Yes, I Liked: How to Say Babylon
Maybe there's hope for me and poetry yet YWR #141
Happy new year, my reading pals! New year, absolutely the exact same us because there’s actually no real transformative magic to the clock ticking from one minute to the next in an arbitrarily developed Gregorian calendar!
But if your resolutions are resoluting for you, congratulations. I’ll just be over here reading the same old books in the same way …
except …
wait, you guys …
I read a non-fiction book by a poet and I loved it. WELCOME TO 2024, all bets are off.
How to Say Babylon is author Safiya Sinclair’s story of growing up in an increasingly authoritarian Rastafari family, dominated by a volatile, domineering, increasingly dangerous father. It’s a vivid telling of the beauty and verdancy of Jamaica, the richness and scarcity of her family and community, and her irrepressible grasping to forge her own identity and create her own destiny.
Yes! You are correct in thinking that it sounds a lot like Tara Westover’s excellent Educated, with which it has not just a little in common. I’m a little surprised that it has not received nearly the same attention, though am I really? This is Childish Gambino’s America, is it not?
Anyway, there are strong parallels with Educated in how Sinclair’s life becomes an increasingly rigid and insular, religion and father-dominated world, as well as in the unusually talented children who find their own ways both because and in spite of their upbringing. How it makes them remarkable while at the same time tries to choke and restrain them. Alongside the story of her father-god, there’s also Sinclair’s loving portrait of her mother, who blooms at the center of this book in a near-mythical goodness, strength and omniscience but also surrenders herself and her children to the father’s punishing vision for his family. But this is also very much its own work, rooted in a family, country, and global history that gives context, critique and cover, especially for a father who is both the villain and the victim.
Plus, the writing. ThE WRiTinG! So, my embarrassing, dilettantish, but firmly-held quarrel with poetry has always been how ponderous and indulgent it is (also the way that people read poetry aloud with that POETRY VOICE you know you can hear it in your mind right now ugh no I’m not proud). But maybe now I’m a bit of a convert?**
Sinclair infuses every word of this memoir with a whirling, dancing lushness that feels so literary in places that you can forget you’re reading about this woman’s actual life. It’s quicksilver one moment, hot and destructive the next. It’s self-assured and rich (also a deviation from Educated where Westover writes with a sober plainness. There’s less of the “feral child makes good” quality and more of the “indomitable bloom triumphs.” Anyway lemme stop making comparisons because this is a book to be appreciated in its own right.)
My only critique is that the last act, as it were, feels a little rushed and under-explained. For me, the lucidity and vibrancy of her childhood memories, of the fully-fleshed, sympathetic but unsparing portraits of her family in the early years become paler, more reserved, and more condensed in the later years - like maybe she hasn’t had as much time to reflect? That she feels more unresolved nuance as a grown woman? For me, it’s in conflict with the power of the overall work.
But that’s a small criticism in the face of such a spectacular memoir. Definitely read and recommend.
I’m starting off 2024 newsletters with a lower-lambie read. Yes, and? Find out what that means HERE.
2023 in the rearview mirror
On Friday I was driving to work and saw a Christmas tree on the curb and thought “CHRISTMAS? Like, from FOUR MONTHS AGO?” but anyway voila, ici we are.
My goal in 2023 was to read fewer books, to try to savor them more. I don’t know if I really did savor them, like, get off your high horse, Michiko Kakutani, geez. But I did read fewer than in 2022, so … half-check.
By the numbers: 118 books read! Mostly (82%) fiction! Mostly (70%) by women! Should I stop being so influenced by the Bookstagrammers and start expanding my reading aperture very slightly? Maybe I can be 70% fiction, 65% women in 2024? I mean, I could if men would start writing ROMCOMS. It’s not that hard, brosephs.
Do you have 2024 reading goals, friends? Is tracking your reading so OUT for 2024? Do you want one last chance to share your favorite book of 2023 with the class? (Newbies can see mine here and here.) Tell Mother all about it.
The First Last Words of the Year
If this memoir is not on your 2024 vision board, check the archive for something you might like more. And come back for the next newlsetter which will undoubtedly recommend a fun mystery or something. I LOVE fun mysteries.
No. I know. It’s way past time for me or anyone to be talking about New Year nonsense.
All links go to Bookshop.org, which supports indie bookstores. I’m currently supporting Zibby’s Bookstore, because it is CUTIE PIE CUTIE. See and buy most of my past recommendations here.
**I am probably not a poetry convert just yet. Some people are born loving poetry, others have poetry thrust upon them.
If you are ever so moved please like, share, recommend, comment, etc, so that someday I can spend my days in a fruit orchard with my pets, reading books, and talking about them with you. Also I have a secret newsletter reader goal for this year and (NPR voice) “I can’t do it without your support.”