Extracurricular Reading

Entry #28
Work: Various Unassigned

I neglected to comment on the other reading I was able to enjoy while on my trip over the weekend. I had opened my book, searching for the bookmarks for the assigned reading and realized I only had three. After poring over the table of contents, Tolstoy’s Master and Man did not jump out at me. So, while my husband drove and I was left with long stretches of highway (my camera inaccessible for “road pics”), I decided to leaf through and read at will. For pleasure. What a concept! Though I love reading at anytime, it seems it’s been so long since I’ve read just for the sake of reading that I felt as though I were being indulged in a guilty pleasure.

The first story I stumbled across was Reflections by Angela Carter. I was not familiar with her work, though I had heard her name. After reading Reflections and having carried on a long, drawn out love with science fiction and horror, not to mention a fairly recent relationship with feminist/womanist literature, I’m sorry I didn’t find her sooner.

Reflections shook me in many ways. It drew attention to those things that I feel must exist—a doorway to another consciousness as well as a mother-figure giving birth to it all—and it also gave rise to the possibility that the male psyche could assume the role, make amends, even in light of oppression.

The other story I read, mainly because it was so short and I wasn’t sure how quickly our exit was approaching, was Girl by Jamaica Kincaid. The introduction is nearly as long as the piece itself. I’d hesitate to call it a short story and lean more towards calling it prose poetry. It’s beautiful, shocking, bitter, every-day, hard-hearted. It makes one want to slather lotion on ones hands, makes one want to stand up and shout NO!, makes one want to gather up the girl-becoming-a-woman and guide her away from the washing, show her the way out...those things and so much more. But now, I must finish Master and Man, and perhaps find some more of her works to read over the summer. She is another example of that which draws black writers close to my heart. There’s so much soul, so much of the earth god underneath it all. It smells like loam, feels like velvet and sounds like the softest of lullabies, even when the topic is not so soothing.

On to Master and Man.

Till later…