reading wednesday

[boxofdelights]

• What are you reading?

Radical Belonging, by Lindo Bacon.

I am having the same problem with this book that I had with Burnout. They keep saying stuff like, "I can find and create safe environments where I can shed my armor, where I can be seen, and where I can feel love and belonging. This last point is key: It's belonging rather than self-love that helps me live as my authentic self. This is not a solo journey." And I wonder, what if self-love is all I've got? I don't have a partner or a best friend anymore. I haven't been able to create that kind of intimacy, of knowing and being known, and being loved anyway, with anyone else. But I would like to keep on living as my authentic self anyway.

It feels, ironically, like talking to a doctor who insists that my fat has to be solved before any of my other problems can be addressed. Even if you were right that this is the real problem, you don't know how to solve it and neither do I. So can we talk about what else I can do to improve my quality of life?

• What did you recently finish reading?

The Brontes Went to Woolworths, by Rachel Ferguson.

This is a novel about fannishness, published in 1931. Deirdre is a journalist and an aspiring novelist; Katrine is an aspiring actress. Together with their younger sister and their mother, they make up stories about their childhood playthings, their pets, fictional characters, public figures, and interesting-looking strangers. They seem to have been doing it all their lives, and don't see why they should stop just because they are adults now. Some of the reviews on Goodreads describe this as mental illness, or a symptom of grief at the death of their father, but it all sounds like ordinary fannishness to me.

"Three years ago I was proposed to. I couldn't accept the man, much as I liked him, because I was in love with Sherlock Holmes. For Holmes and his personality and his brain I had a force of feeling which, for the time, converted living men to shadows."

It is all there: the obsessive nature of having a crush, and the dullness of not having one. The anguish of seeing the object of one's adoration do something unworthy. The rage fannishness can provoke in people who are not fannish. The extremely odd experience of beginning a real friendship with someone who has figured in your stories.

And then there are ghosts. Because "creations like Saffy don't snuff out, do they? […] They'll never die, old darling. You see, they've made something that's going to go on--for everybody, not only for us."

• What do you think you’ll read next?

The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett, for Tawanda book group.

Comments

[sovay]

But I would like to keep on living as my authentic self anyway.

The idea that a self is only validated as authentic (whatever either of those words mean) by an outside opinion seems drastically wrong to me.

[bibliofile]

>The idea that a self is only validated as authentic (whatever either of those words mean) by an outside opinion seems drastically wrong to me.

This.

To me, depending on outer affirmation for one's own validity is unhealthy and even dangerous. External affirmation can be wonderful, and it can be a good thing to receive it from some people (especially people closer to you). In the end, though, your self has to stand on its own too.

(OTOH, this "radical" belonging helps explain some of the dynamics that I've noticed in some groups, but that's probably a different post.)

[mrissa]

There is a group of readers who seems to think that "this character is mentally ill!" is the answer to anything that is not absolutely average behavior, and I don't like it in two directions: one because being unusual is not mental illness, and two because mental illness is not unusual and this is not what it looks like. I should not be surprised that some people read The Brontes Went to Woolworths that way, but it feels pretty hostile to me, both to the book and to actual mentally ill people who deserve respect and understanding like everybody else.

[lunabee34]

That second book sounds really fun, and the first sounds really frustrating.

*hugs*

[ljgeoff]

I have two dear friends and I think I'd feel very alone if they were gone. I've known both of them for over 25 years, and I don't know how I would approach trying to find friends. I guess I'd start here, but really, I don't get the same emotional connection with online friends. Maybe if I added phone calls? I'm actually rather shy about meeting people I know from here and alt.poly because I generally thing they are so cool and why would they be interested in hanging out with me?

I think that you're amazing and would be an exceptional friend. You have that mamma bear feel that lets me know you'd have my back. You're a deep thinker and there'd always be something to talk about. You are a student of human nature, and would be forgiving but would also call me on my shit. I think that you're shy in the same way that I am but I'm telling you that you are amazing and someone would benefit like crazy by having you as a friend.

[sonia]

So can we talk about what else I can do to improve my quality of life?
As someone else who doesn't have a partner or a best friend, I second your complaint and I like your question.

I had to check my book blog to see if I had read this (this is why I keep a book blog!) and nope, I had read a couple of others.

This one had some good stuff, and the problem of, "Worked for me, so of course it will work for you." https://curioushealing.com/2018/10/belonging-by-toko-pa-turner/

This one might be closer to what you're wanting. I might revisit it myself! https://curioushealing.com/2012/10/belonging-here-by-judith-blackstone-ph-d/

[bibliofile]

> But I would like to keep on living as my authentic self anyway.

Well, yeah!