Ok friends, I am not going to bother with the self-flagellating preamble where I make excuses for not writing on this newsletter that I’m sure you all wait for with bated breath to beam into your inbox(!!) You’re just going to have to take me as I am – chaotic, a bit lazy and only able to do things when the mood strikes me. Sorry.
The other day I was on FaceTime with my sister – anyone who knows me will know I spend a significant percentage of my life video calling with at least one member of my family every day. I was talking to her about a person I vaguely know (we are Twitter mutuals and occasionally react to one another’s Instagram stories). This person runs really cool bookish events and has curated a space where like minded people can convene irl. And I was relaying to my sister how this person has the same job as me. Like exactly the same job as me. Same industry, same job title, same everything and yet they manage to run these super cool events, meanwhile I plan productive evenings whilst on my commute and ultimately end up in bed doing my Wordle by half ten.
Maybe it’s the Nigerian in me, maybe my parents complimented me too much when I was a kid or maybe I’m just a narcissist, but I have always felt I am destined for great things. That is an embarrassing thing to type out loud but it’s what I feel. Like I will publish a bestseller or write a play or direct a critically acclaimed short film. But as I get older I feel this future reality slipping through my fingers. Maybe I am feeling existential because I had a birthday last month. I turned twenty six and I am looking down the barrel of a gun to my *gulp* LATE TWENTIES. I know, I know your twenties are still young and ageing is a gift and we place too much cultural importance on the child prodigy and milestones are fake and time is a construct... And yet, every time the TikTok girlies bastardise Sylvia Plath’s (now ubiquitous) fig tree metaphor from The Bell Jar I roll my eyes but I also feel a gut punch of recognition. I *do* see my life branching out like a green fig tree. I *do* want each and every one of them. I *can’t* make up my mind.
And the thing is, maybe I’m just not going to do anything that special with my life. Most people, after all, do not. Maybe all I will do is have a job and go on holidays a couple times a year and go out for dinner with my friends and make packed lunch for my mother and FaceTime my sisters every day and that will be my life. Maybe my 662 Duolingo streak (and counting!) will be my greatest achievement. Probably, I will never write a novel. I will watch plays but not direct them. I will never be nominated for a prestigious award. I will most likely not make any Forbes 30 under 30 list. If I’m honest, I am quite a boring person, I don’t go out much and I have the hobbies of a 1950s housewife. If I’m even more honest, I am kind of lazy. That terrible kind of laziness where I ‘m full of ambition and Want but just can’t pull my finger out hard enough to do anything about it. I’m all idea, no follow through, but maybe that’s what your mid-late twenties are all about? Making peace with who you are at your core. Trying to be better but also not using other people's achievements as a yardstick with which to beat yourself. And maybe I need to do like Plath’s Esther Greenwood and just eat a sandwich.
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Some Books I’ve Enjoyed Recently:
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood (1939)
A dear friend bought me this as a birthday gift and I’m very glad she did as it probably would have been a while before I got around to reading this. Which I feel like is mad because Berlin is my favourite city in the world and this is such a vivid depiction of Old Berlin in the dying days of Weimar decadence and eventual decline to Nazism. Isherwood employs a thinly fictionalised alter ego as his protagonist (also named Christopher Isherwood lol) who we follow through cabaret clubs and Baltic beach houses, meeting a host of colourful characters. This was a very engrossing read and by introducing us to such a cross section of characters from all levels of society (and knowing this is semi-autobiographical) Isherwood provides a small and revealing glimpse into the conditions that allowed the Nazis to rise to power so effectively.
Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma (2019)
This was a rec I gleaned from a TikTok about “Books to Read if you enjoy Black Mirror”. I am a Black Mirror enjoyer so thought I’d give this a go and it didn’t disappoint. It follows Iris, a woman in her late twenties living in London, bored with her job, with a distant mother and filling the void with alcohol and sex. She is so dissatisfied that she takes the chance to live on another planet, Nyx, where she is promised a new and meaningful way of life whilst being live streamed on a reality show back on Earth. I’m not going to lie, I thought this would be a typical disillusioned millennial Halle Butler-esque sad girl novel, which I’m sure I would have enjoyed, but I was really surprised by how much it was more than that. I’d say more of the novel focussed on Iris’ relationships and the events leading up to life on Nyx than I would have assumed. It was surprisingly very moving and a really sympathetic exploration of existential dread in modern life.
The Four Humors by Mina Seꞔkin (2021)
I’d been meaning to read this one for a while - largely attracted to it by its stunning Na Kim-designed cover and the Elif Batuman praise quote. This novel follows twenty-year-old Sibel as she spends the summer taking care of her grandmother in Istanbul, studying for the MCAT and visiting her father’s grave. Suffering from chronic headaches, she begins to self diagnose with the ancient medical theory of the four humours. The Humours framework actually ends up taking somewhat of a backseat in the novel as it plays out though and it instead focuses a lot of the plot delving into Sibel’s relationships with her American boyfriend and her family history, revealing secrets that are intertwined with Turkey’s political history. It was quite an ambitious feat for a debut novel, and though it took me a second to get into (I’m not a huge fan of stream of consciousness style prose), once I did it was super engrossing with a strong authorial voice.