Chapter Two: On spring awakenings and Ramadan resistance(!)
Hello gang. How are we all? Is it just me or does anyone else feel like they’ve been sleepwalking through the last couple of months. I’m looking back at my last post where I talk about how unprecedentedly good my January was and that, my friends, is what we call *hubris*. I started the year off with the best intentions, honestly. This substack is proof of those intentions! They were enough to keep me afloat for a couple of months but alas! Man cannot live on intentions alone. Suddenly it’s March and one finds oneself tired and busy and with LIFE happening at you and it’s safe to say you’re kind of flopping: suddenly, your daily walk is a myth and you’re switching aimlessly between apps on your phone on your commute instead of reading the paperback you dutifully put into your ludicrously capacious bag each morning. Non-urgent emails and texts are being left unanswered and the mugs in your room are beginning to crust over. It’s not looking good.
But then, just when you think you might actually sink into your mattress, April arrives! And yes, it’s that funny time of year where you leave the house wearing sunglasses and walk home in a raincoat and umbrella but also!! the clocks have changed and suddenly the skies are bright, daffodils are blooming and bank holiday weekends are coming thick and fast!
Ramadan allowed me to slow down last month, reflect, slow down and gather myself for the rest of the year. Nothing tests your discipline and willpower like 29 days of abstaining from food, water and bad thoughts during daylight hours. I find that there’s something very powerful about doing something that challenges you in such a way, purely because God has commanded it. I saw a lot of chat online this year about how Ramadan is fundamentally anti-capitalist and I couldn’t agree more. Understanding that my faith is actually just incompatible with Western Capitalism has been revelatory.
Not to be all ‘we live in a society’ but living in such a productivity-driven culture I’ve really appreciated the way Ramadan essentially forces you to resist these ideas we’ve been conditioned to accept as just part of life and strive, instead, for balance. Ramadan resists the idea of ‘the grind’ but also encourages discipline, though not to your detriment (evident in the wisdom of not having to fast while travelling/sick/on your period). Another of my favourite facets of Ramadan is that it encourages you to build and foster your sense of community. There is something unparalleled about the feeling of togetherness that occurs during Ramadan - knowing that almost every other Muslim in the world is undertaking the same thing, breaking fast together, feeding one another, raising money for those in need. I hope to take some of these values of rest, discipline and community focus into the rest of the year and hopefully that means I’ll be writing more of these!
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Books I’ve read recently:
Rootless by Krystle Zara Appiah (2023)
The novel follows the stunning and messy love story of Sam and Efe as they navigate life together over two decades as they grow and change and have ups and downs until pregnancy and parenthood force them to confront their differences, their expectations and desires and, ultimately, their compatibility. To me, this was so much more than a love story - it’s a story of family, empathy and how much we can ever really understand those closest to us. The ending will break your heart so maybe avoid if you’re feeling fragile! Sob.
The Chiffon Trenches by Andre Leon Talley (2020)
This memoir charts Talley’s rise through the ranks of fashion, from a childhood in North Carolina, abuse he suffered at the hands of older men and his special relationship with his beloved grandmother to close friendships with fashion titans like Yves Saint Laurent, Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld. A lifelong francophile, he describes in riveting detail, his life as a young man starting out in Paris and how he navigated the fashion world as a Black man. He seemed to live so many lives, from partying at Studio 54 with Andy Warhol and THEE Diana Ross to interviewing guests on the Met Gala red carpet. I loved reading this - it was just salacious enough to keep me hooked without being too gossipy or mean-spirited.
Lapvona by Otessa Moshfegh (2022)
I FINALLY got round to reading this and it was as insane as I thought it would be. Set in a medieval fiefdom and following a host of suitably disgusting characters including a deformed farmboy Marek, a lazy lord Villem and a twisted lamb farmer Jude as well as your typical village crone, Ina. I listened to the audiobook which was masterfully narrated by the author but I maybe wouldn’t recommend on the commute if you don’t want to keep making disgusted faces at the person sitting across you by accident. I love Moshfegh’s writing and this didn’t disappoint but I did feel that the relentless depravity got a little tedious after a while and I wasn’t really sure what I was meant to glean from it as a reader tbh. Honestly this weirdly reminded me a lot of the German Romantic literature I read at uni, namely the works of ETA Hoffmann and particularly his novella Little Zaches so check his writing out if you’re into that kind of thing.
I’m A Fan by Sheena Patel (2022)
Another INSANE novel examining the role of obsession in modern society. It follows a nameless woman who is having an affair with a married man who has a few extramarital partners. As we meet our protagonist, she is obsessed with one of the other women he’s sleeping with - a rich nepo-baby influencer type white woman. A lot of the observations in this book hit me like a punch in the face (in a good way). There were parts I found a bit too on the nose verging onto cringe but otherwise I thought it was a merciless critique of social media and modern relationships.
Either/Or by Elif Batuman (2022)
Literally just finished this last night and, having read The Idiot last year, it was so lovely to be reunited with Selin. I feel like she is an old friend! This sequel follows Selin’s second year at Harvard and the subsequent summer as she puts Ivan and their weird, perplexing relationship behind her. She looks to her literature syllabus for guidance on how to live her life. Throughout the course of the novel, in her usually pithy and philosophical tone, takes us along with her through a series of typically absurd misadventures as she goes about gaining
those sought after life experiences .