What I read in June
Less than I would've liked
Hello!
Past me thought that she would read a TON of books in Korea. Past me actually read ALMOST NOTHING in Korea, and instead spent ten days shopping, eating, and worrying about the mounting pile of books.
Books
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
This was for Classics Club this month, where one of our two meetups went for two hours because everyone had so much to say. I have the Adam Thorpe translation, from 2011, and it really zipped along. It’s a lot of fun! Everyone is ridiculous, and making terrible decisions all the time, and just living their own delusional fantasy lives with very little regard for anyone around them.
Highlights: If you want to be a doctor, just be a doctor. Move to a provincial French town and don’t let a “medical officer” qualification stop you. People will let you amputate limbs if you tell them with confidence that you have read about a new treatment for club foot in a medical journal and want to try it out. // If you’re going to break up with someone via letter, make sure to flick some water from your drink onto the page so they think you’ve cried while writing it. // Arsenic is not to be eaten by the fistful, like sherbet, and leads to a very horrible, drawn out death and not the capital-R Romantic last swoon you hope it will.
Interestingly, the few people who didn’t enjoy the book (or didn’t finish it) had the same translation: Lydia Davis’ 2010 translation, which is meant to be the most precise. Those of us who loved it all had the Adam Thorpe, and then there were a smattering of others, including a 1950s Penguin classic and an audiobook of the Eleanor Marx translation.
For the next Classics Club, we’re reading Charles Dickens’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Tickets are available here.
Also: HEXES OF THE DEADWOOD FOREST by Agnieszka Szpila (translated by Scotia Gilroy) // Some of GREAT EXPECTATIONS // A procrastination re-read of Angela Carter’s THE BLOODY CHAMBER before movie night on Thursday!
There actually was more! But I can’t tell you about it all yet, sorry! My short story reviews for Mslexia are out now, so I can tell you that I read Rachel Khong’s MY DEAR YOU, the new translation of Kim Choyeop’s superseller IF WE CANNOT GO AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT (translated by Anton Hur), and Louise Hegarty’s GETTING THE ELECTRIC. I love love love short stories and I honestly believe they are the answer to fending off doomscrolling. Maybe I’ll do a little recs post soon.
On my list for July is Polly Barton’s WHAT AM I, A DEER?, Sofia Montrone’s NYMPH, and Doireann Ni Griofa’s SAID THE DEAD. I’m hoping to make more of a dent in the TBR than I have this month.
Online reads
I have to include this first up, because Soph Seto made me cry (real tears, not fake Rodolphe ones…) Truly, The Artist’s Way group I hosted at the beginning of the year was something very special, and has set the bar veeeeery high for every other course I teach.
Stacey Yu loves THE WALL by Marlen Haushofer
From there, I went down a rabbit hole of Stacey’s substack, Blue Hour, and now I’m bumping Albertine Clarke’s THE BODY BUILDERS back up my list, because I love the sound of it, meant to read it, and then got immediately buried under 1000 other books.
What have you been reading?
Terri-Jane x
Looking forward to hearing more of your reviews, especially those short stories!
Firstly, honored to be included in your June read list Terri! Thank you for putting together such a wonderful, supportive Artist Way program. So blessed to have found you and the Cursive Knives community!