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Review: Second Place by Rachel Cusk

AuthorsurbhiUpdated onAugust 6, 2021August 6, 2021 CategoriesBook Review0 Comment

Review: Second Place by Rachel Cusk

“… my individuality had tormented me my whole life with its demand to be recognised.” Second Place is a rewriting of Mabel Dodge Luhan’s memoir “Lorenzo in Taos”, which talks about the time D. H. Lawrence came to stay with her in Taos, New Mexico. The story is about our protagonist M who invites L …

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// soul and body // part 4 of the book was back t // soul and body // part 4 of the book was back to talking about tereza as it did in part 2. while i found myself understanding tereza better in that part, here i found myself losing that understanding of her. she is still haunted by her childhood memories and she is still dealing with tomas’ infidelity and her own fidelity. but now the book has taken yet another turn to explore the politics of what happened in czechoslovakia in the late 1960s and its impacts on the people who believed they were making a difference during the invasion. i can’t say i enjoyed this part much but here are some interesting snippets from it: • “when a private talk over a bottle of wine is broadcast on the radio, what can it mean but that the world is turning into a concentration camp.” this makes me think how people value privacy less and less in today’s age. the power for someone to take screenshots of private conversations most probably held in confidence. the power tech companies hold with all the data that they collect. so my question to you is with the internet and its tools, are we living in a free world or is it just an illusion and the whole world is in fact a concentration camp of sorts? “almost from childhood, she knew concentration camp was nothing exceptional or startling but something very basic” • “she thought of the days she had spent photographing tanks. how naive they had been, thinking they were risking their lives for their country when in fact they were helping the russian police.” • “people usually escape from their troubles into the future; they draw an imaginary line across the path of time, a line beyond which their current troubles will cease to exist.” #theurbanreader #theunbearablelightnessofbeing #milankundera #bipocbookstagram #milankunderabooks #milankunderaquote #faberandfaber #philosophyquotes #bodyandsoul #bodyandmind #plato #aristotle #sacrifice #motherhood
// #bookstagramreadsthebooker // book 1/13 - smal // #bookstagramreadsthebooker // book 1/13 - small things like these by claire keegan this book has taken bookstagram by a storm ever since it’s been shortlisted for the booker prize this year. one of the major reasons being it’s length. it borders being called a short story, maybe even a novella. it’s being called the shortest ever book to be long listed for the booker prize. and everyone wants in on having read at least one booker nominated book before the final winner is announced. if you want to get started too, i highly recommend this one to begin with. this is a small book of many small things which collectively makes a big impact. initially you are wary as to how much of the story will the author deliver in under 60 pages, but here you have keegan taking up that challenge and delivering! the story is complete, it doesn’t end on an unsatisfactory note. you are made fully aware of what might come next, and THAT is indication enough that the story has done it’s job. the author has shown restraint in not writing more while conveying all that needs to be conveyed and that is of course commendable. this story is set in ireland in the mid 1980s. our protagonist bill furlong, a coal and timber merchant is a man who came from nothing, he’s a man born out of wedlock and that information is essential to the story when you read on. he lives a decent life, has a wife and 5 wonderful daughters to go home to, is well respected, but he’s always hoping to live a little rather than continue on with his mechanical routine. until this point in the book, you’ve reached the half way mark and you start wondering, what’s the point of all this information, the author won’t finish the book with all loose ends tied. you start preparing for a disaster and are getting ready to write this review with all your criticisms. but how the story takes for a turn by introducing the magdalene laundries. “the magdalene laundries were part of an interlocking system of orphanages, industrial schools, “mother and baby homes” for unwed mothers and church-run institutions in which ireland once confined tens of thousands of its own.” contd. in comments…
// misunderstood words // entrepreneur jim rohn s // misunderstood words // entrepreneur jim rohn said, "words do two major things: they provide food for the mind and create light for understanding..." but what happens when words are misunderstood? if you google commonly misunderstood words you’ll come across words which are misused not misunderstood. what is a misunderstanding? according to the oxford dictionary, “a failure to understand something correctly”. but then who gets to decide what is correct? the third part of milan kundera’s the unbearable lightness of being touches upon this thought and he goes ahead to create a mini dictionary of misunderstood words. in this dictionary you’ll find words like woman, fidelity, betrayal, music, parades and even new york to name a few. this dictionary emphasises on “one’s normal could be another’s chaos” and it was an eye opener in many ways to read the different perspectives on the words we choose to use casually every single day. words simply do not remain words when you link them to experiences, to circumstances and situations. after reading this, i want to re-emphasise on why trigger warnings are important, I want to re-emphasise that words do matter, as readers, as writers, as creators it becomes imperative to use them and choose them wisely. further in part three, kundera turns the tables to focus on someone who until now i believed to simply be a side character - sabina. and how oh how has sabina shined and dulled through it. sabina is a character who can’t fit in a box, no matter how hard you try to fit her into it. she can’t and she wouldn’t. and what an ahhh moment it was when he finally uses the title with respect to her life. 🤌🏼 then there is franz, a man who has lived in privilege all his life but romanticises only the “thought” of a life of hardship. •smh• at this point in the book, i have no idea where the author is going to lead us to now. will he uncover more of the lives of the characters he’s introduced so far or will we be up for another philosophical monologue? #theurbanreader #theunbearablelightnessofbeing #milankundera #bipocbookstagram #milankunderabooks #milankunderaquote #faberandfaber #misunderstoodwords #wordsmatter #words
// surbhi core // surbhi core is… introducing // surbhi core // surbhi core is… introducing myself as a reader first everywhere i go, calling myself a city dweller and a regular customer of the world’s wordsmiths. it is being on a constant outlook for cafés and bookstores whilst carrying one book with me wherever i go. surbhi core is having a love-hate relationship with water and weather because all year round i wait for the next season only to complain about it and wait for the next. surbhi core is all about having healthy boundaries and spreading kindness in the same breath. it’s about making mistakes and learning from them. it’s about finding the beauty in the mundane and finding people with whom silence isn’t awkward. surbhi core is saying hi to strangers, loving cats and making lasagna on the weekends. it’s also about failing to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe but trying again and again anyway. surbhi core is dreaming of the shire and collecting all things LoTR. it’s also searching for sapphira in the clouds and not killing spiders because they remind me of charlotte from charlotte’s web. surbhi core is finding peace in sunsets, beaches, daisies and clouds. it’s in knowing forgiveness is more for yourself than for others. it’s in believing that love truly wins over hate. surbhi core is standing up for what you believe in and at the same time knowing the fine line between suggesting and enforcing ideas. it’s about patiently helping you see that you’re a feminist and not bashing you into it. lastly, surbhi core is all about the strengths and the flaws within, it’s all about choices and now more often than not being referred to as the urban reader. so, hi! ♥️ also, hi again @abhinavbamhi (you can spot him in the back)😄✋🏼 thank you @tbb_box for this amazing initiative to meet folks again 💕 #meetme #surbhicore #thebigbookbox #tbbbox #theurbanreader #bookstagramindia #readersofindia #welovebooks #bipocbookstagram #faqirchandbookstore #khanmarket #sukoon #meetthebookstagrammer #indianblogger #bloggerindia #delhibookstafam #delhibookstagram #delhibookstagrammer #unitedbookstagram #bookworm #books #bookstagram
// soul and body // plato considered the relation // soul and body // plato considered the relation of the soul to the body to that of a prisoner to his prison. in this part of the book, we navigate through teresa’s past, her childhood, her fears, her upbringing, her relationship with her mother, her dreams etc. we come to understand how tereza is not only a prisoner in her own body but also a prisoner of her childhood memories. this part touches upon sacrifice and guilt. sacrifices a mother makes for her child and the guilt that a child carries with them for being the reason of the many sacrifices. at every mention of tereza’s mother i felt insurmountable rage, i found myself seething in anger for tereza. at the end of the last part, I had found myself to be annoyed with her actions. i was annoyed that kundera - a white cis-her man - was writing about a woman this way. in this part, with more backstory and character development i find the book more worthwhile. i also seem to have found a good reason to read anna karenina now - to explore the beauty in the book’s misfortune. this part made me ask myself some intriguing questions - are our lives truly an extension of our parents? is love simply chance? how truly incomprehensible is the truth under the comprehensible lie? kundera even touches upon the hypocrisy and short sightedness of the media, of people. how pictures of the war seem to be more valuable initially but over time as the war goes on, so does the world and then it simply becomes a small piece of news amidst the chaos of many others. isn’t that what’s happening even today, i suppose the reality of life is just aligning with the idea of eternal return? do we truly ever learn from history or is it just a good place to quote from and add to the aesthetics of our speeches and writings? so much to ponder over. #theurbanreader #theunbearablelightnessofbeing #milankundera #bipocbookstagram #milankunderabooks #milankunderaquote #faberandfaber #philosophyquotes #bodyandsoul #bodyandmind #plato #aristotle #sacrifice #motherhood
Mid Year Recap! Because it’s been a decent year Mid Year Recap! Because it’s been a decent year so far and despite the downs, the highs have been memorable ♥️ #summer2022 #reelsinstagram #reelsindia #reelitfeelit #beautyindia #unitedbookstagram #trendingreels #trending #asmr #explore #asmrcommunity #explorepage #reels #tiktok #instagood #viral #midyearcheck #midyear #capturingmoments #theyearsofar #bookstagram #bipocbookstagram #indianblogger #blogger #summerdiary
// lightness and weight // when i decided to star // lightness and weight // when i decided to start reading the unbearable lightness of being, i assumed it’d be light-weight. after finishing part 1 of the book, i stand corrected. the book itself is light, yes, but the words within it are heavy. translated from the czech, this is my first kundera. i’m only one part in but i’m already amazed to find words on the pages that i have only ever fleetingly thought of. i am most amazed by his ease of transitions between essay and story. initially, exploring many philosophical ideas and eventually easing those ideas into a story of a man and women - tomas and tereza - and their irreconcilable love set in 1968 czechoslovakia. he mentions the idea of eternal return and how things appear as we know, not in their transitory nature. he writes, “how can we condemn something that is ephemeral in transit? in the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.” he goes on to explore the idea of heaviness and lightness, their connotations to negative and positive and questions whether heaviness is truly deplorable and is lightness actually that splendid? he’s also along the way introduced nietzsche, parmenides and beethoven. he’s questioned love and talked of compassion and pity in terms of love. he’s talked about the inextricable bond between weight, value and necessity, “only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value.” on life, he writes, “we can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.” i remember having a discussion with a friend a couple of days ago and asking, why do we do things the hard way in life when there are easier ways to do the same thing? he mentioned that it’s mostly to satisfy our ego. but in hindsight, i think it’s because the heaviness adds value to what we think is necessary. i look forward to reading the next part of the book despite how intellectually challenging the first one has been. #theurbanreader #theunbearablelightnessofbeing #milankundera #bipocbookstagram #milankunderabooks #milankunderaquote #faberandfaber #philosophyquotes
Ghost Lover by Lisa Taddeo I’m a huge Lisa Tadd Ghost Lover by Lisa Taddeo I’m a huge Lisa Taddeo fan. I like how her books tend to make most people uncomfortable. In my reviews for her previous works - Three Women and Animal - I’ve written about how she talks about sex and female desires without judgement, while also being fully aware of how truly judgemental society is. She doesn’t attempt to make sex or desires “pretty” or “orchestrated”, she depicts them to be as they are for someone. She writes with a certainty that everyone has desires that can’t be talked about at a wine party or at the dinner table or even during casual conversations, there are desires people don’t admit to, they hide them. But not Taddeo, she chooses to talk about them instead and if you ask me then I think that, that makes her brave. So far, Taddeo has written a non-fiction through Three Women and a thriller fiction through Animal. Now, she comes with a collection of short stories- Ghost Lover. As someone who has read everything Lisa Taddeo has ever written, I had high hopes. Like I’ve said before I like how her writing challenges her readers to be uncomfortable and sit through the reality of others. I love how her tales are dark and twisted. In her book, Taddeo writes, “When a moment is upon you, the best you can do for it is to imagine it in the past.” That’s exactly what I’d like to do with this book too - “Imagine is in the past” because the moments I’ve spent reading these stories have been disappointing. While she’s stuck to her usual themes, even been clever with the plot lines of a few… I believe that Lisa Taddeo is an author whose writing in the long form is what works for her stories. I really hope to read more of her but not in the short format. Thank you @bloomsburyindia for sending me an advanced proof copy of her latest. Folks, the book comes out on 14-June, check it out if you’re intrigued by her writing too. #theurbanreader #ghostlover #threewomen #animal #ghostloverlisataddeo #threewomenlisataddeo #animallisataddeo #bloomsbury #bloomsburyindia #lisataddeo #womendesires #womenfiction #shortstorywriter #bipocbookstagram #bookreview #unitedbookstagram #literaryfiction #delhiblogger #delhibookstagrammer
Heaven by Mieko Kawakami Summers in India start i Heaven by Mieko Kawakami Summers in India start in early April instead of mid-April now. I picked up Heaven by Mieko Kawakami towards the end of May which meant we had the rest of summer still left and she described this year’s summer best, “It was as if this summer would last all year, until another summer finally took its place. The days retained all of the humidity and heat and brutal sunlight of summer at its peak, refusing to relent.” This book - shortlisted for @thebookerprizes - is my introduction to Kawakami’s writing, translated from the Japanese by Sam Bert & David Boyd. But this book is not my introduction to bullying, which happens to be the major theme of the story. Two middle schools kids - Eyes & Kohima - bullied by their peers find friendship because of their shared experience. Eyes is our MC but it’s not his real name, his name is never revealed. Each of the kids have a sign, a sign which defines them, a sign which represents them beyond their looks. This is what Kojima believes at least. She also believes that weakness is strength. On the other hand, one of the bullies, Momose believes, “Nobody does anything because they have the right. They do it because they want to.” “People do what they can get away with.” He believes power is strength. Throughout the book, the author poses questions & contradictions about the world we live in, she goes on to say, “For people to actually live by some golden rule, we’d have to be living in a world with no contradictions. But we don’t live in a world like that.” The book isn’t long, it isn’t slow either, but it is heavy. I’d add trigger warnings for: bullying & abuse. Some actions are really graphical & descriptive which one cannot avoid but I would recommend pausing, placing the book down & taking your time to get back to it. I see why the book’s shortlisted - it’s philosophical, focuses on one theme & the writing is undoubtedly brilliant but I don’t think it’s going to win The Booker. I do recommend the book, because in life, you’re either the bully or the one getting bullied OR the silent spectator but would you be the one to stand up against the bully? Why or why not? Ever given that a thought?
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blakeaburgeBlake Burge 💡@blakeaburge·
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Google Sheets isn't Excel.

But it's more powerful than you think.

10 things Sheets can do, you'll wish you knew yesterday: 📊

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The internet is too calm today.

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14 Jul

The internet is free university.

But 99% don’t know the best spots on this virtual campus.

Here are the top websites to accelerate your learning 👇

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24 Jun

With Roe vs Wade overturned , let’s rewind what we know about Indian Abortion Law.

Abortion in India has been legal under various circumstances for the last 50 years with the introduction of Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act in 1971.

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There’s a giveaway on till 17-June-22 for a Handivity Designs booksleeve on my Instagram page. Go participate if you’d like to win one. 👍🏼💕

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