What I've been reading lately
Some thoughts on witches and heroines
Hi Brilliant Friends!
Hope this email is finding you well.
The past month I've been deep in my book proposal and my new book. Which means I haven't done any of the Instagram posts or newsletters that I had planned. Which means that I've been writing lines and phrases for my new book in my notes app and then going back to the manuscript to see where they fit. Once you stoke the fire of your work, you want to keep it going. Once you see how the book can be as a whole then you really want to finish it as fast as you can. This is where I'm at now.
In the meantime I’ve been reading some brilliant books and essays. Here are some that I’ve absolutely loved and highly recommend!
Last week was my birthday, and simultaneously finished All Fours by Miranda July, with a narrator roughly the same age as me, it felt beyond apropos. Please everyone read this book if you haven’t already so that I can discuss it with you!
Over the summer I finished We Were Witches by Ariel Gore. I’m obsessed with this book and the way it opens possibilities for my own work. You’re allowed to do anything in writing, and this book is so expansive and imaginative that it was just such a pleasure to read. Sometimes you read a book and you think, “oh so this is what's possible.” This is that book. A line I particularly love “Want persists. Intention is fulfilled.” Not only is the writing impeccable and I was hooked from the very first pages, it expands what's available to us, and how we can organize our manuscripts. It's a novel that affirms imagination, freedom, and innovation. We can do whatever we want. We can write it how it needs to be written, it doesn't has to be in any set structure. Everything is available to us. Not only does this book have spells and affirmations but it is one of those rare gems of hell yes, if she did it. I can do it too.
I mentioned this in my last newsletter, but the other book I’m totally obsessed with is The Heroine with 1001 Faces by Maria Tatar. Here she takes Joseph Campbell and his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces to task. His book notoriously is what George Lucas, and many Hollywood others used as the template to create the “hero’s journey.” Here she dismantles the hero myth and illustrates how women in our common myths were also heroines in different ways.
Aug, why do you put a picture of you with the books? Because of the algorithm, you all see my posts more if there's a picture of me. This is more for Instagram but I’m putting the gratuitous pictures of me here anyway.
I've got to be honest, I'm slightly scared of witches. Have I subscribed to the cultural phenomenon that witches are scary? Yes, they do freak me out. Why? Because they have access to knowledge that I long for. The healing remedies of plants as well as the dangerous properties of them. This is true wisdom because the earth is magic. Just think of magic mushrooms and cannabis. Or that LSD can be formed from mold of rye bread. Or that we can ferment grapes to make wine. It is alchemy, it is catharsis, it is magic. A spiritual realm that we may be returning to.
I feel better if I say I'm a witch, I'm a wizard, though the latter rings less true. I imagine Gandalf telling my mind, “You shall not pass.” Something about the force of that line as he stood on the bridge, the power of it. Trapped all of our imaginations, we all loved that scene collectively. I think of the opening scene of the film of Lord of The Rings and the fireworks and think of the Chinese discovering how to make fireworks so long ago and think yes that must've been some kind of magic.
And some essays and criticism that’s been inspiring me to keep writing.
Sick Women Theory by Johanna Hedva (Her book, an extension of this essay, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom just came out and looks really great)
The Hofmann Wobble by Ben Lerner All about Wikipedia, such an excellent essay read it!
An Anatomist of Pleasure Gives Voice to the Body in Pain by Parul Sehgal in The New Yorker In awe and admiration that I know these two people in real life. Parul reviews Garth Greenwell’s new novel Small Rain, which I had the pleasure of hearing him read the first chapter at Bread Loaf.
On Likability by Lacy M. Johnson this essay was from a talk she gave at Tin House in 2018, but is still incredibly relevant and inspiring.
White Witchery by Elissa Washuta An important essay about the appropriation of witchcraft published in Guernica in 2019. She is the author of White Magic, which is on my list of books to read.
Obviously there is a theme here as we move into witchy season of Halloween and the Day of the Dead. We’ve been told that witches intend to do us harm, but what if we dismantle this, and claim that witches were the original scientists, doctors and healers? As the book, Witches, Midwives, & Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English proves. Another one of my absolute faves.
What are you reading lately? What has moved you? Are you dressing up for Halloween? This year I’m going as a witch!
xox,
Augustine
Happy to be 44! Looking back, looking forward. Being here. Grateful to be alive. What a privilege to grow older. I don’t take it for granted.
Thinking of this birthday twenty years ago. Three of my beloved people are gone but with me still. Was on the brink of something twenty years ago, before I went to Greece, before I went to Columbia, before Paris, before the choices I’d make would change the entire trajectory of my life. This birthday feels the same.
A new chapter, a new beginning. (Is it perimenopause or am I just under the influence of finishing All Fours by Miranda July?) So much more left to do.
Thank you everyone for the lovely birthday wishes!
So appreciate all of you being here!