@internrachel @julia1
It’s been a while since I updated so I have a few to mention…
– Foucault’s HISTORY OF SEXUALITY (vol.1, 176 pages). In this, Foucault refutes the idea of Victorian repressive sexuality and connects sexuality and its discourse to power, but not necessarily in a suppressive manner. I found this pretty interesting and not as difficult to read as I initially anticipated, and in particular Foucault’s ideas on Catholic confession and scientific discourse were intriguing. BUT I admit I still find reading theory pretty dry (narrative pls, that it what I like).
– BENITO CERENO, a novella by Herman Melville (90) – this I really enjoyed. While it isn’t in the first person it is largely told from the perspective of Captain Delano, who boards a ship that has been lost at sea for a long time: there is only a couple of Spanish sailors still on board, most apparently killed off by disease, and lots of African slaves. Without giving too much away, the narrative is pretty dense for such a compact book, with the suggestion (and revelation) of their being a further story behind the narrative of Delano.
– SAPPHIRA AND THE SLAVE GIRL by Willa Cather (295). This is Cather’s final novel. It is set in Virginia, where Cather grew up until she moved to Nebraska at a pretty young age (interesting in itself because most of her novels are set in Nebraska). It deals with the idea of slavery, based on a woman (Sapphira) who is jealous of one of her slaves (Nancy). It discusses the ethics behind it – and comes out as anti-slavery, really – and ideas of ownership of/bondage to others. It was good, but not great – portions of it felt a little slow, and I wished Cather explored Nancy’s psychology a little more.
– THE LONG GOOD-BYE by Raymond Chandler (320) was another good novel I just finished. The prose is sparse and kind of stylish in a film noir kind of way, and often quite funny. It begins with Philip Marlowe meeting Terry Lennox, a man who appears to kill his wife – though Marlowe doesn’t believe he has – disappear, and then kill himself. Marlowe is then asked to look after Wade, an alcoholic author. It all gets a little complicated but it’s really well written & fun to read.