How Marginalia by Naomi Washer ended up on my reading list:
Press loyalty (& tbh, Autofocus’s awesome catalog makes it easy).
I needed an amuse-bouche between longer books and this was just the thing.
Though once upon a time a fairly common occurence, it is now exceedingly rare for me to finish a book—any book—in a day.1 When it happens, I feel a curious thrill, like I’ve cheated the mom-system, akin to hiding zucchini in the brownies or sneaking a cigarette2 in the backyard.
At 53 pages, with plenty of white space3, Marginalia is shorter than some short stories, but it packs a rich denseness that makes it feel full and complete.
The vignettes contained herein are comprised entirely of Naomi Washer’s marginalia4 in a decade’s worth of books, curated to spin their own story and to interrogate what stories mean.
“There are gaps in every story, but we couldn’t tell any version without them.”
“We always leave so many details out.”
I’m a sucker for books that hide emotion beneath an erudite surface5, which is exactly what Marginalia does. Every book is in conversation with its reader, and here Washer is also in conversation with other writers and their readers, while also being—always—in conversation with her own constructed self. “It’s like a frame surrounding the Self so the Self can be witnessed by the Other.” Because of this, Marginalia is one of the most disarmingly honest books I’ve read in a long time.
Washer allows her confusion, her seeking, a place on the page. It is (partly) because of her outward restlessness that the captured fragments contained within her books carry so much weight. I felt her desire for rootedness in every line, even as she rejects comfort and the places (and people) she loves in favor of movement and change.
Full of questions without answers (“Where can one live amongst the unseeable, the unsayable, in that quiet light?”), Marginalia packs a subtle power, subverting expectations about art and writing, about meaning and making, about how to find a place in past and future. As Washer says, “Our lives are not chronological. They are not linear. They sink backwards in time only to emerge in the future…, slipping in between the edges of our dreams.”
Thanks for reading Sara-Rauch-haus ! This post is public so feel free to share it.
In other news, we’ve got a new member of the family…
Meet Aslan! His former owner (now deceased) named him after the lion in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He’s made himself right at home.
& last but not least…
XO got a glow up! Available wherever you buy your books (& I hope you buy indie).
Did someone just yell MOOOOOOOOM!!!! ?
Shhh, don’t tell. (jk! as much as I miss it, smoking is a thing of my past. (unless I make it to 90, in which case I’m allowing myself to take it up again.))
These aren’t prose poems, exactly, but they certainly have that feel.
“Marginalia are marks or notes made in the margins of a book or other document. They can be scribbles, comments, glosses, critiques, doodles, or illuminations.” (Source: Wikipedia)
for example, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
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