A new year, new resolutions and hopefully plenty of new books. Fortunately, despite living in a house struck by covid I did manage to read three books in January, not a bad start I would say. Even better, all three were really good books.
I began the year with Catherine McCormack's Women in the Picture, which was a real eye opener. She takes off from John Berger by examining how women in Western Art are depicted in the nude as they have no agency and that these were images produced by men for men. She then goes onto explain how art normalises problematic attitudes. What made the book all the more interesting was how she looks at present day media and how it has been influenced by the canon and how certain artists are challenging these tropes. Even more impressive is the fact that the book is a riveting yet easy read despite all the complex ideas it was dealing with. Definitely a must read for anyone who is interested in art and culture of the Western world.
2022 saw me return to a French novel after a long time. Our book club read was Our Lady of the Nile, and by chance the French version was available on amazon.in so I decided to read the book in its original. This novel is set in Rwanda of the early 80's in a girls' boarding school. Yet this is no school of innocents and the Hutu-Tutsi conflict overshadows the daily life culminating in a savage denouement. What I found quite fascinating was how the antagonist Gloriosa reminded me so much of Jack in Lord of the Flies—clearly, even children are not exempt from the depravities humans are capable of. Recommended if you want to gain an insight into the complexities of the Hutu-Tutsi strife.
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman was the third book I read—-a book that I've been meaning to read for a long time, but finally picked up as I wanted to read it before watching the Netflix series. Am so very glad I read the book first, as the series doesn't do real justice to the book. This is an endearing novel that reminds one of the good there is amongst ordinary people and how human connections are so important in lifting one out of seemingly tight spots. A book that bought many smiles to my face and left me feeling good and happy at the end. Do read to instill faith in humanity (especially after a bleak book like Our Lady of the Nile).
