been a large step. I’m not trying to take away from its merits. Atticus was a good man, a brave man, a just man and a wonderful role model as a father.
However, to continue to hold the book in high esteem is questionable
Specially in this time and age, when there are stories, scores of them, written brilliantly by people from marginalised sections themselves. (The Hate You Give was one such. Have you read it? The film is out on one of the streaming channels. Do try to catch it.)
Books like To Kill A Mockingbird and even The Help (another huge favourite) promote the white man/woman as the saviour. They seem to be giving a voice to the black man but what we really are reading is a white man’s story. It’s time the focus moved from the privileged sections of society to the marginalised ones. Tom needs to take centre-stage and tell his own story. We need to read his story rather than Atticus’.
These lines from a piece I found online articulate my thoughts well:
To Kill a Mockingbird is a white story written by a white woman in which black people are depicted as ignorant, hopeless, and in need of white saviors.
The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own.
I realise now, I need a better perspective. I also realised I didn’t have enough books on my shelves, even on my TBR list, where diverse people spoke out in their own voices. I set out to rectify that.
Here’s a fantastic list I referred to, for my TBR list. It has both fiction as well as non-fiction books on racism. You can pick out ones that appeal to you if you want to read more.
As readers, this is what we need to do – read, as many stories from as possibly diverse voices as we can. Read, not just stories of struggle and strife, but stories of happiness and love and friendship, because it is these stories that make people human, that help bridge the gap between the ‘us’ and the ‘them’.
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Book: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Author: Kim Michele Richardson
I’d promised you (and myself) that I’d read and review The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek right after I read Moyes’ The Giver of Stars. The books are both based on women packhorse librarians of Kentucky and were said to be very similar in content. Finally, after wandering off a little bit, here I am.
The Story
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek tells the story of Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy suffers from a rare genetic disease that results in blue skin. She is called Bluet and is ostracised by the townsfolk, along with other ‘colored’ folks.
She joins the packhorse librarian initiative started by Eleanor Roosevelt, and brings books and other reading material to the people on the hills. Cussy loves books. The written word gets her pulse racing. She has read everything from Pearl S Buck to Aldous Huxley. She is perhaps the best-read person in the town. And yet, she is looked down upon, ridiculed and considered completely unworthy.
A curious doctor tries to find out the reason for her ‘blueness’ and succeeds too (It’s due to the deficiency of a particular enzyme). Bluet is cured for a while but hates the side effects of the drugs that include severe nausea and vomiting. Yet, so desperate is she to be a part of the mainstream of society that she goes along with it. However, the deeply ingrained prejudice against her doesn’t disappear with her blue colour. Finally, she chooses to stop trying to fit in.
Her work, hard and demanding as it is, is her only happiness. And that’s where she finds love too, though it comes at a cost.
What I thought of it
I’ll come straight to the point, without beating about the bush (did you get that?), and say that I loved the book.
The author tackles multiple issues, all close to my heart. She talks of racism and how cruel it was. It is even now, but back in the early nineties, it was way worse than we can ever imagine. It was sanctioned by law. For instance, there was a law prohibiting marriages between whites and coloureds.
Through The Book Woman, I got to know about the Blue people of Kentucky. I found out that they really did exist and also that there really was a place called Troublesome Creek.
And there’s more.
The authenticity
I’d give The Book Woman a hundred out of ten on authenticity. It is a wonderfully researched book. The tone, the language, the customs and traditions, all transport you to Kentucky of the early nineties.
Cussy, the Book Woman
I fell in love with the self-effacing Cussy. While she was the most docile woman you’d ever meet and also very conscious of her standing in the society (or rather the lack of it), she had a certain doggedness that made her persevere despite all odds. She traversed the most treacherously prohibitive terrain, through flowing rivers and heart-stopping narrow mountain trails to get to her readers. I loved how she zealously she picked out reading material requested by her readers. Her pleasure at the thought of their happiness was infectious. Also, I loved how hard she tried to get people to read, sometimes even tricking them into it. That was endearing.
The focus on books and love for reading
I loved how books were such an inherent part of the narrative. The love and longing for reading were touching. It was miraculous that the hunger people had for books, even young children, surpassed their physical hunger. One part of me tells me that’s unbelievable, impossible even, but another part of me wants to believe it – that the thirst for knowledge and the lure of reading surpasses physical needs.
The love story
Cussy finds love on the mountains. Not many pages are devoted to it, there is barely any romance, yet the love story is very real.
Richardson’s Book Woman vs Moyes’ Giver of Stars
It’s not right to compare two books but I had to do this because Richardson accused Moyes of plagiarising her book and that’s what led me to this wonderful read in the first place.
I wasn’t convinced about the charges but the fact remains that the two books are very similar in content. They are, however, different in their treatment of the subject.
The Book Woman is way better researched, way more authentic. Cussy’s passion for books and reading is greater than that of all the women put together in The Giver of Stars and that makes the book so much more of a treat.
In Moyes’ book, the individual stories of the women took up a lot of space and that wasn’t all bad because I did love the stories, but their job as librarians didn’t get as much of a spotlight as I’d have liked. However, that also made the narrative more complex with many stories entwined together. The Book Woman, on the other hand, is the story of Cussy with a simple linear narrative.
If The Book Woman were a classic, The Giver of Stars would be the pop version, more fluff, more drama, easier to read and easier to connect with.
If you ask me which one you should read, I’d say why choose? Read both.
Last thought: Go for it.
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