Good Januarys, Supermarkets and No Plot Just Vibes
Hello again, friends. I‘m back to prove to myself that I can actually follow through with an idea and also bang on about books and muse about my life which ultimately is mostly of interest only to me. I will force you all to read it, nonetheless!
January was an unprecedentedly lovely month for me, Alhamdulillah. No shade to January but it’s usually just a bit depressing isn’t it? Cold, gloomy and boring. I’ve decided that the recipe for a Good January is (unfortunately) lots of brisk walks in the crisp weather and (less unfortunately) to plan a lot of things in advance to look forward to. This year I’d planned a few different events that buoyed me up through the frosty mornings and dark days. I went to watch The Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House with my sister which was spectacular, I went out for meals with friends, I watched a performance of As You Like It at Soho Place theatre (with actual love of my life Alfred Enoch playing Orlando) and best of all I planned a strategic mid-month city break to my favourite city, Berlin. I did a long solo weekend there and it was great.
I lived in Germany for a year when I was 21 in my third year of university as a requirement of my course (Philosophy and German rip me). I lived in Bonn, the former capital of West Germany and a pretty university town. Though I quickly grew to love Bonn and its rhenish charm, Berlin is where I had really wanted to be. I’ve visited a few times and each time felt such a sense of relaxation and calm yet also the sense that I could do anything here and be anyone! I know that part of this is just the feeling that comes with being on holiday (lol) but I truly think that there’s something about Berlin for me. A kind of magnetism that always draws me back.
Because this wasn’t my first or second (or third!) time there, I didn’t feel a need to hurriedly see the sites and tick them off a list in my Notes app like I usually do. Instead I spent a lot of my time walking through the city in my trusty leather coat, traversing over East and West on the U Bahn and meandering through museums. I would sit at a café and read my book – The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun, an author I had enjoyed during my course. I have a rule that when on holiday, whatever book I bring with me has to be set in the country I’m visiting, the specific city if possible. The novel was published in 1932 and a huge bestseller in Weimar Germany until the Nazis banned it in 1933. It follows eighteen-year-old Doris who flees from her medium-sized hometown in the Rhineland to Berlin (sound familiar?).
Written like a diary in a stream of consciousness style narrative, Doris is striving for glitz and glamour but instead she is exposed to the seedy underbelly of 1920s Berlin. The loose diary entry format provides the reader with a series of vignettes and small scenes from Doris’ life. At the start of the novel she works as an office secretary but Doris is a material girl at heart who strives for the finer things in life. She is idealistic; she takes simple things, a lover here, a stolen fur coat there, and ascribes them a lot more importance than they deserve. Her life is ultimately quite mundane but by writing it down in her perceptive and witty way, she romanticises even the most sombre moments. This is a novel that could be classed as what the TikTok girlies refer to as ‘no plot, just vibes’. A designation that is perhaps a little ungenerous but often my favourite kind of book. Novels like Elif Batuman’s The Idiot which follows a character as they make their way through life, often a series of loosely connected series of events and thoughtful observations.
Doris’s elevation of the mundane, in this way and living the flâneuse lifestyle for a few days reminded me of a tweet I came across earlier in the month which really resonated with me and I felt encapsulated a lot about the Human Condition (lol):
We tend to spend a lot of our lives on autopilot, routinely going through motions but there is so much beauty and joy in the simple things. I love supermarkets. I love doing a food shop, I love going to supermarkets in other countries, comparing Carrefours with Shoprites. During university, a trip to Tesco was often an escape, I often popped in with friends but I also loved going alone. Being able to take my time and meander through the aisles, picturing what I would make with the selection of vegetables in my basket. A much-needed break from the tedium of libraries and lectures. Again when I lived in Germany, supermarkets were a welcome familiar place, granted all the signs were auf deutsch and they kept their eggs in the fridge and had a much more vast array of milks and creams but the general principles were the same. I would rush through the frozen aisles of Aldi (Rewe if I was feeling fancy) trying to avoid the cold to pick up my favourite New York style cheesecake serving of one. I, like Keun’s capricious Doris, desire ease and comfort above all. I love to do ‘nothing’ which of course is not actually doing nothing. My ideal day is a day where nothing of note gets done but I have a lot of little experiences that reinforce to me that I live in the world and there are other people in it and it is beautiful. I love pottering about, running errands, stopping to buy a coffee and on a sunny day maybe I sit outside and then maybe I read a couple of pages from the book that is always in my bag. And I take the long way home listening to my favourite playlist or podcast. Maybe once I’m home I watch half a movie or do some baking or some knitting. Nothing gets done but I’ve had a good day.
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The Books I Read This Month
Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley (2022)
This novel followed seventeen-year-old Kia who is forced to engage in sex work after her father dies, mother is imprisoned and her brother is more interested in his doomed-to-fail music career. It had a lot to say about the way in which Black girls are adultified and failed by both the “System” and their communities which often encourage them to prioritise protecting the men in their lives, leaving them vulnerable to sexual violence. Whilst I found the relationship between the protagonist and her nine-year-old neighbour Trevor and the ending particularly moving, I felt that some of the plot was a little confused and I actually did not feel (contrary to many reviews) that I got a real sense of the Oakland setting.
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au (2022)
This very slim novel is a very simple narrative that is really well handled, in my opinion. Following a woman and her mother on a trip to Japan. The pair meet in Tokyo and visit museums, share meals together and talk about horoscopes and the weather. The prose often meanders as the narrator recalls events often incorrectly (maybe ?), small observations sending her down memory lane in an almost Proustian manner. A quiet and thoughtful novella that amplifies the small details that make up a life and a relationship between mother and daughter.
Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde (2022)
Osunde uses Eko, the city spirit of Lagos and his loyal underling Tatafo as a device through which to narrate the story of ‘incorrigible vagabonds’, the outcasts and displaced of the city. A novel in stories, fizzing with magic and with characters appearing Easter Egg-like between stories I was just in awe of the author’s wealth of imagination.
Nevada by Imogen Binnie (2013)
This novel follows Maria, a trans woman living in New York City who road trips out West after she loses her job and breaks up with her girlfriend. She is punk and aimless, introspective and closed off. Musings on gender, patriarchy and the early internet are abound in this novel. I particularly enjoyed the first half of this book and thought it was an interesting (and quite brave!) perspective shift in the latter half to James, a confused young man from a small town near Reno, Nevada.
If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Noor Naga (2022)
This was probably the most confusing book I read this month – in that I put it down and had a WTF did I just read’ moment. I’m still not sure how to feel about it but it was very thought-provoking, exploring themes of privilege and identity politics and toying with form. Set in Cairo, five years post Arab Spring, An American girl and a village boy from Shobrakheit fall in love. She is a wealthy diaspora kid who is ‘returning’ to a homeland she has never been to before and he is a poor, jaded photographer of the failed revolution. Their relationship turns dark and violent as they both resent the power the other holds over them. They each have the capacity to enact violence on each other in different ways. He acts as her protector in this foreign land but also turns possessive and aggressive whilst her financial security allows her to call the shots to some extent. I was interested to see lots of reviews referring to the prose as ‘taut’ as I thought a lot of the language used was actually quite ‘flowery’ (not in a bad way) but as though it had been written originally in poetic Arabic or something. The book is written in three parts – the first of which was told from the two characters alternating perspectives and rhetorical questions framing each chapter. The second part also alternated between narratives but decided to forego questions in favour of added footnotes explaining some of the references (the validity of which are soon called into question). The third and final part pulls the whole thing together whilst simultaneously tearing it all apart. It all becomes very meta and asks the reader whether what we have just read is fiction or memoir, if there is a meaningful distinction between the two and what consequences that has for the text and our responses to it.
Some Things I Watched in January (it was a rewatch heavy month):
Lovesick
A much-needed rewatch. I love this show so much it makes me sick (see what I did there haha) The yearning. Oh God, the yearning in this show is like nothing I’ve seen before or since. I usually would grow tired of such a slooow burn but the flashback, time-hopping structure of the show leaves you focusing on piecing together their love story so that you don’t have time to get bored. Dylan and Evie are so flawed yet likeable and silly that you can’t help but love them. The friendships in this show are unmatched. Dylan and Luke’s friendship is such a tender male bond that I don’t think I often see on TV. Luke and Evie’s strictly platonic relationship is so lovely to watch and Dylan and Evie’s friendship is beautiful to watch bloom and even though it’s what holds them back from advancing their romantic relationship for so long it’s worth it because you see how deep the love goes. Lovesick is my idea of a Perfect TV show.
Starstruck
An interesting rewatch in that I actually enjoyed it more this second time around. Tom and Jessie’s chemistry seemed more existent this time for some reason and I really love the warm lighting plus I’m a sucker for the whole keep bumping into each other by chance, fated to be together, Harry met Sally type love story anyways.
Crashing
Yet another rewatch (look it’s January I needed some comfort, okay?) Crashing is one of thee funniest shows I’ve ever watched. The curry night episode makes me cry with laughter and Ms Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s pen is unmatched, sorry. She is such a tight writer and her origins as a writer for the stage are so evident in the excellent ping-pong dialogue; not a second goes to waste. Jonathan Bailey is the obvious standout of this show to me, he is just excellent as slightly unhinged, in-love-with-his-best-friend, estate-agent Sam.
Emily in Paris
It finally happened, I finally actually ran out of things to watch and had to resort to watching Em*ly in P*ris. It is essentially the adult equivalent of a CBeebies show - bright colour palette, formulaic episode structure that presents a problem for Emily and/or her friends and offers a smooth solution at the end of 25 minutes. I have nothing more to say about it as it has turned me so smooth-brained I can actually no longer form a thought.