I read one of the 15 texts included in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches for work a few years ago and had intended to come back to it. Audre Lorde was a Black lesbian feminist and staunch advocate of what, a few years after the 1984 publication of this collection, was called intersectionality by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. Her writing brims with extraordinary vitality, and her words express her disagreement without ever apologizing or toning her message down, especially when calling out white feminists to acknowledge the particular vulnerabilities of women of colour (something sadly still pertinent 40 years on). I especially loved "Poetry Is Not a Luxury" and "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action." I transcribed many quotes in my notebook, including the following, which gave me a new appreciation of female poets:
"Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical. It is the one which is the most secret, which requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one which can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper."
(from "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference")
After listening to a few episodes of Emma Newman's podcast and being charmed by her voice, I borrowed the audiobook of her SF novel Planetfall (which she narrates) without knowing anything at all about its plot. It turns out to be a story of deception, manipulation, revenge and fulfillment set in a colony on a planet where houses are printed and grown, and base materials mined and recycled. Given the author's fondness for Star Trek: The Next Generation, I had a feeling that she would, in her writing, give her characters the depth and psychological complexity I especially appreciate in this genre. I was very, very right... and whoa, I did not see that ending coming! My only — relatively minor — complaint about the audio version is that it was often difficult to tell the different characters apart, and even male from female ones.
I technically cheated on my Year of Reading Women project by reading Homer's Iliad, in its recent English translation by Emily Wilson. I'd had it on hold for many months and didn't want to have to wait for who knows how many more until I could borrow it, so here we are. It was fascinating to compare it to Pat Barker's Women of Troy series, especially the treatment of women as objects, and the introduction and translator's note were both very interesting. The poem itself irritated me to no end despite the dynamic, vivid language. I absolutely cannot stand histrionics, so the gods — puerile, petulant, constantly interfering yet unable to ever take responsibility — made me lose patience on multiple occasions. Speaking of which... You know the question, "Who would you invite if you could have dinner with 3 fictional characters?" My version asks: "Who would you choose if you could punch 3 fictional characters somewhere sensitive?" Well, I reserve the seat of honour to the one, the only, the whiny... Achilles.