The Solace of Reading in a Topsy-Turvy World

This week has been an Alice in Wonderland kind of week. I awoke to find myself down a topsy-turvy rabbit hole that I was not expecting, and I have been reeling ever since. I immediately turned to the ballast of books to steady me as wave upon wave of emotion, grief, and realisation threatened to capsize me. The first book I reached for was a perennial favourite of mine, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, a story that captured my heart as a child. But I tossed it aside as soon as I got to the end of the first page, when young Mary Lennox is described “as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.” It was too much to bear; it reminded me of Timothy Snyder’s wonderful On Tyranny, which I had just re-read last week. I am done with the word “tyranny” for a while.

Deciding that escapism would be my preserver, I turned to some illustrated Christmas children’s books, notably Clarice Bean: Think Like an Elf. The innocence of the young protagonist and her faith in a world that is undoubtedly good, was restorative. The humor and delightful illustrations buoyed me for a while, but then my eyes yearned for rest, and I longed for a soft voice to talk me to sleep. And who better to do that than Meryl Streep, of all people, who performs Ann Patchett’s novel Tom Lake on audiobook? What a distraction that was. The light and observant prose carried me along, restoring my belief in a world of kindness, honesty, and joy found in physical, simple things.  There is wisdom on almost every page - spoken by characters who care for one another, in a quintessentially optimistic book, although it is set during the pandemic. (It deserves a separate review, which I will get to soon.)

It encouraged me to lift my head above the parapet and peek out into the big, bad world again, so I picked up Anne Applebaum’s latest publication, Autocracy, Inc.  Where the other books transported me away from the world of corruption and politics, this one took a can opener to my brain and filled its tunnels and ridges with a scalding reality: we are tiny cogs in a power play between the great economies and ideologies of the world. You ask yourself - is it better to know all of these things, or just to look away. I decided on the former, but as there is so much to take in from this book, so much to digest, that I felt I would need to read it in instalments, so I put it aside for another day.

Then I stumbled across Maria Popova’s blog, The Marginalian, and a post on E.B. White’s letter to a man who had lost his faith in humanity. Check it out here. Yet again, the wisdom of words spun me 180 degrees, and deposited me in a new place, with a new mindset. It is sometimes easy to forget what the world has been through in the past, to imagine that things are as bad as they can get.  Yet, somehow White’s words were a reminder - there is always hope. Every dark cloud hides the sun, yet the sun remains still - it is only cast over by a temporary air mass, and even in winter it shines. 

Why is it that the words of writers, written down on the page, can bring such solace? Is there magic in the tangible object of a book, the solidness of a font stretched wide across the page, the sound of words spoken in performance, the shape of a letter addressed to a stranger? What is it that makes us reach for words and stories in a time of crisis? Perhaps it is the structure of the thing itself—an author putting word after word, sentence after sentence, page after page into order—that is so appealing, like a scaffolding to cling to. The most popular author read in the trenches of Flanders in WWI was Jane Austen; we owe her resurgence in the 20th century to the men who feared they might die at any minute in a barrage of fire. But why was that? Did they long for the security of Austen’s world or her prose, where, in the hands of Austen’s beautiful sentences, they could feel safe? There is nothing fractious, explosive, or shocking in Austen’s prosaic style, unlike Dickinson or Plath, say.

It is in times of great stress and anxiety that words, books, poems, blogs, letters, novels, and audiobooks can save us. Through escape or by taking us deep inside the thing that we fear most, books are the answer. If I had indeed fallen down the rabbit hole in Wonderland, and I was searching for a sign to help me escape, I would pass by those that said ‘Drink Me’, or ‘Eat Me’, and would choose the one that said ‘Read Me’, for that is surely the way to get through what we need to get through.  Do yourself a favour today: read something.

Lovely One - Ketanji Brown Jackson

On April 7, 2022, the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the 116th justice of the Supreme Court. In doing so, they fulfilled a promise made by President Joe Biden to nominate an African American woman to the position. This autobiography chronicles the life (thus far) of that most junior justice. The title of the book refers to her name, which means "Lovely One" in an African dialect. She recently caught my attention during her questioning of counsel in the Presidential Immunity Case that came before the Supreme Court concerning former President Donald J. Trump. As I listened to the legal back-and-forth, I wondered: Who is this brilliant new justice, who speaks with such clarity and razor-sharp focus?

This book provides a detailed account of exactly that. It tells us all we could ever wish to know about her and her journey to the highest court in the land. The story begins with a bright young girl, showing obvious talent from the start, and parents who had big dreams for their daughter. It is the story of a dark-skinned girl navigating the world of white privilege, a girl who worked incredibly hard—constantly—to be the best person, daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, lawyer, and judge she could possibly be. 

While her success is undeniable, the moments I enjoyed most were those of struggle, when things did not go according to Ketanji’s plan. For example, she returned to work just four months after her first child was born, juggling the demands of being everything to everyone, just as many of us do. In that way, Ketanji seemed quite unlike any judge I had ever imagined; she was more like me than I could have ever anticipated. She struggled with breastfeeding, finding childcare, giving 100% to her job and her daughter, and was haunted by guilt every minute of the day.

She also faced challenges as a parent of a child with autism, as it took years to have her daughter properly diagnosed and placed in a suitable school where she could excel. I learned as much about autism spectrum disorder from this book as I did about the law. Additionally, she encountered legal troubles within her family: her paternal uncle was imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole for selling drugs, due to the Clinton-era Three Strikes and You’re Out rule. In short, life has not always been a bed of roses for Justice Jackson. 

The processes and procedures involved in being shortlisted and ultimately selected as a Supreme Court Justice are fascinating and worth reading about. She details everything from the references she needed to provide to the questions she faced during interviews. It is all here for any young woman considering following in her footsteps! As Vice President Kamala Harris recently said, “I might be the first, but I won’t be the last!” This book serves as a template for all young women, especially women of colour, who dream of donning the SCOTUS black robe. And when they get there, Ketanji Brown Jackson will welcome them with a smile and open arms.

This is an inspiring book, and I recommend it to everyone, especially women and daughters everywhere.

Michelle Burrowes

04 Nov 2024

On Tyranny - Timothy Snyder Illustrated by Nora Krug

On this, the weekend before an election that might send the first woman to the Whitehouse, I find myself returning to the wise and warning words of Timothy Snyder in his groundbreaking book,‘On Tyranny’.  Published in back in 2017, when politics in America and across Europe took a distinctly dark turn, Snyder sensed that the time was right for some big picture analysis on the rise of fascism and to explain how and why democracies were lost to totalitarianism in the past. 

Snyder presents the reader with twenty lessons from the 20th century, telling us that ‘History does not repeat, but it does instruct’. He begins with the first lesson: ‘Do Not Obey in Advance’. Anticipatory obedience, Snyder tells us, is when enough people offer their services to the new regime ahead of time, allowing autocracies to move more quickly than otherwise, and teaching them, at the same time, what is  possible. 

The second lesson is ‘Defend Institutions’. Institutions, such as courts, newspapers, laws or labour unions do not protect themselves, so he urges readers to choose an institution that they care about, and take its side. You cannot expect that institutions will automatically maintain themselves against attack, he warns.  ‘The mistake is to assume that the rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions.’ 

The third lesson is ‘Beware the one-party state’. Snyder urges the reader to ‘support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections’. From local to state elections, he tells his readers to ‘vote’ and even consider running for office. He notes that in most situations, when democracy is lost, people do not fully realise that the last time they voted will be the last time that they get to vote. He supports this idea saying, ‘No doubt the Russians who voted in in 1990 did not think that this would be the last free and fair election in their country’s history, which (thus far) it has been.’

And so the book continues, to present all twenty lessons, all in some way or other feel very prescient and indeed pertinent to today’s politics. He supports his theses with examples from the last century up to the year of publication, looking at examples from WWII, Brexit, American elections, terrorist attacks in Russia and the war in Ukraine, all of which are compelling and to the point.  

In this graphic edition, illustrator Nora Krug uses her collage-style, scrapbook aesthetic to bring an additional layer of meaning to Snyder’s words, using photographs, decoupage and graphic design in a highly inventive, clever way.  When depicting how quickly citizens moved from fighting fascism to embracing it, she created a double headed figure, one head facing north, the other facing south, with the accompanying text partly upside down, forcing the reader, like the fickle figure, to change their point of view. 

The book is full of thought-provoking statements, that can keep you thinking for days.  I urge you to seek out a copy of this text, in a bookshop, online, or in your local library.  You can purchase it here from Snyder’s website. He has recently published a sister book, called ‘On Freedom’ which is available in all good bookshops. Meanwhile, to whet your appetite, here are just a few ideas that struck me as note-worthy, especially considering that the book was originally published in 2017. 

‘We certainly face, as the ancient Greeks, the problem of oligarchy - ever more threatening as globalisation increases differences in wealth…’ p 23.

‘It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges.’  p31.

‘Professional ethics must guide us precisely when we are told that the situation is exceptional. Then there is no such thing as “just following orders.”’ P 33.

‘Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different… The moment you set an example the spell of the status quo is broken’. P43

‘By 1940 most Europeans had made their peace with … Nazi Germany.  Influential Americans such as Charles Lindbergh opposed war with the Nazis under the slogan “America First”.’

‘Make an effort to separate yourself from the Internet. Read books’. P51.

‘…Truth dies in four modes. The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts.’ P57

‘Generic cynicism makes us feel hip and alternative even as we slip along with our fellow citizens into a morass of indifference.’ P65

‘If tyrants feel no consequences for their actions in the three-dimensional world, nothing will change’. P76

‘When we take active interest in matters of doubtful relevance at moments that are chosen by tyrants, oligarchs, and spooks, we are participate in the demolition of our own political order.’ P83

‘Make sure you and your family have passports’. P87

‘Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.’ P94

‘And to make history, young Americans will have to know some’. P113