comp lit and mediaphilia
Today I get to host the new (translation of the) book The Many Lives of Miss K: Toto Koopman – Model, Muse, Spy by Jean-Noel Liaut. Funny enough, I was offered the chance to do this (thanks, by the way!) because of my interest in fashion, but I was far more eager to read because Toto Koopman was a biracial model, muse, spy. Winning!
Anyway, this biography takes a look at all aspects of her life, but the common thread is that as a mixed person (Chinese-Indonesian and Dutch) who was well off, Koopman spent her entire life bridging cultures, traveling, and living everywhere. Boarding school in one place, finishing school in another. Modeling in Paris. Traveling to Italy and Germany. Sleeping with Russians and Americans. Speaking all the languages. You know, all the stuff that I would love to do, except maybe be in Italy or Germany during the 30s and 40s. Not the best time for them, then. But anyway.
As I was reading, I of course was in my old mode of “Oooh, Paris! Exotic and wonderful and all the things I want!” and “what a fabulous lifestyle!” and “I want that life instead of my own,” which is truly what I thought but also problematic because exoticism, and because being really into 20s-30s Paris is so cliché, and also because.
But then it struck me that I really find this interesting because Koopman is not the only person who did such a thing. Continue reading →
Posted in books
Tagged biracial , biracial narratives , blog tour , books , fashion , giveaway
Sep · 05
I am super excited to be done with graduate school. I think that means that I will come home from school (where I will be working) every day, and then it will be my afternoon and evening to do with what I will. That’s really cool. Technically I took eight months off between undergrad and graduate school, but I was applying for scholarships and working multiple jobs, so that’s still different from spending 40 hours a week in the same place and then going home and having complete ME TIME.
That’s awesome. It’s also terrifying and confusing, because I only know how to be in school. So I’m already giving myself projects, because it’s not enough to say I’m going to write my novel. I will only write my novel if I also have other structured things to do.
So, to that end, I have already contacted a relative who is a Grammy-nominated musician, and he’s going to give me guitar lessons. I really miss the piano, but I own a guitar and can’t afford a nice keyboard, and guitars are portable.
I’m going to do a Jessica Darling reread, because I’ve been meaning to for a few years, and because this .
Then there are three critical reading projects I want to look into doing so that I can maybe write some more articles for peer-reviewed journals. Continue reading →
Posted in future
Tagged biracial , biracial narratives , books , media , new adult , procrastinating , reading , the future , work , YA
Jul · 13
The other day I explained to a friend that as soon as you meet someone else who is adopted, you instantly have a connection. Regardless of whether you later find out that the person is annoying, a Republican, has bad taste in music, or whatever, you always retain that small semblance of “I am he is me and we are one” because it’s just a thing. You’re both adopted. Obviously you can say that about any shared interest or quality, but I’m fairly sure it’s different when you find someone else who is adopted/Jewish/mixed (and that’s just for me) or shares another quality that makes you different and minority(-ish) status, as opposed to finding someone who, on that day, at least, likes the same types of movies as you do.
So I’m glad to finally see that in a novel. I just read If I Tell by Janet Gurtler, which does a great job of presenting unconventional friendships and relationships that aren’t the normal generic YA ones of popular friend, nerd friend, love interest, goofy guy friend, etc. This is the kind of older YA I like, because it gives a picture of more social maturity than is usually assumed in fiction for teens. Also, it’s always nice when a character isn’t a clear member of a certain social clique–Jaz reminded me of myself and people I went to high school with, where social classes and cliques weren’t as easily spelled out as they are in high school movies (or in bigger high schools). (That, for me, at least, didn’t happen until college, which was essentially another three and a half years of high school.) But I digress. Continue reading →
Tagged angst , biracial narratives , books , community , race
Feb · 07
The Whole Story of Half a Girl (Veera Hiranandani) is one of the better titles for these books, I think. Especially for a middle grade novel. This novel focuses on the life of Sonia Nadhamuni, a sixth grader who is half Indian and half Jewish, and whose father has just lost his job, forcing her and her sister to leave their private community school for regular public school. Like in any good middle school story, Sonia has to navigate the shark-infested waters of popularity, friendship, and academics, and she of course makes iffy choices along the way. She joins a cheerleading team, has to decide whether to sit with the black girl who likes books and writing like her or sit with the popular kids who exoticize her, and has to deal with being the formerly rich girl who now goes to public school. Continue reading →
Tagged biracial narratives , books , identity , race , review
Dec · 15
I’m heading back into the realm of biracial literature again, after reading some other stuff for awhile, both because it continues to interest me and because I’m now about 90% certain that I am going to spend my summer researching this to the point of being able to write, and hopefully publish, a scholarly paper on the “genre.” So this, and other books I already wrote about, is something I may go back and look at over the summer.
This is a new YA book called Black, White, Other: In Search of Nina Armstrong by Joan Steinau Lester. I would throw it more on the lower end of YA, for its language, treatment, and plot. Most simply, it’s about a 15-year-old biracial girl, Nina, in Northern California whose black father and white mother are separating. Her father is going on a sort of back-to-Africa kick, and Nina is beginning to become cognizant not only of racial difference itself, but also her privilege, assumptions, and appearance when she rides the bus through the black section of town to get to her father’s apartment, when she finds herself angry at her mother for trying to relate to Nina’s feeling of ostracization and discrimination, and when she begins to branch out from her white group of friends but then realizes that everyone expects her to choose either the white group or the black group. At the same time, there is a parallel story through the frame of a novel-in-progress written by Nina’s father about his great grandmother, Sarah, who escaped slavery. Nina begins to identify strongly with Sarah’s journey and struggles, and there’s an inkling that Sarah might actually be biracial, too, so we get the parallels with being biracial and told to choose, and being biracial by way of being the product of master-slave rape. Nina becomes totally overcome with feelings of guilt (it’s hard when you’re friends with people whose ancestors were slaves with your ancestors but also you’re friends with people who owned people like, again, your ancestors might have, etc. etc.) and confusion, and that is coupled with trying to comprehend the result of the Oakland fires and the portrayals of looters by the media.
I guess I’m a bit early when I call this a trope in biracial narratives, but it’s certainly a YA trope: Continue reading →
Tagged biracial narratives , books , criticism , diya , identity , lit theory , race
Oct · 08
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