To read Hesket is to be captured, to be reeled in, to be enveloped in a crafted, slippery, and haunting narrative.
Hesket, a small town in Norfolk, is haunted by the witches that were hung and drowned or so it would seem. Spry Woods, named after the last woman to have been accused of witchcraft, is under threat of development, while the natural world itself is encroached upon by the climate crisis.
Land development, ecological crisis, and witch hauntings all weave the background tapestry to a braided novel that forefronts themes of community. How do we live together? How do we live in isolation? How does grief draw channels and grooves through our very beings?
Each chapter is titled after a different character and follows that character through an individual crisis either small or large. Each character is haunted by something supernatural (or not). The writer deftly leaves that to the reader, not through ambiguity but through startlingly clear and logistical writing. Did the stuffed kingfisher disappear into the river after it was thrown? Or did it fly away in the blinding sun?
Bayat's prose is lucid and stunning. It has heavy emotional weight, saturated with immense sensory detail, and yet has a lightness and a surety of narrative propulsion.
Perhaps one of the most well crafted debuts I've read and an exciting voice to have in the literary world.
I had the distinct pleasure of reading the author's work in a novel writing course years ago and was so impressed with her writing back then. This was a special book to read!
So specifically and individually placed, but these characters reveal everything about the human world and the tiny decisions and patterns we make that can become heartbreakingly irrevocable.
Canadian readers: Buy the book from Blackwell's! Free shipping. No minimum.
It's been a blur.
Finished a book all about the production, reception, and cultural aftermath of Mrs. Dalloway.
Added more to the pile, including The Mandarins which won the Prix Goncourt.
Random literature musings: I always thought Proust was the inaugural winner of the Prix Goncourt (he was the 17th). Did I go the moustache route to subconsciously emulate Marcel's dapper Parisian author look?
February came and went with a steady rhythm of quiet beautiful joy.
After breaking my glasses on the first night at my new place, I finally got new ones.
My platonic life partner @sarahachamill hosted me for a week in Victoria. Every day we celebrated her birthday. We had an air mattress debacle to add to the catalogue of disasters. When it comes to air + mattress, in our long history of being friends, we just may not have the luck
I had a moment at a trivia night where I knew a pop culture reference (am I losing my pretentious literary cred).
I began reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. See note above regarding literary cred. (Really wanted to make a footnote here) 🤣
On Valentine's Day, I had one of the closest Scrabble matches ever. The winner won by 1 point.
I baked a Polish mountainscape that went from snowcapped to avalanche very quickly.
After a month of self restraint from chocolate, i cheated on the last day and partook in having a slice of my sister's birthday cake.
The blossoming trees of Victoria flowered for me, including one rhododendron bush on a sheltered street.
I picked this book up in June and compulsively read 100 pages, sitting on my old patio, beside my decorative lavender plant that I did not water properly, eventually leading the plant to become so dry and light that it blew off its table, scattering its soil over 105th street.
Then I put the book down and didn't return to it until now. I had been thinking about it. Szalay's sparse language that's somehow imbued with simmering unkowable rage and confusion. The intense scenes of dialogue.
Winning the Booker Prize had me return to it and I'm glad I did. I laughed, I gasped. I had to close the book in pain for the character's suffering.
The novel is the story of a life of a boy who becomes a man. There's a rags to riches tale. The themes sharply portray what it is like to live in a masculine body. How people use their own masculinity and how it is used by others. What it is like to go along with other people's desires.
The realization over time about who shapes your life story when you think you're merely an individual in the world.
I'm glad this book was brought back into my attention. And a big apology to all my summer patio plants. I did not treat you well and you withered.
So much of my humour comes from the Simpsons. It's a show I'll watch over and over. I will never not cry as Lisa's running after Mr. Bergstrom's train. Or the soft fade of sun to twilight as Homer sits on the hood of his car and contemplates the loss of his mother again.
I think the show is still funny. It's not as razor edge, but how can something be on the edge when it has gained status as part of the cultural establishment?
The world the Simpsons was riffing on in the 90s feels a lot different than the world of today. There's an increasing amount of dissatisfaction and negativity in the world that the Simpsons mirrors sharply in its new seasons.
You can come for me on this one, but I have never been upset by The Principal and the Pauper.
I thought this book did such a great job at elucidating exactly why we like the Simpsons how the show emerged and why it emerged. And behind it all, is comedy and storytelling.
Love that Siegel gave time in his end chapter for Bort. Kills me every time.
Seriously, pick up this dang book if you're a Simpsons fan.
A solitary walk home in freezing rain last night, only to discover a parcel from my best friend and soulmate.
I needed a moment to ground me and that was it. Toblerone is an easy way to my heart. 🍫🤎
Seeing my name addressed in my preferred capital W writer name -- I am known!
I've only been reading poetry lately. This is my favourite recent find from The Paper Hound in Vancouver.
Without an anchor would be a good way to describe Forrest Gander's creative slippery use of language.
Spare lines, effuse with nouns and verbs and surprising pairings.
From the back: "a...multilingual poem examining the syncretic geological and cultural history of the U.S. border with Mexico."
It's a beautiful and complex book of poems. An intense jangling energy emanates from the compact phrases.
This book was a birthday gift to myself. I love pasta and I want it to be perfect and magical every time. Pictured is a scintillating mix of kale, lemon, garlic, cream, spicy sausage.
My account will soon be taken over by noodles and nothing else. Who's coming for dinner?
Scenes from my parents garden from late August.
Goji berry blossom, ripening apples, fireweed flowers gone to seed, brown eyed Susans, collection of plant pots.
I went to water in a heat wave, on a mosquito filled evening. Despite that, it was serene to be surrounded by the annual abundance of the garden and the trees that I have grown up with.
