The 41st Grapevine
(this is part of the weekly newsletter for Dana’s Book Club)
Dear Book Clubber,
I can see the finish line to the end of the year, but it’s not time for the Christmas playlist just yet.
This is what I’ve been listening to all week, though:
Grunge Forever | Spotify Playlist — open.spotify.com
Listen now only on Spotify: Grunge will live forever. Cover: Nirvana
But that didn’t help since I woke up one morning with Frosty the Snowman (the Jackson 5 version) so vividly playing in my mind
Jackson 5 — Frosty The Snowman — www.youtube.com
Frosty The Snowman is the fifth track from the Jackson 5 Christmas Album
The social responsibility of writers
I attended an event organised by a Romanian group of journalists, who interviewed a Romanian writer on her newest book. A few things about the Romanian fiction-writing scene and reader base:
- The average number of books read in Romania is one/year per person
- 93.5% of Romanians don’t even buy one book per year
- We have the fewest number of bookstores per head in the EU
- Our libraries are protected by law, but in some cases, they haven’t had new books added to them in years
When a writer is successful, they can’t make a living from writing alone in this landscape. When a writer is successful in Romania, it’s not a roaring success. It means a handful of the people who read (~6% out of a population of less than 20 million) might have heard of you.
This probably explains the feeling I get that Romanian writers are cautious. They don’t want to stir the pot too much. They’re mostly private and keep to themselves, and are not great at selling what they have to offer. Marketing in the publishing industry is almost non-existent, and the writers themselves are not making it easy either.
A women’s organisation representative asked this writer whose interview I watched if she’d work with them or a similar women’s rights body, and her answer enraged me. She said she wouldn’t refuse but would not want to be the poster woman and prefers to work in the shadows. Fair enough, I thought. Not everyone is made for the limelight. But it’s what she said next that saddened me most: she doesn’t want people to think she’s jumping on the wagon of women rights because it’s a cool thing to do these days.
Until that point, I was in two minds and was waiting for a hook that she could throw me to reel me in, to make me curious about her. She read for 10–15 minutes from her new novel, and I felt triggered by her male character and a very well depicted typically Romanian misogynism. I realised that Romanian fiction has minimal variation because of these social issues that will take decades to resolve, especially in a world where so few people read, let alone read contemporary foreign literature.
When she answered the interviewer about the women’s rights association, I couldn’t help but lose all intrinsic respect for this writer.
To my mind, writers who achieve some success are not entitled to that success alone. I respect them and can only imagine how hard it was and how much work must have gone into it, but if I’m allowed a Peter Parker comparison: with writing success comes social responsibility. Who else will fight for women and minorities’ rights if not a prominent figure who has a platform to send the vital message and give them a voice?
Maybe I am drawing too much from my admiration for Elif Shafak, and I’m comparing where I shouldn’t. I don’t think Elif’s home country, Turkey, is any milder than Romania on such issues, on the contrary. She’s faced not only criticism and damnation for her progressive views, but she was exiled.
Turkey puts novelists under investigation
I’m not saying I’m expecting our writers to put their lives in danger, but I can’t accept the collective jellied spine they display whenever anything about social injustice comes up.
At Home With Elif Shafak: Feminism, Faith and Women’s Rights in Life & Literature — www.equalitynow.org
Equality Now sat down with award-winning author, activist and captivating storyteller, Elif Shafak. Elif is a British-Turkish novelist and the most widely read female author in Turkey, having published seventeen books. In this cozy conversation, we discuss her latest Booker Prize shortlisted book, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, and the future of women’s rights and feminism in the Middle East and around the world.
What is literature?
Let’s return to the regular optimistic, dreamy vibe of the Grapevine.
Last time we talked about what a book is. I’m not sure a few hundred words on the topic answered it: there’s enough to uncover there to fill a book (a book to define what a book is, take that for meta, Mark!).
This time, I’d like us to reconsider the definition of “literature.” I promise I’m not on some comms plan with topics I need to tackle; it’s just what my literature magazines have written about this week.
In this case, The Writer magazine, the December 2021 issue (which is already out!):
Because I spend so much of my time reading (why yes! My book purchases do comprise part of my tax write-offs, why do you ask?), I like to make sure that my time is spent in tandem with the way I live: I want to use my reading to get to know new people, new cultures, new lives.
From the front lines, The Writer magazine
BY YI SHUN LAI
I’m not asking the question of what is the definition of literature, but more what it is to us and how do we make the most of it?
I remember talking to an old friend about reading and her telling me that she doesn’t seriously read because she prefers YA (Young Adult) and romance novels.
To my mind, it’s almost like saying you don’t read any books, but you listen to 40 audiobooks per year.
I think we’ve been used to judging books as being worthy of praise only if they’re on some list of classics or must-reads. Or worse, through some traumatic experience from studying literature in school, we are hung up on this idea that we can’t possibly enjoy every page of a book we’re reading. If it’s not causing us pain, we’re not putting in the effort, so we’re not reading books worthy of mentioning.
But here’s the thing: reading is supposed to be fun and pleasurable. And the merit of reading a book is not proportional to the pain it brought us to finish it!
The author of the article quoted above then goes on to talk about the difference between reading the same author versus reading varied authors with intriguing new ideas, new cultures exposed, new, out-of-norm characters by asking an essential question:
What am I missing out on by not seeking out new-to-me writers with names that sound different or whose plots and heroes look and sound different from what I’m used to?
(…) gaining access to the characters and the storylines these writers presented for me — and the challenges the characters faced within the books — made my world feel as if it was opening up.
The heroes were not what I expected. The secondary characters served different purposes. The mysteries still got solved, but not always in the ways that I had become accustomed to. The plotting and pacing were different, and the settings and metaphors were different as well.
From the front lines, The Writer magazine
BY YI SHUN LAI
When I read the paragraph above, I thought that it was so obvious! Of course, I would want to expose myself to all possible cultures if the books are available to me in a language I can read, if not the original. That’s one thing I’ve appreciated about having Comparative Literature as a subject in uni: not one language or country, but the world as one.
I will admit I have not always enjoyed what I have read, and I am thinking here of The Sympathizer and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, both by Vietnamese authors.
I don’t like to say it too much. Still, I do have an affinity for American and Western European literature more than any other, so I’ll more likely enjoy them more because they feel familiar.
I am actively fighting going straight back to the comfort of Stephen King’s novels whenever I come across something a bit too unusual for me, but I do have a goal to read all the novels he’s ever written minus Cujo (for obvious reasons 😅).
I’ll leave you to reflect on this or comment with your thoughts.
Gifts for bookworms
Here’s a thought: Christmas is coming, and we need to think about presents. I usually panic at this stage, and as much as I like to buy books for my book-loving friends, I recently had one of my friends tell me she doesn’t want to add another book to her shelf when she’s behind on so many 🙈I know the feeling!
Here are some ideas to go around that problem and still make a book lover happy:
It might sound weird to turn up with bookshelves packed up as a gift, but if you think about the end goal, this is actually quite a neat idea!
I myself have never used bookends, but then again, I’ve never had any, so maybe I would find them charming and practical.
These two, however, I feel are a different ball game!
Here’s the list to inspire you:
63 Best Gifts for Book Lovers 2021 | The Strategist — nymag.com
The best gifts for book lovers and bookworms, including bookends, bookmarks, reading-nook blankets, headphones, bathtub trays, reading lights, literary magazines, puzzles, games, and shelves.
Bonus poetry content
A Guide to Japanese Poetry Forms — bookriot.com
We’ve all heard of haiku, but that’s far from the only Japanese poetry form. It’s one in a long line fantastic poetic forms.
21 Best Classic and Contemporary Poetry Books 2021 | The Strategist — nymag.com
We spoke to poets and poetry experts to curate this gift guide that includes classic collections from June Jordan and Lucille Clifton, as well as cutting edge contemporary poetry from Aria Aber, Hoa Nguyen, and Natalie Diaz and some non-book ideas.
If you want to buy me a coffee to fuel my energy, here’s a link.
Our next book is Nancy Mitford’s Pursuit of Love.
