Flirting with Art and Literature: 3 Book Recommendations
Maryam Adams reflects on three standout books that found her when she needed them most.
In 2023, I set myself a goal to read 40 books. This year there were no reading goals set. “Read less, live more,” I thought to myself when the time for resolutions came around, but because flirting with art and literature is my one true purpose in this life, the books found me. Over the last while, I’ve dipped into some non-fiction, very impressive commercial fiction, short-stories, a particularly enjoyable workplace comedy and then lots and lots of literary fiction - my bread and butter, if you will. Because sharing is the best gift a girl can give, in this newsletter I’ll be recommending three standout books that I think you should read.
Like most people, I came into this year plagued by constant thoughts of The Hague, and so I returned to a book recommended to me early in 2023 by Murray - Intimacies by Katie Kitamura. He described it as “quiet but moving.” A woman has moved to The Hague to work as an interpreter at the International Court of Justice and along the way, she has a brush with love (romantic and platonic), power (mostly held by men and institutions) and ever-consequential violence.
Before I began, I knew little of The Hague as a tangible space. It was always strictly theory; a place of peace and justice, where South Africa was set to bring a historic case that would and has changed the world in some way. It was extremely fascinating reading about the ins and outs of this city on the North Sea coast of the Netherlands. It’s a small city, but a force nonetheless. Kitamura did an excellent job of painting a vivid image of a life experienced, carefully setting out each scene with wide shot angles coloured with soft hues as you move from the interpreter’s dock in court, to the art gallery, to the warmth of a lover’s bed and then the confines of a prison cell housing someone accused of war crimes.
Throughout Intimacies, nothing is too grand or over the top, there is no rise before the fall, because when thinking about justice and law, ideas that are usually black and white quickly turn a very ambiguous grey. This book is certainly quiet and it is a gift. I found it to be most affecting, especially when considering the horror of the past and the horror that we will sit with when we look back on what’s happening today.
“But none of us are able to really see the world we are living in—this world, occupying as it does the contradiction between its banality (the squat wall of the Detention Center, the bus running along its ordinary route) and its extremity (the cell and the man inside the cell), is something that we see only briefly and then do not see again for a long time, if ever. It is surprisingly easy to forget what you have witnessed, the horrifying image or the voice speaking the unspeakable, in order to exist in the world we must and we do forget, we live in a state of I know but I do not know.”
“Maryam, have you read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin?” Shakti asked me a few months ago. “I think it’s right up there with the best books I’ve ever read, the hype is no lie - I promise!” It was after this message that I stole this book off my sister's bookshelf and asked everyone to leave me alone for a day or two. At its core, this story is about the love between two people who meet unexpectedly in a hospital under less than ideal circumstances. In turn, they share a life together - but this is not a romance! Sadie and Sam share a deep passion for gaming and they spend their days collaborating, building and creating new worlds for other enthusiasts.
When this book initially gained traction, I was entirely put off by the idea of reading about gaming, which is why I was happy to be reminded of what a game really is, what it can mean and what it can do. Similarly to art, it can provide escape from reality. It can bring magic and solace, but it also has the power to hold up a mirror to the darkest parts of society and humanity - Zevin’s clever storytelling allowed for both. Early on in the book you learn of a disturbing game created by Sadie that forces players to grapple with their complicity. The game, Solution, is set in a factory where a player who asks moral questions about their complicity in a larger totalitarian system loses game points, while those who mindlessly partake win in the end. The system? The Third Reich. To win the game based on points, you would be losing it morally.
What proved even more interesting to me, was the way that Zevin wrote these characters and their relationship. It reminded me of some of the more beautiful and touching parts of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life. As Sadie and Sam grow up, their relationship is tested continually by tensions around fame, money and the buried jealousy they hold over each other. The title, a nod to Macbeth, speaks to the infinite rebirth and redemption that exists only in a game where nothing is permanent. But in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, you grapple with how much this is not the case in the real world, that the decisions you make or don’t make have lasting consequences. This book left me with a greater appreciation for the control and agency that I have, even when I feel as though I have none. Read it! Shakti was right!
“Long relationships might be richer, but relatively brief, relatively uncomplicated encounters with interesting people could be lovely as well. Every person you knew, every person you loved even, did not have to consume you for the time to have been worthwhile.”
Coco Mellors has quickly become one of my fav contemporary writers. Her debut Cleopatra and Frankenstein was stunning and unapologetically itself. Those who have read it either hate it with a passion and point out that the characters are self-absorbed, unlikable and privileged beyond a reasonable doubt, or they LOVE it for exactly those reasons.
The latest from Mellors is a novel, Blue Sisters, which will be out in May this year. As the title suggests, it’s about sisters and the complex relationship dynamics that come with the territory. It follows the lives of three sisters spread out across the world, London, New York and Paris. Despite the glamour of it all, as the anniversary of the death of their fourth sister creeps closer, we witness how each sister begins to unravel until they are undone.
In many ways, these characters live lives that feel far removed from mine, but Mellors has a brilliant grasp of the human condition and the love and pain that can coexist. She writes so vividly and frankly about finding your way, which can be quite affecting as a twenty-something-year-old still figuring it all out.
There are so many pockets of gold throughout this beautiful beautiful story, and I think this is a book many people will connect with because whether you need it or not, it is a meditation on grief, that has been written in a way that will move you. It will ease your ache and it will hold you.
“A sister is not a friend. Who can explain the urge to take a relationship as primal and complex as a sibling and reduce it to something as replaceable, as banal as a friend? Yet this status is used again and again to connote the highest intimacy.”
There are many gems still to come this year, not least a new novel by the ruler of this free world, Sally Rooney. I look forward to flirting with it all!
*If you would like to read any of the books mentioned please reach out because I would be happy to share my/my sister’s copy with you.
By Maryam Adams
A twentysomething-year-old little lady in constant awe of the world around her, on a mission to capture the dreamy moments and read as much as humanly possible.