My astrologer friend had been warning me about 2023 for a long time—not about the state of the world (a mere warning hardly seems proportional to the year’s events)—but because of my Saturn return. For the uninitiated, this event marks the time at which the planet Saturn returns to the same place in the sky it occupied when you were born, usually around your 30th birthday.
Saturn is the planet of responsibility and boundaries, so age 30 seems an appropriate time to be beleaguered by these concerns. (Of course, how this event affects you depends a lot on where Saturn sits in your birth chart and how much you actually believe in this stuff.) At the time of my birth, Saturn was nestled in the constellation of Pisces—a dreamy, noncommital sign, quite the opposite of Saturn. So, I consulted an article called ‘A Handy Guide to (Surviving) Your Saturn Return’, which told me that my “boundaries could become so soggy that they disintegrate altogether.”
Sounds uncomfortable. Let all my personal errors this year be attributed to this and this alone. However, I did blur my own professional boundaries without falling apart and published a few personal essays:
I also struggled to read fiction but read reams of memoirs, essays, and poetry. I published just a single review—on Marina Jarre’s Return to Latvia. If an Italian-speaker would be so kind as to translate her La principessa della luna vecchia post-haste, I’d grately appreciate it. I also published a series of images inspired by Saul Leiter, and later visited a Saul Leiter exhibition as part of the wonderful Rencontres d'Arles photography festival.
Early in the year, I moved into a drafty, beautiful apartment by the sea with my partner, and we’re making it a home. I travelled to my other homes—Canada and Germany—and drove innumerable winding roads to the most remarkable coves of Cornwall. I attended a divorce party in the Valencian mountains, which has crysallised into the year’s most surreal, moving experience. I fell in love with the light and variety of apéritifs in the Alpilles of Provence. Near the end of the year, I was whisked through Flanders to enjoy the Christmas markets, beautiful cityscapes, and unending rain.
—
If you read anything at all, let it be this poem:
If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer
My favourite book I read this year:
The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft (a little unfairly, since it hasn't been released yet—I got a review copy and simply can’t wait any longer to shout about it)
My second favourite book:
Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key
Other exceptionally good books:
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
All Men Want to Know by Nina Bouraoui, trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast by Megan Marshall
The Choereography of Everyday Life by Annie-B Parson
Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries by Alan Rickman (really good fun, honestly)
The keen-eyed will notice that, with the exception of Real Life, all the books in this category are, in fact, about real lives. Real Life is rather close to being about one, too. What were we saying about soggy boundaries?
Two essay collections I couldn’t chose between:
On Not Knowing by Emily Ogden
Migratory Birds by Mariana Oliver, trans. Julia Sanches
A book I devoured in one train ride:
Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard
The worst book I read this year:
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne Du Maurier (I was absolutely baffled by this pirate smut)
A book that challenged me:
Daddy Issues by Katherine Angel
My favourite poem this year:
Arrival at Santos by Elizabeth Bishop (a line from which I borrowed for a spoken word poem about what they’re now calling the ‘Messenia migrant boat disaster’)
A poetry collection I fell for unexpectedly:
Anamnesis by Iona Lee
Other poetry collections I took regular counsel from:
Poems by Elizabeth Bishop
The Overhaul by Kathleen Jamie
Winter Recipes from the Collective and A Village Life by Louise Glück
Books piled up next to my bed for winter reading:
The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd (now in its 3rd year in my TBR pile, I’ve moved it to the top. Why is it so hard to start chunky books?)
Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life by Eleanor Clayton
—
It’s been a bumper crop year in film, and I didn’t even make it out to all the films I’d hoped to. A quick note that my favourite viewing experience wasn’t a film at all, but the 10 blistering hours of Succession’s final season.
Onto the big screen…
A film I loved without reservations:
All of Us Strangers (2023), dir. Andrew Haigh
A film that was a shoe-in for my number one until I saw All of Us Strangers:
Past Lives (2023), dir. Celine Song
A film that made me laugh out loud unexpectedly during two hours of otherwise constant dread/awe :
Evil Does Not Exist (2023), dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
An honorary mention based on number of tears shed:
Close (2023), dir. Lukas Dhont
For the first year in my living memory, I haven’t watched a single documentary. However, these two biopics were riveting:
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021), dir. Michael Showalter
Nyad (2023), dir. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin
A film that rubbed me the wrong way until I was persuaded by this essay to think of it differently. Now, I give it 5 stars:
Tàr (2022), dir. Todd Field
I’m very surprised that I liked this film:
Poor Things (2023), dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
A masterpiece everyone should see on the largest screen they can now that it’s been remastered:
The Red Shoes (1948), dir. Powell & Pressburger
The best Christmas film I saw this season:
White Christmas (1954), dir. Michael Curtiz
Obligatory Agnès Varda film:
Hommage à Zgougou (2002)
The (temporary, I hope) lack of Varda films on Mubi means my choice this year is her 2-minute homage to the cat Zgougou, worth it for the zingy narration alone ("Elle est reine, présentatrice et dominatrice"). You can watch it here.
My favourite soundtrack this year:
All four seasons of Nicholas Britell’s Succession score
The best thing I saw on stage:
‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’ at the Noel Coward Theatre
—
I won’t spend the year’s remaining hours trying to make a neat summary—it’s been far to messy for that. I’ll leave you instead with an invitation to support journalists fighting to make sense of needless devastation for all of us living in safety. As always, to your health and to a brighter year ahead.