Alana Estelle

I have a confession to make: I struggle with poetry. There is something about it that doesn’t quite “click” with how I process information. When I read poetry, my brain goes completely blank and I struggle recalling what I’ve just read. I feel like a kindergartener trying to solve a Calculus equation, when all I know how to do is add and subtract. I often joke that I’d rather go back and take Physics again than be forced to read poetry. 

I can read Shakespeare, but even after one of his plays, I’m extremely fatigued, even though I often really enjoy his works. 

And yet, here we are with a book of poetry. Book Publicity Services reached out to me and asked me if I was interested in reading Surviving Home by, Katerina Canyon in honor of it’s publication on November 9th. When I looked up what this selection of poems covers - growing up in a troubled home, prejudice, abuse, etc. - I was intrigued because it really ties into the discussion I had about A Little Life, The Wolf Den and Lolita. I was able to sample a couple of the poems before I received the hard copy and *gasp* Canyon writes in a way that I understand!

I’m excited to read this poetry collection this month and venture outside of my comfort zone, and who knows, it just may give me the confidence boost I need to read more poetry (I have a volume of the Bronte sisters’ poems that’s been glaring at me since 2019…)

Do you read poetry? 

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 “…for everything is already known to everyone, and everything hidden will be made manifest.”

My friend and I definitely took our time reading Crime and Punishment by, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Not gonna lie, after reading The Brothers Karamazov earlier this year, I’m experiencing a bit of Dostoyevsky burnout. Don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed this novel, but I personally need to take a break from this dude and let these two pieces of great fiction marinate for a while. 

Crime and Punishment centers around Raskolnikov, a young man who commits a murder and the effects this murder has on Raskolnikov. The reader spends quite a bit of time zoned in on his point of view and the reader experiences Raskolnikov’s psychological state before, during and after the murder. However, this novel doesn’t just focus on Raskolnikov’s crime, it also explores the various crimes and “sins” of some of the other characters. The overarching theme and question Rebekah and I discussed is, “how does society determine the moral weight of crime and are all crimes ultimately the same? 

Raskolnikov truly feels that his murder is justified because the person he kills is causing harm to multiple people.

One cannot discuss Crime and Punishment without talking about “madness.” Rebekah and I joked that everyone in this novel at some point gets a fever. Are we all on a spectrum of madness? Do the right circumstances have to be in place to develop madness? 

Dostoyevsky likes to write characters that are nuanced; he plays Devil’s advocate on many topics and he also likes to reveal both the dark and the light in his characters.

What’s also intriguing about Raskolnikov is that he never quite regrets his crime; he is always able to rationalize it. What he does end up coming to terms with is the morality of it, or rather, immoralily of it. 

“It wasn’t a human being I killed, it was a principle! So I killed a principle…”

However, he is able to eventually understand the immorality of his crime through Sonya, who consistently remains concerned over the state of his soul. Through her, he realized that spiritual redemption is possible. Dostoyevsky loves to weave in themes of religion and spirituality into his works, which he believes are the backbone of society - take faith out of society and it crumbles and man becomes depraved. Dostoyevsky also likes to use this theme to speak against socialism. Dostoyevsky personally believed that socialism is inherently evil and atheist (Specifically Marx. Marx was an atheist and some scholars claim that he was actually a satanist. His poetry makes a heavy metal goth band’s lyrics look like child’s play). 

“It started with the views of the socialists. Their views are well known: crime is a protest against the abnormality of the social set up … I’m not lying! … I’ll show you their books: with them one is always a ‘victim of the environment’ - and nothing else! Their favorite phrase! … That’s why they have such an instinctive dislike of history … That’s why they so dislike the living process of life: there’s no need for a living soul! The living soul will demand life, the living soul won’t listen to mechanics, the living soul is suspicious, the living soul is retrograde!” 

When I read this passage (condensed here for the sake of space) it made me think of some of the rhetoric we are hearing today about victimhood. I’m just going to leave this here for people to marinate on…

I just really enjoy Dostoyevsky’s storytelling and I really enjoyed Crime & Punishment. The Brothers Karamazov still takes the cake for me, but this is still a spectacular piece of fiction that deals with the complex issues of morality, spirituality, psychology and redemption. I look forward to reading more of his works.

Rating: 4/5 

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It’s here folks, the last two months of the year. I won’t go on and on about how disturbing this is, because I don’t know were 2021 went. Really 2021 just feels like a continuation of 2020, and we all know what last year was like….

I was on a reading roll for the first half of October and then during the last two weeks of the month I was barely able to get much reading done. It wasn’t because work was crazy - work was predictable, but it was everything else; it was just busy and I had other things/projects going on that made it difficult to focus on reading for longer periods of time. So, the first week of this month has been spent wrapping up Wolf Hall, The Silence of Scheherazade and finalizing my thoughts on Crime & Punishment.

I’m looking forward to my November reads, a couple of which will roll into December. I anticipate making a lot of progress on these books because November is full go holidays for the US - I get Election Day off, then there’s Veteran’s Day and the Thanksgiving. 

• Bleak House - Bleak House was on my list of books that I definitely wanted to read this year and it’s the last one left on the list. I saved it for the end of the year because I know it will take me all of November and December to read this over 1000 page novel. I also want to savor it. Dickens is one of those authors that people either seem to like to dislike. I do like Dickens, even though he can be frustrating. One way that I approach his novels is to read them more slowly - he is a master at sentence construction and he writes beautifully. He also seems overly detailed, and there are things he could exclude, but I do appreciate that he makes all his subplots relevant in the end. Dickens is a slow burn and he forces the reader to slow down and just enjoy the journey. 

• Northanger Abbey - I planned to start this last month, but here we are. I haven’t spent any time with Austen this year and I must squeeze in one of her novels. 

• Dracula - A friend and I finally finished Crime & Punishment and now we’re on to a good ole Victorian classic. It’s appropriate that I’m finishing out the year with my favorite types of classics: English Regency and Victorian literature. 

• Mr. Salary - Ah, my first venture into Sally Rooney. I felt that adding this very short story in was a good start. I can read this in one sitting. This is your warning - When authors are this pumped up, I examine their works very critically. I have a feeling Rooney and I won’t get along, but I’m reading her for a project I’ve given myself, so I must endure LOL. Or, maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Only one way to find out…

What are you reading this month? 

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I don’t care which community it is, there is always a bit of snobbery. Specifically, in the book community, I have occasionally seen statements critiquing the types of books that people choose to read. And let’s not be “holier than thou,” we’ve all done it to some extent, even if we just thought something.  

If you briefly scroll through my IG and look at the books I chose to read, one may assume that I mainly read “high-brow” literature. Well… I do. That is my preference. I gravitate towards chunky classics, books rich in so much symbolism they can be analyzed for a lifetime and literary fiction that I often seen deemed as “pretentious.” This is just my preference. I don’t tend to gravitate towards lighter reads. 

But this is what bothers me: every now and then I’ll see comments from other readers who think that they are lesser readers because they prefer “lighter” fiction. 

Read what you want to read. 

To me, it is a privilege to have access to books, to be able to read, and be able to read any book I want to read, when I want to read it. There are people who would do anything to have access to books or be taught how to read. 

If you want to read light, feel-good romances and cozy mysteries all the time - go for it! If you want to read 1000 page classic novels and then analyze every square in - do it! What’s most important is the experience the reader is having with the text.

Do you enjoy reading the books you select? Then proceed. It’s your time that you’re investing, so you might as well like who you’re reading. Other people’s perceptions on what you’re reading is irrelevant. If you’re excited and passionate about the books you decide to talk about, that’s all that matters and that will attract people to the conversations that you like to have around the books that you read. You are not a “lesser reader” because you don’t want to read a major work of fiction that is considered “the best.”

This also works the other way - if you’re a person, like me, who spends most of their time reading these really complex and heavy novels and a “lighter” read is appealing to you, READ. THE. BOOK.

I can’t say it enough: read what you want to read! Don’t read to make yourself look a certain way. Don’t read to “fit in” with what everyone else is reading. Don’t read to make yourself seem relevant if you really don’t want to read that book. 

I advocate for reading books out of your comfort zone, because you never know what you may end up liking and it may open up more books for your to explore. If a book is appealing to you for whatever reason, then just go for it. If you end up liking it, then you’ve hit the jackpot and you’ve diversified your literary palette. If you didn’t end up liking it, then you’ve just fine tuned your preferences. Seems like a win-win situation to me…

And if someone is judging you for the books you’re reading, tell them to exit stage left. If you’re judging yourself for the books that you are (or aren’t) reading, then you should really ask yourself why you’re putting unnecessary pressure on yourself for a HOBBY! It’s highly likely that you’re too concerned with what you think other people are thinking about you. 

News Flash: Most people aren’t thinking about you as much as you think they are (and I mean this in a good way)!

So go on - read the fairy-tale romance, the cozy thriller, the lush historical fiction, the philosophical classic, the dramatic fantasy. Life is too short to care about what other people think about your reading choices. 

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What’s your favorite flower?

I’ve loved roses since I was a little girl and I remember when I was four years old, my mother and I went to buy rose bush to put at the side of the house. 

Last week I received a lovely surprise in the mail from Kaye Publicity. By Any Other Name by, Simon Morley is non-fiction that chronicles the culture history of the rose. I don’t think any one can deny how prevalent roses are in society, from teas, fragrances, patterns on clothing, references in literature, famous pieces of art and even on the runway. It’s also the flower people turn to to experience love. 

In honor of #thegreatrosehunt, I paired book with my Sandalwood Rose candle, my yellow rose tea cup filled with chamomile rose tea. 

I’m looking forward to diving in to this read - I think this will be one I read slowly, small chunks at a time. For some reason, this just feels appropriate to savor a book about my favorite flower. 

What non-fiction reads will you being diving into?

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These three classic authors are certainly not “Under the Radar” but these works are not as widely read as their other major works like Jane Eyre, North & South, and Pride & Prejudice. 

“…so that he saw her, touched the hem of her garment, was enough. Surely, in time, such deep love would beget love.” 

Mary Barton is Elizabeth Gaskell’s first novel that she wrote after the lost of her son, as a way to cope. The novel mainly centers around the beautiful Mary Barton, who is a poor working girl. Her beauty attracts the attention of a wealthy factory owner’s son. Her childhood friend, Jem, is also deeply in love with her. Mary’s youth and immaturity blinds her to who is actually the better man. However, this just isn’t a story center around these romances - in true Gaskell style, she dives into the social conditions of the time, specifically the conditions of the poor, and the tensions between workers and their masters. Fans of North & South who haven’t read this yet will appreciate the parallels - I’m actually under the impression that Gaskell took some of the elements in this novel and explored them more deeply in North & South. Fans of Dickens will appreciate the darker, moodier, and dramatic feel that is somewhat Dickensian. In fact, Dickens was a huge fan of this novel. Also, people who are interested in debates of capitalism vs. socialism will find this interesting, as Gaskell presents subtle cases for both, which is not shocking, as the Communist Manifesto was published during the same year (1848). 

“I make no apologies for my heroine’s vanity - If there are young ladies in the world at her time of life, more dull of fancy and more careless of pleasing, I know them not, and never wish to know them.”

Sanditon is fairly well known amongst fans of Jane Austen, but it’s still not as widely read as her main novels. Sanditon is an unfinished work, so when it’s published, two of Austen’s novellas are often included in the volume - The Watsons and Lady Susan. Both of these short stories are brilliant, but Lady Susan is a real treat. It’s so funny and Lady Susan is the worst; a text book narcissist. If you’re a fan of Austen and haven’t read these shorter works yet, you really should. It’s everything that one loves about Austen in a bite-sized length - romance, wit, discussions on class and really good banter. 

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The main reason I initially set out to read A Little Life by, Hanya Yanagihara was to have this conversation about realistic trauma in fiction. Most conversations surrounding A Little Life are about how it’s just “trauma p*rn,” the content is actually “unrealistic” and it’s there for the sake of shock value. 

I want push back on this idea; just because content is graphic, hard to stomach, etc. (for some - people have differing tolerance levels: ) doesn’t mean that it’s unrealistic. So here are the questions I’m posing: What role does realistic trauma and realistic graphic content have in fiction? If A Little Life was a non-fiction memoir, would people still be calling it “trauma p*rn?” Do we expect fiction to “soften” reality, even though it’s framework is often mirrors life?

I also have two other books here, that I read this year that I think nicely fit into this category of realistic content in fiction that may make some readers…. squirm - Lolita by, Vladimir Nabokov and the recently published The Wolf Den by, Elodie Harper. The plot of Lolita is generally known, and though it’s definitely disturbing to say the least, and I totally understand why many people choose not to read Lolita, I found it to be quite realistic. We can’t deny that there is a subgroup of individuals that think this way about children and it’s actually more common than most people would like to acknowledge. The Wolf Den focuses on the life of prostitutes in Ancient Rome. Harper does not hold back with the realities of what they have to face. A Little Life, Lolita and The Wolf Den are extremely similar, sometimes so similar that it’s almost eerie, to the countless interviews I’m listened to of people sharing their trauma and abuse stories. In the majority of these interviews, the abuse began when the individual was a child and how they attribute that abuse to the continued abuse that they experienced in adulthood and the psychological and emotional impact it’s had on them. 

So, with Jude in A Little Life, nothing about the background that Yanagihara created for this character, was shocking to me. Jude’s childhood is far more common than people realize and in fact, I’ve heard of real stories even more insane than Jude’s - stories that in no way seem like they could be real; stories that took me months to process. There was one story in particular that was so “out there” that I had to stop listening to it, do research on what the person was talking about and then revisit the person’s story a year later to connect some dots.

So let’s circle back around to the questions that are floating around in my brain that I presented in the beginning of this post. Why is it that when we come across this type of content, especially when it’s in fiction, we write it off as voyeurism? “Oh, this is sensationalism.” Why does fiction, that is uncomfortably realistic, get categorized as “trauma p*rn” when it blatantly shoves real life in our faces? What does this mean about how we view fiction? Have we become gatekeepers of what we think should and should not be fictionalized?

These are open-ended questions, though I lean on the side of, yes, I think that to some extent, we begin to gate-keep what is fictionalized because most readers turn to fiction as a means of escapism. And lets make this distinction: Just because content in a book personally makes a reader uncomfortable or a reader decides that’s not the content they want to engage with, or a reader perceives something to be sensationalized or unrealistic, doesn’t mean that the content is sensationalized. There is also a distinction between what personally makes a reader uncomfortable and whether or not the content should be out there for people to choose to consume. I’m a big fan of, if you don’t want to read XYZ, the don’t read XYZ, but saying other people shouldn’t read something because of its content, makes no sense to me. Nothing in life is one size fits all… And not everyone reads fiction as a means of escapism. People will often turn to fiction to see how certain topics or historical events are portrayed and then fit it into broader themes and studies of specific time periods and topics. 

This post was perhaps a bit of a ramble, but it’s something that I think about a lot. I personally, have a very high tolerance for this type of content. I personally had no visceral reaction to A Little Life - yes, there are sections of it that are graphic, but there is also so much other content in that book. People have focused so much on how shocked they were, that I often see them neglect everything else in the book. 

Again, don’t get me wrong - not every book is for every person. I completely understand why many people don’t want to read this type of content. The more you read, the more you discover what you do and do not like to read. 

What do you think about this? How do you feel about realistic trauma in fiction? Why do you think, when this type of content is in fiction and readers become hyper focused on it?

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