Tiah Beautement's Blog, page 82
February 24, 2014
On Silenced
I’m hoping that the long view will help us get beyond the simple diagnosis of ‘misogyny’ that we tend a bit lazily to fall back on. To be sure, ‘misogyny’ is one way of describing of what’s going on. . . But if we want to understand – and do something about – the fact that women, even when they are not silenced, still have to pay a very high price for being heard, we have to recognise that it is a bit more complicated and that there’s a long back-story. - Mary Beard, The Public Voice of Women
On We Need New Names
NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names - We just eat a lot of guavas because it's the only way to kill our hunger, and when it comes to defecating, we get in so much pain it becomes an almost impossible task, like you are trying to give birth to a country. - - Jesus Christ died on this day, which is why I have to be out here washing with cold water like this. - - We continue putting up the posters; the thing is, we don't even care about any change, we're doing this only because Bornfree says he...
February 20, 2014
On the writer
The writer must be four people: The nut, the obsédé The moron The stylist The critic - Susuan Sontag, via Brain Picking Sontag’s diaries, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980
February 19, 2014
On Life After Life
Kate Atikinson, Life After Life - Dogs are hardly an article of faith. - - Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn't even begin to solve. - - He wanted the experience. He wanted to be a writer, he said, and what better than a war to reveal to him the heights an depths of the human condition? - - The sour aura of dissatisfaction that seeped through the walls, along with the even less appetizing smell of boiled cabbage, was really quite depressing. - - And the English soul, if it resided anywhere, was...
February 17, 2014
On addiction
On the 14th of February twitter inspired me to explain why I keep writing. I write fiction, shaping an alternative reality, because I could not be content living an exclusively practical existence. Now it is a habit. A habit that occasionally produces a win, giving the addict enough encouragement to sin all over again. - Read the full piece on my blog at Books Live
On African Roar 2013
Emmanuel Sigauke, African Roar 2013 - She was not there to make memories. Memories were for weak souls that believed in myths like faithfulness in both love and politics, who believe in the resurrection of childhood romance. - Alison S. Erlwanger, 'Home' - That not-looking thing. It's different from being ignored. Plenty people ignore us. The ignoring is bold, like don't-hassle-me-I'm-in-a-hurry. The not-looking comes two ways. One is not seeing, the other is not wanting to see. The people who don't want to see us seem scared. - Jayne Bauling, 'Business as Usual' - The woman from whose womb I...
February 13, 2014
On Happily Ever After
'I'm Min's fairy godmother, Charm Boy,' Liza said, frowning down at him. 'And if you don't give her a happily ever after, I'm going to come back and beat you to death with a snow globe.' 'What happened to "bibbity bobbity boo"?' Cal asked Min. 'That was Disney, honey,' Min said. 'It wasn't a documentary.' - Jennifer Crusie, Bet Me
On selfies
So, every time someone says something derisive about a selfie, I stop myself from pointing out what might not be obvious to them – that, today, in this world, quite a lot of the things we do amount to “selfies”: standing up in a roomful of seated people; picking out a new hairstyle; having strict rules about how you want to be introduced; how determinedly some of us keep our middle names secret. And, of course, writing a story. - Michael Mendis, These Narcissistic Selfies
February 12, 2014
On grief
I read 5 Lies You Were Told About Grief by Alison Nappi. A powerful read that begins with a quote by Anne Lamott: What if we never ‘get over’ certain deaths, or our childhoods? What if the idea that we should have by now, or will, is a great palace lie? What if we’re not supposed to? What if it takes a life time…?
February 10, 2014
On 'better'
Yesterday I wrote a piece for my Books Live blog: I have found myself in a usual place: am I too happy to write anything decent? Maybe to dig into the soul of the characters requires me to be on the brink. Each sentence I type looks terrible. The first draft of anything is rubbish, I say. But deep down I know there is rubbish and then there is unsalvageable crap. Perhaps happy is the wrong word. Simply not dwelling in the gloom. For it is true, the fear is mostly gone. Nor does the shadow’s whisper cloak and tug,...
