Happy Saturday y'all!
I'm excited to share something a little different with you guys.
I wrote this essay Summer 2020 at the height of the pandemic, when we were on lockdown with fewer options of how to spend our time. This was around the time where I tapped back into my love for reading, which has ultimately transformed into this podcast.
After completing a class assignment where I had to write a reaction to a novel we were assigned, I continued on with my own reads after realizing how much I loved writing about my thoughts after finishing the book. Girl, Women, Other was the first book I wrote a reaction to, and I still think about it from time to time. It occurred to me to share the essay, and others in the future, so here we are. The essay begins at 06:05.
If you'd like to read along while listening, the essay is below. I hope you enjoy!
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Reaction Essay: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
I stumbled upon the novel, Girl, Woman, Other in the most organic way. Not scrolling through Amazon while looking at ‘frequently bought together’ packages and reading reviews. Not by a friend’s glowing recommendation. I was walking through the ‘books and movies’ aisles in a store when the bold title cover and the patchwork quilt of colors caught my attention. I picked it up and judged its weight. Turned its back and read its summary. Peered down and read about the author. ‘Oh, she’s Nigerian’ I thought, realizing this peaked my interest. Then I found myself in that space where one is deciding, “should I? shouldn't I?” There’s always a perceived risk to seeing a book nowadays, blind, not having been vouched for, because the praise printed on it can be taken with a grain of salt. But I felt a pull. My gut told me “yes, buy it.” And it did not disappoint.
I began this book excitedly, then set it aside for a time. Evaristo wrote the stories in a style I was unfamiliar with. What would otherwise be paragraphs and new sentences on a page had no periods, few commas, and only capitalized letters in the case of a name, or an I, or when beginning a new story or chapter. There was an awkward phase of getting accustomed to her rhythm, but soon it felt familiar. I began to read the words with a mental cadence that lent to the impact the novel had on me personally. If it was written any other way, it wouldn’t have been the same.
The first half of the womens’ stories felt generally separate. Evaristo introduces you to each character, their world and the people living in it. Worlds that feel siloed, until you continue on, and with each new story, a new connection is discovered among the women in the novel. It often felt like finding a new clue to the mystery of how the lives of these women intersect.
I appreciated what I thought to be Evaristo’s intentions with how she wrote the stories. Poignantly and explicitly implicit with what she wanted the reader to take away. She drew you into their innermost thoughts and forced you to hold space for multiple truths at once. That yes, readers might judge Winsome for having an affair with Shirley’s husband, but Winsome, despite older in age, still loved men, and loved sex, and was not to be dismissed as no longer having the desire for passion or pleasure. Bummi, an older Nigerian widow, and the mother of Carole, is written to have had a very cultural view of her life and how she wanted Carole to live. Later on however, she begins an initially platonic relationship with her employee Omofe, that soon turns sexual. A woman like Bummi, traditionally, would never be encouraged to seek companionship again, let alone a romantic one, and with a woman no les
