God, give us a long winter
and quiet music, and patient mouths,
and a little pride — before
our age ends.
Give us astonishment
and a flame, high, bright.
Adam Zagajewski
My father drove me as far as Trier’s central station this morning, where I boarded the first in a series of trains toward a little town in Wallonia. We started early, drove through thick blue fog, and talked for a long time about the word aushalten. Literally, ‘to hold out’. To withstand. To endure.
My father is unhappy — he’s holding out for something, and escapes this feeling by getting lost in obscure fantasy novels, listening to Neil Young in the car, and building whimsical gardens for people in the Rhineland countryside. In Mireille Gansel’s wonderful Translation as Transhumance, a man writes poems with lines and leaves during his imprisonment, sliding them through the bars to the people on the outside. When war met Tove Jansson in Helsinki, she wrote and painted and listened to music. Art helps us endure.
I’ve never dreamt and planned as much as in these past few years. Not as a game, but as an absolute necessity. (To Eva Konikoff, 1944, in Letters from Tove)
Early in the year, I reviewed a children’s book called The Lost Soul, an ode to slowing down. Even while I wrote that the book could help us “recognize what is enough” and let go of “the craving for more,” I was struggling with the stillness.
After a year of feeling stilted, hemmed in, stagnant, I barreled through 2021. I sought change after change — left two jobs, turned down things I ought not to have, took on things I should have declined, and generally kept myself busy with work and love. I reviewed some brilliant new books (like Distant Fathers and Manashi) and wrote guides on getting into a handful of Nobel winners: Svetlana Alexievich, Ivo Andrić, and Olga Tokarczuk. I helped furnish a list of radical Polish books (from queer-feminist to sci-fi) and took part in a colossal project from The Calvert Journal — 100 Books to Read from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. I finished the poems I couldn’t finish last year and received rejection letters for them all. I discovered a decade-old poem of mine called ‘enduring’ quietly existing on the internet. And, of course, I wrote tens of thousands of words on gut health and gynaecology for copywriting agencies (because the economy isn’t getting any better, my new job in publishing pays peanuts, and, like everyone, I still need to pay my therapist).
I saw the full moon hanging in a cathedral and teared up during the opening scenes of Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell. I used more than 20 rolls of film (see: other expenses paid by medical copywriting). My partner and I survived our first camping trip together — it was muddy and sleepless, and the forest animals produced an overwhelming full-moon symphony in between my nightmares of horror-film-style tent abduction.
I returned to Bath (and loved it even more) and Cambridge (and loved it for the first time). Finally, I arrived in Venice in the dead of night, to silence and empty streets. When I left, it was long before dawn. From the dark belly of the airport ferry, I neither saw it approach nor fade away. As far as I know, it’s a city that might not even exist, except that I brought a souvenir back from the dream: a copy of Calvino’s Invisible Cities — a kind of token, a testimonial.
So, here we are at the end of the second plague year. Wir halten aus. We’re holding out, hanging on, withstanding, enduring. Thankfully, we have art for company.
—
My favourite book I read this year: Letters from Tove by Tove Jansson, trans. Sarah Death. Some of the best letters I’ve ever read. It’s hard to describe her artistry, her courage, her sense of fun…
My second favourite book: The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Other exceptionally good books:
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, trans. Jennifer Croft
Translation as Transhumanance by Mireille Gansel, trans. Ros Schwartz
Distant Fathers by Marine Jarre, trans. Ann Goldstein
Falling is Like Flying by Manon Uphoff, trans. Sam Garrett
A book I relentlessly implored my friends to read so I’d have someone to discuss it with:
Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again by Katherine Angel
Books that were critically acclaimed but I just couldn’t get into:
Feminism, Interrupted by Lola Olufemi
Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn
A book that challenged and changed me:
Motherhood by Sheila Heti
Poetry collections I loved:
Without End by Adam Zagajewski, trans. Clare Cavanagh, Renata Gorczynski, Benjamin Ivry, and C. K. Williams
If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho Fragments, trans. Anne Carson
Books piled up next to my bed for winter reading:
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, trans. Sam Bett & David Boyd
Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion
Love’s Work by Gillian Rose
—
I watched more new films than I have in years (thanks to a cinephile-amour, and to the detriment of my bank account).
A film I loved without reservations:
Limbo (2020), dir. Ben Sharrock
A brilliant but merciless film:
The Father (2021), dir. Florian Zeller
Two documentaries tied for the best I watched all year:
Stories We Tell (2012), dir. Sarah Polley
The Salt of the Earth (2014), dir. Juliano Ribeiro Salgado & Wim Wenders
A documentary similar to ‘Stories We Tell’ (and a sign of my increasing interest in family histories):
Still Processing (2020), dir. Sophy Romvari
Two documentaries that brought me solace:
Spring (2020), dir. Anna Sarukhanova, Ola Pankova, Tatev Hakobyan, Alexander Dorinov, Denis Duzhnik, Tatiana Chekhova
Ok, Good, Pinega (2021), dir. Sasha Kulak, Yulia Kurmangalina
A perfect film:
Petite Maman (2021), dir. Céline Sciamma
Ken Loach nearly kills me (again) with a film about life in Britain:
Poor Cow (1967)
A film that I spent weeks agonizing over because I’m mortally afraid of horror, only for it to be an absolute flop (except that not everyone thinks it’s a flop: see this Twitter post for some wildly contrasting reviews. I’m telling you, it’s a flop):
Last Night in Soho (2021), dir. Edgar Wright
Obligatory Agnès Varda film:
Along the Coast (1958)
The worst film I saw this year:
The Nest (2020), dir. Sean Durkin
Films for thinking about loneliness, violence, and women:
Sweat (2020), dir. Magnus von Horn
The Woman Who Ran (2020), dir. Hong Sang-Soo
The best new feel-good Christmas film, and what Happiest Season (2020) failed to be:
Single All the Way (2021), dir. Michael Mayer
The films with the best scores/soundtracks:
Another Round (2021), dir. Thomas Vinterberg
Limbo (2020), dir. Ben Sharrock, score by Hutch Demouilpied
I watched a lot of old episodes of Friends and That 70’s Show. I started The L Word for the first time and the outfits are a hoot. It’s the second plague year, I’m past making excuses. I really enjoyed The Chair, even though it was trying to do a bit too much — it was short, funny, and had Sandra Oh as the lead. I’ve made promises to watch so many presumably stellar shows, but I’ve completely lost the desire to do so.
—
The best talks and podcast episodes I listened to:
Amelia Horgan talking about precarity and Marxism and her book Lost in Work
Judith Butler talking about The Force of Non-Violence (2020)
A Valentine’s Day talk with Alison Bechdel and readings from the letters of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West
Katherine Angel and James Butler discussing sex and consent on Novara Media
I spent a long time feeling uninspired and unexcited about music — perhaps for the first time in my life. Then I listened to the first episode of Pondercast Radio and the combination of Laurie Brown’s narration and this Royal Canoe song (“I think I’m ready for the shit to hit the fan”) flicked the switch back on.
The album I listened to the most:
Alpha – Charlotte Day Wilson
Other albums I’ve had on repeat:
Vulture Prince – Arooj Aftab
Baby Breeze – Chet Baker
The Writing’s On the Wall – Destiny’s Child (yes, always)
Songs of Leonard Cohen – Leonard Cohen
Stand-alone songs I listened to the most:
Like I Used to – Sharon Van Etten & Angel Olsen
Tea, Milk & Honey – Angie McMahon
Rainforest – Noname
This Woman’s Work – Kate Bush
Here’s my playlist of quiet music for the long winter ahead.
—
And finally, here is a snippet of dialogue (in an otherwise disappointing film) that moved me beyond what I can say.
— I'm a foreigner, you know.
— This city is full of us, isn't it? I'm one, myself.
— Seeking something missing. Missing something left behind.
— Maybe, with good luck, we'll find what eluded us in the places we once called home.
See you in 2022 — I’m holding out for a little good luck this year.