Hey, hey Shoegazers. If any of you find yourself overwhelmed in class readings and need a break from Philosophy or Philology or Sociology or String Theory or… well… academic literature more broadly, might I suggest a list of other compelling reads. Composed in this list are a few of my all-time favorites, perfect for fall/winter/chilly season, some recent finds I’ve been working through, and also some more dense material if you are in interested in expanding the breadth of your vocabulary! Forsooth!
Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer
(Bitter)sweet reading
The most informative, emotional, and shimmering facets of life coalesce in Robin Wall Kimmer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. As an Indigenous writer with a background in natural science, this book blends together her work filled with clear details and stories from the narrator’s memory, observations of the natural world, and oral tradition. These elements fuse, creating a harmonious narrative of life and loss. I would recommend this book widely as engrossing and impactful work.
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
It’s murder. It’s a mystery. It’s secret. It’s history.
I read this book over the summer, but when I tell you this is an explosion of the dark academia aesthetic, I need not say more. The novel follows a college year of our narrator, Richard Papen, who transfers to a small liberal arts school in New England to study Classics, to drink wine out of teacups by candlelight in a mansion in the woods, to find himself plagued with completely complex and cantankerous comraderies. And, oh yes, there’s murder.
There is much sitting around, translating Greek and Latin, talking intellectual talk, and walking across the campus and the small city which presses in on the setting of the novel. The characters shift through each page… Really, I could say more, but that may spoil the book for all those of you who like to read.
Even if you don’t like to read, this book is for you—my warning is that you will become invested.
Existentialism and Human Emotions, Jean-Paul Sartre
Whole or hole…?
If you’re looking for something dense, you might find this one fun! For my philosophical pick of this opus, I chose this text for its compact yet curious content. Written with an engaging but critical agenda, this text explores the self, the intellect, religiosity, other philosophies, and more than this, tries to pose answers to questions that simply do not have answers. Such is existentialism, I suppose.
My favorite part of the work happens to come in on the second page where it describes an encounter with two people, one of them curses (as in spits off a swear word), and then utters her excuse in saying, “I guess I’m becoming an existentialist.” This made me laugh, as the utter reconciliation of this act is profoundly evocative and distinguished by its acute relationship to the self and perception and, I suppose, the ways in which the self perceives the world. Again, I don’t know that I can summate the totality of this text in such a finite space, and so I shall leave saying that this book will make you think—as such it was designed.
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: Stories by ZZ Packer
Yet I return to these stories
It’s no wonder ZZ Packer is one of the most accomplished and notable literary writers of our time. With this collection of short stories, one finds themself simultaneously grappling with themes like theology, class, race, and gender while keeping a sincere and real tone. The stories are accessible to the modern reader and loaded with intense emotion; Packer’s stories have a distinct energy to them throughout this collection.
My personal favorite story has to be the collections namesake, “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”. This story in particular, following Dina’s first year of college, embraces the paradoxically monotonous and ever-uncertain moments that shape us as we grow into ourselves.The narrative itself is crafted in this beautiful, rich manner that sort of functions like a revolver—one of the stories most blaring symbols. The story is shifting from one scene to the next, locking in on one thread of the narrative and then switching, locking into the next, round and round. Packer’s work is that of sincere excellence.
René Girard: Violence and Mimesis, Robert Fleming
What is mimesis again?
Girard is a philosophical anthropologist and with this book by critic and admirer Robert Fleming, Girard’s accomplishments in his field are explored, meticulously deconstructed, and shaped over again with the goal of giving the reader a more thorough understanding of some of Girard’s most prominent and popular work—such as that of mimesis.
Before this year, I had not done a lot of reading about mimesis, yet this addition to what understanding of Girard’s work I did have was quite complementary and helped me formulate more of my own opinions and understandings of Girard’s work and implications. If you’re a fan of philosophy or want something with a lot of words you’ll have to stop and look up in each sentence, this one might be fun to complicate your philosophical agility!
Sophocles I: “Antigone” Translated by Elizabeth Wykoff
AGONY!
I ought to recommend you read the entire canon of Greek dramas, but if you’re pinched for time and are looking for an enthralling, tantalizing, and of course (distinctively and classically) Greek tragedy, look no further than Sophocles’s own “Antigone.” A story of self-sacrifice, shame, and demise, Antigone has it all combined with the most heart-wrenching, painfully explosive commentary on class, gender, and genealogy.
With roots in Greek mythology, this play was monumental at its time of original showing, winning awards and shocking audiences (*gasp*). The fact that this text even exists today is a testament to its power and impact in Ancient Greece; many of the texts we have exist only because they were so important to people at the time that they were transcribed, copied, and preserved at great lengths—so much else was lost. I’m very grateful Antigone was not lost. I, however, lost myself while reading the play. How incredibly devastating… how tragic.
In Conclusion,
So that’s about all I have for you all. I hope some of these might be fun reads (or at least intellectually stimulating). Until next time, best of luck with the wrap-up of the semester and I hope you might read until your heart’s content. *heart hands emoji* *disco ball emoji* *stack of books emoji* *emoji that looks like the little face that is surprised and spinning.* Happy (end of) fall to all!
