Red is an abiding marker of transgression. The metaphor dates back at least to the Old Testament and is still embedded in everyday language: to be caught “red-handed” is to be discovered committing a crime. But red is also a metaphor for all kinds of psychological states. It is commonly identified with lust, love, embarrassment, and anger—even emotion itself. There is a logic to the connection. We often think of emotion as a kind of heat: we speak of “burning resentments,” “smoldering desires,” and “fiery tempers”; and if they get the better of us, we are sometimes told to “cool down.”
Natural history can certainly accommodate a profusion of perspectives – indeed, it will always benefit from greater diversity in how we look and think. But I wonder if there are unhelpful dichotomies in play, where we pit ‘knowledge’ against lived experience, against emotional engagement, and where the idea of scientific expertise in nature summons nothing in us but Linnaean binomials, mothballed drawers of beetles, airless data, the charts and graphs of dead white European men.
Over the years, she says, doctors have repeatedly told EG that her brain doesn’t make sense. One doctor told her she should have seizures, or that she shouldn’t have a good vocabulary—and “he was annoyed that I did,” she says. (As part of the study at MIT, EG tested in the 98th percentile for vocabulary.) The experiences were frustrating; they “pissed me off,” as EG puts it. “They made so many pronouncements and conclusions without any investigation whatsoever,” she says.
Then EG met Fedorenko. “She didn't have any preconceived notions of what I should or shouldn't be able to do,” she recalls. And for Fedorenko, an opportunity to study a brain like EG’s is a scientist’s dream. EG was more than willing to help.
“In Japan, many kids go to neighborhood schools on foot and by themselves, that’s quite typical,” said Hironori Kato, a professor of transportation planning at the University of Tokyo. Typically, Japanese children don’t actually run errands for Mom and Dad in the city at two or three years old, he notes, as they do in the show. But the comic, TV-friendly premise exaggerates a truth about Japanese society: Children in Japan have an unusual degree of independence from an early age.
On a personal level, in between receiving this book and writing the review, a family member transitioned from this plane to whatever may be next, so Vuong’s virtuosity and vulnerability resonated in a way I hadn’t anticipated. But that’s the essence of Vuong’s talent: he alchemizes deeply individual experiences with universal emotions into what is both familiar and new. I recognize and honor Vuong’s personal trajectory—the scarring brambles and stunning vistas of his road, often so different to mine—yet equally I am ever cognizant of how similar we are, as sentient beings on this rock at this time, embracing beauty and loss, the past and present, sometimes in the same breath.
Through these characters, and their relationship to each other, Naga dissects the shifting, slippery shapes of belonging and power under global capitalism. What happens when American and Egyptian notions of identity collide — within a person, within a relationship, within a city? Who belongs to a place — the locals or the people the economy is designed to attract?
The convulsions of the 1980s – a decade of excess and agitation and collapse – reached the unlikeliest quarters. While other parts of the world dealt with revolution and meltdown, the mean streets of literary London were also in ferment. If you assumed the world of books to be a tiny backwater, John Walsh is here to make you think again. Circus of Dreams – no skimping on the grandeur there – recounts a brief period when publishing almost became bold and writers became almost famous. Books suddenly infiltrated the news pages via awards (a bolstered Booker prize) and marketing gimmicks. A major new book chain (Waterstones) appeared in the high street. A whizzy new members’ club (the Groucho) opened in Soho, the improbable brainchild of a bunch of publishers.