reading wednesday

[boxofdelights]

• What are you reading?

So Lucky, by Nicola Griffith. This is so hard to read, because Mara loses so much, both physically and socially, so fast. I know that this is one of the possibilities but it isn't one I want to think about right now. I hope I get to see Mara figuring out how to pursue happiness in the body she has.

• What did you recently finish reading?

An Excess Male, by Maggie Shen King. Really good. I'm looking forward to talking about it with SF book group.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot, for Classics book group.

• What are you watching?

Coherence.
Eighth Grade, which expressed the feeling of eighth grade so well that I was dying of embarrassment all through. Kayla is so brave, and she works so hard!

Comments

[sasha_feather]

Is So Lucky semi-autobiographical?

[boxofdelights]

No, although Griffith's experience with MS must inform her character's experience.

[boxofdelights]

I found an interview where she talks about that:


PSMag: You have MS, Mara has MS, so can you explain a bit more what's the problem with calling the novel autobiographical?

Griffith: It's a problem for women particularly because, historically, the idea that fiction is autobiography is used to dismiss the creativity of the author. It's something that Joanna Russ pointed out in How to Suppress Women's Writing, which everyone on the planet should read. [Russ] lays out methods to reduce the ability of women to be called artists. Labeling something as autobiographical is denial of agency or maybe pollution of agency. From a male author, autobiographical fiction is art, but for a woman, it's: "She just transcribed her experiences. It's not creative." If this book [is] pigeonholed immediately in that way, it will perpetuate the idea [disability as tragedy] that I wrote this book to dismantle.

https://psmag.com/social-justice/a-conversation-with-nicola-griffith-about-disability

[luzula]

If you like audiobooks, I really recommend this version of The Waste Land!

[boxofdelights]

Thank you!

[omnia_mutantur]

To clarify an early comment I made, I found So Lucky amazing and terrifying and informative and beautiful in moments, it just also felt like it had extra plot that it didn't know what to do with.