Teju Cole

Every day is for the thief seems to be a hyperrealistic story of (the /) an author going back to Nigeria after having lived in the United States for many year. The "novel" is a description of what he sees and experiences. De "novel" is published "with photos by the author".

So what is the message? A true story is also an story, perhaps. Teju's novel Every day is for the thief could as well be categorised as a travelogue, or an essay. "Novel" may suggest some alterations or some invention, which is not explained. However, the story is good, and if we accept the story as a novel, then Every day is for the thief is a very readable book.… (more)

[a:Teju Cole|1042875|Teju Cole|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1296114339p2/1042875.jpg]'s book is a learning experience. He writes beautifully, talks about historical tragedies, and the book has a challenging shifting narrator scheme and the same with many locations, starting in Maine, then Cambridge, MA to Mali and Nigeria and back. He discusses J.M.W. Turner's painting "Savers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying" which we've seen with its foreground of roiling seas and brilliant red sky and the ship Zong, plus the Africans, some in chains, which the slaver is throwing overboard, cargo he is transporting to America. Lloyds of London has since offered reparations. There were at least 130 who drowned in 1781. According to the BBC this ship and the crime paved the way for eventual abolition of the slave trade so something was learned by someone.

He also fields an interesting discussion of the unreliability of Western custody of artworks citing the WWII destruction of work by Van Gogh, Courbet, Murillo, Rubens, Titian, Goya, Botticelli, Tintoretto, and Caravaggio. by allied bombs. And there are references throughout to so many paintings (i.e. Chris Ofili's "Mary Magdalene" with a "violet so deep it could drown the eyes, in whose "Raising of Lazarus" there is a violet so base it could raise the dead."

In the beginning of the book, Cole includes a scene where his partner and he are shopping for antiques at a rural warehouse in Maine and find a couple of things they wish to buy including a ci wara, a ritual object representing an antelope and used by the Bambara people of Mali. Later, he goes to Mali for a conference and buys others of these sculptures. He also spends evenings listening to the music of the area at a club available on a playlist: https://open.spotify.com/queue

I'll skip a recap of the serial killer mentioned by a student in his creative writing class.
He also watches The Searchers and a 1994 film by an Iranian director, Abbas Kiarostami, Through the Olive Trees.
Art and music predominate but fewer books from this creative writing professor at Harvard. except for a handful of titles, Virginia Woolf's "The Death of a Moth." [a:Susan Faludi|117182|Susan Faludi|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1560239653p2/117182.jpg]'s [b:The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America|723244|The Terror Dream Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America|Susan Faludi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1316126301l/723244._SY75_.jpg|709477] about captivity narratives; [b: Invisible Cities|9809|Invisible Cities|Italo Calvino|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1468623303l/9809._SY75_.jpg|68476] and [b:Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali|469896|Sundiata An Epic of Old Mali|Djibril Tamsir Niane|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1223664019l/469896._SY75_.jpg|458208]. But I remind myself it is not about a WRITING professor, it's about a photographer! I had a hard time not reading it autobiographically.… (more)

Much like Toni Morrison's Recitatif this book, Tremor by Teju Cole seems to give the finger to bigoted readers. But just like Morrison, Cole still feels the need to devote a novel to the issue.

The main character of this novel is a refined person, as is shown by his life, work and interests. He could be "Everyman". Still his particular intrinsic knowledge of African masks identifies him as an African or African-American man. Throughout the rest of the novel this is merely a possibility, but not necessarily so.

Tremor is a very well-written novel. Like Morrison's work it is a step in the direction of the ultimate emancipation of African-American writers, of becoming indistinguishably equivalent. Though topics and style would still be personal, there ought not to be a reckoning based on ethnicity or background. The international guild of writers, joined around a big table shared by writers from all ages and all continents, as envisioned by E. M. Forster come true. Cole's Tremor is already much closer to this ideal, as he no longer poses descent as a problem. Stll, complete equivalence is not quite there, but very close.

It seems that this awareness is still much stronger in American writers than elsewhere, although as a white person this is hard to gauge and appreciate. Perhaps ultimately, because of history and the critical movement, well-educated African-Americans will be better able to reflect on and understand history, than there white counterparts. In any case, from my perception this is a great novel.… (more)