I was compelled to read this book after originally coming across the title essay 'The Crane Wife' in The Pari3.75 ⭐️ (rounded up to 4 glorious stars)
I was compelled to read this book after originally coming across the title essay 'The Crane Wife' in The Paris Review many years ago. The essay was so profound, it stuck with me all this time.
This is marketed as a memoir of sorts but to me, this seemed like more of a 'several-experiences-put-together-with-a-stream-of-consciousness-weaving-through-it' kind of book. And I think I like that more than if it had been a proper memoir.
I liked the 2nd half of this book more than I did the 1st half, tbh. But that doesn't mean I didn't like the 1st half! All the essays show the beautiful observational quality of the author... how she kept trying to say that life and love isn't some grand, dramatic thing but all of this is really in the attempt... in the trying. The in-between moments. And the whole book is essentially the author coming to these conclusions again and again as she takes us with her to try to make sense of her life through her experiences.
It's really a book for women. A book for girl's girls. That essay about that glorious house in Florida that the author described as a "single woman's house". That other essay about that very specific experience of having breasts and thinking your body is for everyone but yourself (she does a better job of talking about this than I do lol). That gorgeous essay about dreaming of houses instead of weddings when you were a kid and spending your whole life wanting to replicate that safe feeling of a houseme that welcomes everyone and is filled with so much love.
The only thing that slightly irritated me about the book was the amount of American pop culture references from decades ago, that as a Gen-Z non-American, it made it quite difficult to understand some of the essays. This is a personal qualm for me and maybe someone else who reads this book wouldn't think that was a problem at all.
This book is definitely one of those memoirs that I hope to keep coming back to as I grow and evolve through life. ...more
This book deserves 5 stars actually, but gets 4 because the writing was a bit inaccessible for me (meaning I'm not smart enough to understand a lot ofThis book deserves 5 stars actually, but gets 4 because the writing was a bit inaccessible for me (meaning I'm not smart enough to understand a lot of it).
A lot of what was discussed in this book took me several minutes and a couple of pages of rereading to understand because... wow it's just that good. The author talks in depth about white feminism - which they call "civilizational feminism" because it seeks to "civilize" women from the global south - and how it's become the definition of feminism now simply because it stomped on and stood over feminist movements from the global south.
The book starts with the question "who cleans the world?" and ends on the same note and it's just... an incredibly loaded question that's opened up so many avenues of thinking for me. This question really is the crux of the entire book. I just want to share three quotes from the book that talk about this and let you decide for yourself:
"The anthropologist David Graeber has spoken of the need to reimagine the working class as what he calls “the caring class,” the social class where “work is about taking care of other humans, plants, and animals.” He proposed the following definition of care work: “work in which the goal is maintaining or expanding the freedom of another person.” Or “the more your work helps others, the less you get paid to do it.”
"Capitalism is an economy of waste, and this waste must disappear before the eyes of those who are entitled to enjoy a good life: it must be disposed of without being seen. (...) this economy of waste production is inextricably linked to the production of human beings as ‘scum,’ as ‘waste.’ An entire humanity is condemned to undertake invisible and overexploited work to create a world suitable for hyper-consumption and maintaining institutions."
"White women can be assured of finding everything clean, but without confronting the reality of who is doing the cleaning, and therefore of the presence and existence of those who do it. This is one of the fundamental principles of cleaning: it must remain invisible. Through this invisibilization, the person doing the cleaning disappears not only from the screen, but the violence and disdain they encounter on the job are legitimized."
Overall, this is an absolutely "big brain energy" book written with an anti-racist and anti-imperialist viewpoint that I'm obsessed with, and will definitely be recommending to my feminist friends for years to come....more
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