“Love The Erasure Of Everything Else, A Blinding Worse Even Than The Sun.”

A Few Rules for Predicting the Future: An Essay || Octavia E. Butler ★★★★★ Started: 09.02.2025 Finished: 09.02.2025 Originally published in Essence magazine in the year 2000, Octavia E. Butler’s essay “A Few Rules for Predicting the Future” offers an honest look into the inspiration behind her science fiction novels and the importance of studying history and taking responsibility for our actions if we are to move forward. Organized into four main rules, this short essay reminds readers to learn from the past, respect the law of consequences, be aware of their perspectives, and count on the surprises. Citing the warning signs of fascism, the illusive effects of fear and wishful thinking, and the unpredictable nature of what is yet to come, Butler shares realistic but hopeful suggestions to shape our future into something good. If I was on the fence about reading "Parable of the Sower" before, I'm bumping it right towards the top of my TBR now. Butler's writing is just that good. Thank you, Goodreads Challenges!

Brandon Sanderson || art: Karl Gussow // Jean Claude Kabongo // George Frederic Watts

Trail therapy

dgsc

(...) but the skin remembers, the body holds everything inside itself, the bones can stiffen to claws.

Sophie Mackintosh, excerpt from Cursed Bread

Autobiography of Red || Anne Carson ★★★★★ Started: 25.01.2025 Finished: 22.02.2025 “There is no person without a world.” And, it turns out, there is no monster without a world. An immensely rich, if, by his own admission, somewhat monochromatic inner world. "Autobiography of Red" is not so much a typical contemporary mythological retelling, and more a tale of self discovery, painful love, and, inevitably, acceptance, set against a relatively modern backdrop (read: not the Ancient Greece the namesakes of these characters inhabited). More than anything else, it's the writing itself that elevates this work into a true masterpiece: concise, evocative, at times heart-wrenching, unfailingly exquisite. It is no easy task to fit so much meaning into so few pages, most authors veer into empty purple prose in attempts to justify their retellings, but not Anne Carson - therein lies her strength as an author. She doesn't simply rehash the myth as we know it, but reinvents it, brings it into the new age, makes it speak to the modern audience. In her novel "A Short History of Myth", Karen Armstrong argues the following: “A myth, therefore, is true because it is effective, not because it gives us factual information. If, however, it does not give us new insight into the deeper meaning of life, it has failed.” Following this logic, it wouldn't be unfair to say that, where most contemporary retellings fail "Autobiography of Red" achieves a roaring, resounding success.

Do you lay bread on your tongue and think of me [...] do you swallow it like a sacrament, do you still get down on your knees?

Sophie Mackintosh, from 'Cursed Bread'

★★★★☆ “She gazes at Agamemnon and says, “I do not forget.” As far as post-Madeline Miller myth retellings go, this is fairly good. Sure, Helen is still a frail waif, but this novel isn't about her, per se, so I can't take much issue with that, not with how Clytemnestra is written - brutal, unforgetting, unforgiving. Testament to how much a story is set to gain if authors choose to give their mythical heroines a spine, truly. Much like in Daughters of Sparta, I would have loved for the story to cover her death, especially since I have a feeling Casati would do the scene justice, but nevertheless, Clytemnestra was a worthwhile experience.

The Bell Jar || Sylvia Plath ★★★★★ Started: 03.05.2025 Finished: 06.05.2025 Working as an intern for a New York fashion magazine in the summer of 1953, Esther Greenwood is on the brink of her future. Yet she is also on the edge of a darkness that makes her world increasingly unreal. Esther's vision of the world shimmers and shifts: day-to-day living in the sultry city, her crazed men-friends, the hot dinner dances... The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's only novel, is partially based on Plath's own life. It has been celebrated for its darkly funny and razor-sharp portrait of 1950's society and has sold millions of copies worldwide. The Bell Jar was simply sensational - I'd been interested in reading it for ages, but I never thought I'd enjoy it so much! The writing is sublime, and Esther is a little too relatable for comfort...