We consider ourselves well read ladies that are constantly on the lookout to continue finding new reads to nourish our minds. We have decided to start a collaborative and interactive section where we will discuss books we have recently read and we hope for you to give us feedback about them or perhaps others as well, helping us discover new favourite reads. Without further ado: Welcome to The World Was Hers for the Reading!
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity by Judith Butler. First published in 1990.
Reviewed by Cristina.
A referent when it comes to feminist theory, what you must take into consideration if you decide to read Butler, is that she is a philosopher, and therefore her way of approaching feminist criticism is through philosophy. Gender Trouble is an in depth analysis of the ways in which society and the human being build and continue to shape the concepts of gender, sex and being, and she does this through the deconstruction of other writer’s works. She examines the works of Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Claude Lévi-Strauss,Sigmund Freud, Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault amongst others… And while Butler has many interesting and complex things to say, perhaps my complain about this work is that she spends so much time deconstructing other people’s work that I found myself wishing she had spent a bit more time elaborating on her own theory, which is not precisely easy to come to terms with. I do recommend this if you are interested in the field, you may not entirely agree (or entirely understand) what she is talking about all of the time (I know I did not) but that is the beauty of it.
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.First published in 2013.
Reviewed by María.
Let me preface this by saying that I love Kate Atkinson. She has a unique and interesting voice and she always writes really complex female characters. Maybe that’s why Life After Life, despite its success and hype, was just a disappointment to me. As it was, I found it had a great premise that ultimately went nowhere. What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? The book promises so much and yet delivers few little. Ursula, the main character, seems to be the punching bag of history; she drowns, is raped, beaten and ultimately killed by her husband…and it all seems so pointless, yes she learns to live a little longer the next time but that’s about it. Kate Atkinson’s beautiful prose and lyrical narrative end up carrying the book most of the time because sadly, the story does nothing to sustain the reader’s interest.
NW by Zadie Smith. First published in 2012.
Reviewed by Jade.
Since she published White Teeth in 2000, I had always wanted to read Zadie Smith’s work but somehow never got around to it. Then on some day back in February I decided to buy an autographed copy – score! – of NW at Vroman’s in Pasadena, California. At that time I was drawn by anything ‘London’, all coincidences really but I was watching Luther a lot, researching relocations to London etc etc. Anyway, NW was the perfect book to complement this patch of my life. London’s NW is most definitely the 5th main character of a book where 4 childhood friends’ lives intertwine in typical urban stories that feature issues of race, survival, love, struggle…. Everything feels so real and ‘close’ to the city and portrays it just perfectly. Smith’s realism is detailed, sarcastic, straight-up funny, and poetic at the same time. That kind of poetry only a city like London can offer. Just wonderful.
Faceless Ladies 