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bennybooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
3.0
This book would be better if it wasn't for the unabashed homophobia sprinkled in there.
nattieb_'s review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
600bars's review against another edition
Clearly from my notebook review I had a lot of trouble understanding this book and I probably shouldn’t even be adding these to my “read” list if I have so little recollection of them that I may as well have never read but they’re all neatly written and dated wtf these are all from summertime why was I even doing this
paulap's review
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.25
This was very well written, it plays a lot with language. It also deals with colonialism and touches on the Apartheid and race, as Botswana is close to South Africa. you have to be in a particular state of mind to enjoy this one, but if you are, it would probably be great.
wizurd101's review against another edition
5.0
here is my copy-pasted reading response from a class. I wrote it at 2am and I was drunk when I did, but I'm really proud of my reading, think I did a good job tracking some really difficult threads, and hope someone gets something from it lol. One of the toughest books I've read.
Elizabeth is alone: orphaned, stateless, raceless, sexless, without marriage and without love, and debilitated by mental illness. She can't create her identity in the normal ways, with the normal labels. Head's novel is concerned with where we turn for salvation in our loneliness. She offers and rejects a couple of different options. Religion, the nation, institutionalized love, race, and others.
But first is religion. There is a clear religious and spiritual system in the book, seen in her hallucinations, based on a melding of world religions. Buddhism is the most important, but Chrisitianity and others appear. Sello, sometimes Father Time, is apparently the "Einstein" and orchestrator of all religion, and variably appears as the Buddha, Krishna, Rama, and Osiris (probably others). Gods are people.
Two of the novel's most important images comes from Buddhism: reincarnation and the bodhisattva. Elizabeth, Bridgit, Tom, and maybe Kenosi are helpful to think of with the bodhisattva in mind. Boddhisattvas are people who have achieved Nirvana but stay on earth to help others towards the same peace, voluntarily forgetting their past lives. In Buddhism, Boddhisattvas are characterized by acting without thinking, like the way you shift your pillow in your sleep. Fascinatingly, both Tom and Bridgit, and later Elizabeth, are characterized in exactly this way! Their goodness comes from instinct, they act and speak without thinking, and their future and past lives are often referred to. Bridgit is tasked to save Elizabeth in a future life. Tom's gaze is frequently described as "ancient" and they both are driven by mysterious instincts to help others. Consider the "celestial boddhisatvas" of Mahayana Buddhism, the importance of their clothes, and the vesture garments. At one point, Tom, Kenosi, and Elizabeth rest together under the "shade-trees," which I thought was a strange phrase until I thought of the Bodhi tree.
Also important is Christianity. Elizabeth is explicitly being tortured by Satan, "Say, Dan," who shows her the images of all her past lives, which were all "perfect" and "golden." Maybe this is reading too deep, but I got the sense her godhood and bodhisattva goodness were being tested, like Job. In the logic of her delusions, she is an incarnation of Godhood that counts "the Father" (of Christianity) as a "comrade," (she may also have been the Buddha itself, as it says early on). She and Sello are stripped of her vesture garments, symbols of Godhood and power, and tested. "Turn the other cheek" is taken to extremes when part two says that "if your enemy stabs you in the back, die."
I have lots more to say about religion but don't want to waste too much space. Statelessness haunts the novel and is the subject of the last sentence, and I would really want to hear people talk about it.
Head is also critical of love, especially as it's institutionalized. The narrative of exclusive love is a killer and a lie. Marriage sucks, and both Bridgit and Kenosi have given up on it. Elizabeth can't find meaning or purpose in love.
Tom and Sello say she is not a woman, and Dan says over and over that she has no vagina. She can't find solidarity in womanhood.
What is the fire? What is "fire-washed?" Does her pain give her perspective? If anyone else has read "Ethical Loneliness" I'd really like to talk about that. Why does she think that insights from philosophers under the Bodhi tree mean nothing without suffering?
Two traditions stick out to me: tea and elaborate greeting rituals. What's different between the support of Mrs. Jones and Tom? One is motivated by an external moral code, Christianity, and one is intrinsically motivated. Ritual is disconnected from spirituality and goodness. Head says that goodness has to come from you, not from rules.
Head is interested in the evolution of the human spirit, not in the evolution of social organization. The Danish civilization represents the end of a societal evolution, but is clearly flawed. (anti Hegel vibes). Head wants the individual soul to evolve, not groups and norms. She's critical of the traditions of organized religion, nationalism, and tribalism. She wants people to be proud of the work they do with their hands, not the groups they belong to. But why do, according to Sello, so many gods come from white countries?
There is also the purely psychological reading as a different approach to the book. The apparition of Dan shows that she is afraid of wanton sexuality, which reflects her upbringing in a brothel. She fears homosexuality, which traces back to her first husband who had a "boy-friend." Things are, strangely, described as "Al Capone" a couple times-- I wonder if that is referring to her gangster husband or if that phrase was just cool at the time. A psychoanalytic reading would not be hard at all, with penis fixation, an Elektra complex through Medusa, and many many fathers to replace her own absent parents. Even in the modern day, many people in mental health crises (horrible generalization) fixate on Eastern philosophy and religion. Do we have any proof that the peace she feels at the end is permanent? She had many manic happy episodes before that.
But I prefer the reading that treats this more as fantasy, and takes the intricate system of gods seriously. In class I want to be critical of the god Sello. He used her as an experiment and a tool. What was up with him "killing" women?
I saw in this novel a fight between two models of perfect personhood: the "Superman" and the ordinary. Elizabeth and the bodhisattvas are an experiment in goodness spread through the ordinary, while Sello uses symbols and pawns like Krishna, Rama, Buddha, Jesus, etc. to motivate people towards goodness. The novel is quite explicitly in dialogue with literature and philosophy outside of Africa, and even though it is a little embarrassing, it would maybe?? be important and relevant to talk about Nietzche, the power that humans suddenly have when faith in gods disappears, and his ideas of evolution into the superman.
Interested and curious about why everything was so European and Indian. Why did someone have a "Puck-like" grin? Why so much of the Bible? Who was Head writing for? She succeeds and shows a full knowledge of other cultures, but why? I think it's really important to think about Heinemann publishing group when you read this book.
Elizabeth is alone: orphaned, stateless, raceless, sexless, without marriage and without love, and debilitated by mental illness. She can't create her identity in the normal ways, with the normal labels. Head's novel is concerned with where we turn for salvation in our loneliness. She offers and rejects a couple of different options. Religion, the nation, institutionalized love, race, and others.
But first is religion. There is a clear religious and spiritual system in the book, seen in her hallucinations, based on a melding of world religions. Buddhism is the most important, but Chrisitianity and others appear. Sello, sometimes Father Time, is apparently the "Einstein" and orchestrator of all religion, and variably appears as the Buddha, Krishna, Rama, and Osiris (probably others). Gods are people.
Two of the novel's most important images comes from Buddhism: reincarnation and the bodhisattva. Elizabeth, Bridgit, Tom, and maybe Kenosi are helpful to think of with the bodhisattva in mind. Boddhisattvas are people who have achieved Nirvana but stay on earth to help others towards the same peace, voluntarily forgetting their past lives. In Buddhism, Boddhisattvas are characterized by acting without thinking, like the way you shift your pillow in your sleep. Fascinatingly, both Tom and Bridgit, and later Elizabeth, are characterized in exactly this way! Their goodness comes from instinct, they act and speak without thinking, and their future and past lives are often referred to. Bridgit is tasked to save Elizabeth in a future life. Tom's gaze is frequently described as "ancient" and they both are driven by mysterious instincts to help others. Consider the "celestial boddhisatvas" of Mahayana Buddhism, the importance of their clothes, and the vesture garments. At one point, Tom, Kenosi, and Elizabeth rest together under the "shade-trees," which I thought was a strange phrase until I thought of the Bodhi tree.
Also important is Christianity. Elizabeth is explicitly being tortured by Satan, "Say, Dan," who shows her the images of all her past lives, which were all "perfect" and "golden." Maybe this is reading too deep, but I got the sense her godhood and bodhisattva goodness were being tested, like Job. In the logic of her delusions, she is an incarnation of Godhood that counts "the Father" (of Christianity) as a "comrade," (she may also have been the Buddha itself, as it says early on). She and Sello are stripped of her vesture garments, symbols of Godhood and power, and tested. "Turn the other cheek" is taken to extremes when part two says that "if your enemy stabs you in the back, die."
I have lots more to say about religion but don't want to waste too much space. Statelessness haunts the novel and is the subject of the last sentence, and I would really want to hear people talk about it.
Head is also critical of love, especially as it's institutionalized. The narrative of exclusive love is a killer and a lie. Marriage sucks, and both Bridgit and Kenosi have given up on it. Elizabeth can't find meaning or purpose in love.
Tom and Sello say she is not a woman, and Dan says over and over that she has no vagina. She can't find solidarity in womanhood.
What is the fire? What is "fire-washed?" Does her pain give her perspective? If anyone else has read "Ethical Loneliness" I'd really like to talk about that. Why does she think that insights from philosophers under the Bodhi tree mean nothing without suffering?
Two traditions stick out to me: tea and elaborate greeting rituals. What's different between the support of Mrs. Jones and Tom? One is motivated by an external moral code, Christianity, and one is intrinsically motivated. Ritual is disconnected from spirituality and goodness. Head says that goodness has to come from you, not from rules.
Head is interested in the evolution of the human spirit, not in the evolution of social organization. The Danish civilization represents the end of a societal evolution, but is clearly flawed. (anti Hegel vibes). Head wants the individual soul to evolve, not groups and norms. She's critical of the traditions of organized religion, nationalism, and tribalism. She wants people to be proud of the work they do with their hands, not the groups they belong to. But why do, according to Sello, so many gods come from white countries?
There is also the purely psychological reading as a different approach to the book. The apparition of Dan shows that she is afraid of wanton sexuality, which reflects her upbringing in a brothel. She fears homosexuality, which traces back to her first husband who had a "boy-friend." Things are, strangely, described as "Al Capone" a couple times-- I wonder if that is referring to her gangster husband or if that phrase was just cool at the time. A psychoanalytic reading would not be hard at all, with penis fixation, an Elektra complex through Medusa, and many many fathers to replace her own absent parents. Even in the modern day, many people in mental health crises (horrible generalization) fixate on Eastern philosophy and religion. Do we have any proof that the peace she feels at the end is permanent? She had many manic happy episodes before that.
But I prefer the reading that treats this more as fantasy, and takes the intricate system of gods seriously. In class I want to be critical of the god Sello. He used her as an experiment and a tool. What was up with him "killing" women?
I saw in this novel a fight between two models of perfect personhood: the "Superman" and the ordinary. Elizabeth and the bodhisattvas are an experiment in goodness spread through the ordinary, while Sello uses symbols and pawns like Krishna, Rama, Buddha, Jesus, etc. to motivate people towards goodness. The novel is quite explicitly in dialogue with literature and philosophy outside of Africa, and even though it is a little embarrassing, it would maybe?? be important and relevant to talk about Nietzche, the power that humans suddenly have when faith in gods disappears, and his ideas of evolution into the superman.
Interested and curious about why everything was so European and Indian. Why did someone have a "Puck-like" grin? Why so much of the Bible? Who was Head writing for? She succeeds and shows a full knowledge of other cultures, but why? I think it's really important to think about Heinemann publishing group when you read this book.
apollonium's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
andrew61's review against another edition
4.0
From what I have read this is novel with its origins in the real life of this remarkable author. Elizabeth leaves South Africa after learning that she has a white father and black mother. In Botswana, with her young child, she moves to a village where she works inbthe community garden and her relationship with the locals is explored.
What is incredible about this book is the portrayal then of a woman suffering from a mental health breakdown as she is visited on a nightly basis by 2 Gods and their supporting cast of frightening hallucinations.
This is a tough read as the confrontation with her demons is uncomfortable and harrowing but this is a tale of a single mother overcoming incredible adversity and mental illness. I found the picture of hallucinatory experiences distressing but beautifully evoked into an incredible narrative.
This is my second bessie head novel and she was a writer of wonderful talent whose writing is a beacon for African women's creativity.
What is incredible about this book is the portrayal then of a woman suffering from a mental health breakdown as she is visited on a nightly basis by 2 Gods and their supporting cast of frightening hallucinations.
This is a tough read as the confrontation with her demons is uncomfortable and harrowing but this is a tale of a single mother overcoming incredible adversity and mental illness. I found the picture of hallucinatory experiences distressing but beautifully evoked into an incredible narrative.
This is my second bessie head novel and she was a writer of wonderful talent whose writing is a beacon for African women's creativity.
eperetz's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25