Happy Wednesday everyone! Woah. I hope that the rest of the year will usher in more blessings and good news for everyone. I hope everyone will be happy and healthy, in body, mind, and spirit.
With the midweek comes a fresh WWW Wednesday update, my first this year. WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme hosted originally by SAM@TAKING ON A WORLD OF WORDS. The mechanics for WWW Wednesday are quite simple, you just have to answer three questions:
- What are you currently reading?
- What have you finished reading?
- What will you read next?
What are you currently reading?
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I hope everyone is receiving the love they deserve, from their friends, family, and significant others. May this day be brimming with love for everyone. Love, however, comes in different forms, such as the love for books. Speaking of books, I am currently catching up on books released in this decade that I have yet to read. This journey has also brought me to various parts of the world, from the United States to Asia to my current destination, the Caribbean. My current read, When We Were Birds, is set in Trinidad & Tobago. It is also Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s debut novel.
At the heart of the novel was Yejide St Bernard, a young woman belonging to a long line of women who were destined to commune with the dead. She had no choice in it as her dying mother Petronella started equipping her. Mother and daughter, however, have had a testy relationship. Meanwhile, Emmanuel Darwin, a country boy arrives in Port Angeles seeking a job to buy medicine for his dying mother. The only job he can find, however, is at Fidelis, a cemetery. It is there that Emmanuel and Yejide cross paths. Ghosts permeated the story and so was a language so haunting and so riveting at the same time. I am just a couple of pages from finishing the book. I can’t wait to see how Banwo steers the story.
What have you finished reading?
It is early in the year but I already finished two books that are at least 750 pages long. After Stephen Markley’s The Deluge, currently my longest read this year at 880 pages, my next longest read is American poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois. I first encountered Jeffers’ debut novel shortly after it was released in 2021. However, I initially thought that the book was older than it actually was; I found the title sounding a little antiquated. Imagine my surprise when I learned it was just a new release. Nevertheless, it piqued my interest after it was listed by many literary pundits and publications as one of the best reads of the year. After the book, I can understand them as the book is in the running for one of my best reads of the year.
Jeffers’ debut novel follows two major storylines. One storyline is set in the past while the other is set in modern times; the latter is the novel’s backbone. The story opens in the past, in a Native American settlement called Creek. This detailed how the lives of the Creek Native Americans intersected with the lives of enslaved Africans; both were brutalized and exploited by European traders and colonizers. As the story moved forward, Creek started losing its Native American heritage as it transformed into a plantation. In time, the plantation grew and eventually became Chicasetta, a fictitious town in Georgia. It is from this fictitious town that the mother side of Ailey Pearl Garfield, the book’s main character, traces its roots. When we first met Ailey, she was three years old. The story then follows her growth and development, as she navigates the complicated world. The two major storylines eventually merge, with the past chronicling the plight of African Americans and their journey toward liberty and desegregation. Meanwhile, Ailey’s story portrays their current struggles, including racism and discrimination. Ailey’s story is also a coming-of-age story. Overall, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is an evocative literary masterpiece.
It was in 2016 or 2017 when I first encountered American writer Louise Erdrich. Through a social media friend, I was able to obtain one of her works. Ironically, I have yet to read the book as it was her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Night Watchman that I read first; I am yet to read the first book I obtained. A year or two later, she released The Sentence which was nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. I guess this convinced me to give the book a chance; The Night Watchman left me wanting for more. This makes The Sentence my second Erdrich novel, bumping the first Erdrich novel I obtained down the reading list (again).
The Sentence was narrated by Tookie, a Native American woman – Erdrich has long established a reputation for giving voice to Native Americans – who was living in Minnesota. When she was in her 30s, Tookie was persuaded by Danae, her former crush, to help her steal the body of Budgie, Danae’s lover who died in the arms of his ex, Mara. What Tookie did not expect was that the body was taped with drugs. Tookie was promptly arrested for body stealing, drug transport, and accepting money for doing so. Her sentence: 60 years in prison. Through the assistance of a reservation lawyer, her sentence was cut short to seven years. Following her release, she married Pollux and found a job at Birchbark Books. Tookie’s reformed life was dominated by books. The Sentence was essentially a book about books as several writers and their works were referenced in the book. The novel was also a dive into the recent pandemic and how it altered our lives. It was also rife with social commentaries on the persisting oppression of both Native and African Americans, with emphasis on the former of course. The Sentence, with elements of magic, is a vivid take on of the times we are living in and also of the magic books hold.
What will you read next?
The Pine-Scented Chronicles 