Idle Brain – Spring 2022

CONNECTION 1

Spring 2022

Contents:

3

Editors’ Note

4

Sylvia Plath’s Letters

10

The Navigation of Human Connection: Conversations With Friends

15

Searching for Connection: A Single Man

18

Jane Austen’s ‘perfect couple’: Pride and Prejudice

22

‘girl mutated’

23

Selected Poems: Elizabeth Bishop

25

Book Recommendations

27

Games

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A Note from the Editors: Hi everyone! We are so excited to welcome you to the latest edition of the Idle Brain. It’s been a long time coming, but it's finally here and we hope that you enjoy reading the contributions.

The theme of this issue is ‘Connection’. This relatively abstract theme has resulted in some fantastic responses, and we have been so impressed with the quality of the writing. This issue even features some original poetry so make sure to check that out!

As always, we’d love to hear from you with comments about anything included.

All the best, and happy reading :) Lola, Lily, Amelia, and Iman xxx P.S. Any LVI students who are interested in leading or contributing to the magazine should keep their eyes peeled for a message later in the term.

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Revelations Mundane and Profound: Sylvia Plath’s Letters As human beings, we spend a good part of our lives searching for emotional connection with each other. It is irrefutable that we are not supposed to be lonely creatures. In the face of this, it perhaps should come as no surprise that love letters are so adored in popular culture. The ‘naked contact of the mind’ that Virginia Woolf wrote of can be found nowhere if not in the raw passion that is time and time again unveiled by the auction of ‘celebrity’ love letters that are forever being amassed in online articles showcasing extracts from ‘The Best Romantic Love Letters Ever Written’ between artists, writers, musicians, and even politicians. In this article I want to explore one such collection of letters (and it was difficult to restrain myself to only one), and uncover why this form of media can provide such an irreplaceable and moving insight into not just the writer, but the reflections of their words on our own society. Of course, when it comes to sifting through this pile of worn, scrawled letters, there is no shortage of choice in writers, and I eventually decided upon Plath’s letters, in particular those between her and her husband, Ted Hughes (sorry Wilde and Bosie).

Flickr: Summonedbyfells

Plath, with. her husband Ted Hughes

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Letters as a form of correspondence unfortunately seem to be dying out. I say ‘unfortunately’ not because of some obstinate opposition to technology, but because of its very real limitations in terms of the baring of the soul—this may appear to be a rather overdramatic condemnation of online messaging, but I truly believe that there is something special about letters, particularly handwritten ones, and their ability to present an intimate and uninhibited portrayal of the writer. Handwriting is one of the most revealing things about a person, and graphology—the inference of character from handwriting— remains a fascinating, if somewhat unsubstantiated, field of study. Beyond that, crossings-outs, revisions scrawled in margins, postscripts and even spelling mistakes are all abolished in the world of typing, where careful revisions can be made to messages. Perhaps this is a good thing in terms of professional correspondence, however in reading through the letters of writers such as Plath, these things are invaluable in giving the reader a sense of unmanufactured personality. Perhaps Woolf puts this better than me in a letter that mocks authors who wrote letters for the express intention of publication: ‘when writing a letter, the whole point is to rush ahead; and anything may come out of the spout in the tea pot’, meaning a good letter is one that has not been carefully crafted, but comes straight from the heart. Woolf also makes an interesting point that it is not only the writer who is laid open in their letters, but the addressee: ‘It is an interesting question—what one tries to do, in writing a letter—partly of course to give back a reflection of the other person.’

Whether jokingly or not, Plath curiously seems to predict the sale of her letters, writing to Hughes: Darling, be scrupulous and date your letters. When we are old and spent, they will come asking for our letters; and we will have them dove-tail-able. !5

It is a shame that only one part of her premonition was true.

Until the 20th century, the only published collection of Plath’s l e t t e r s w a s L e t t e rs H o m e : Correspondence 1950-1963, a collection that mostly contained letters written to Plath’s mother Aurelia, and was heavily censored by both Aurelia and Ted Hughes, who at the time owned the publishing rights. However, the publication of two volumes of Letters of Sylvia Plath in 2017 displayed for the first time a complete and unabridged collection that was presented by the book’s preface as a type Flickr: Dr Umm

of autobiography.

In reading Plath’s letters, it is difficult to shake off the uncomfortable sensation that you’re spying over her shoulder or snooping through her room; she writes with such a clear, conversational voice—asking questions, trailing off, using all caps to convey shouting, and frequent asides—that you really feel as if she is right in front of you. In her letters to Hughes, Plath adopts a particularly intimate tone that is unswervingly honest and open in the description of her own emotions and thoughts, creating a confessional atmosphere that I, again, can’t help but feel guilty for intruding upon. To presume to truly understand someone from their correspondence with someone else is folly, for we are all !6

liable to our own conception of self-image and the subsequent concealment of our flaws in the same way that an artist might make their self-portrait more symmetrical, or more conventionally attractive, but Plath’s letters certainly portray a side of her. The side that she portrays to her husband, the writer Ted Hughes, is one of absolute devotion, bordering on obsession, in the early years of their marriage; in a letter written in October 1956, a few months after their marriage, Plath writes: O Teddy, how I repent for scoffing in my green and unchastened youth at the legend of Eve’s being plucked from Adam’s left rib; because the damn story’s true; I ache and ache to return to my proper place, which is curled up right there, sheltered and cherished; Even in Plath’s daily correspondence, she writes with the same effortless skill and illustrative flair as in her published work. Beginning all her early letters to Hughes with some form of ‘dearest darling Teddy’, Plath’s infatuation can

Flickr: mike krzeszak

The Bell Jar, published in 1963, remains a searing and moving portrait of illness, depression, and difficulty !7

tend towards addiction; in one handwritten letter (which looks suspiciously tear-stained), she writes ‘It is simply a sin not to live with you’, and in another, ‘I think if anything ever happened to you, I would really kill myself. Having read through about 20 of her daily essay-length essays to him, I believe her.

In her letters, Plath mostly talks about her day, and yet reading her descriptions are anything but mundane; it is these little snippets, at first innocuous and overlooked that ground Plath in my mind as a real person rather than an untouchable, unearthly character of literary mythology: ‘a lousy little breakfast of queer tasting honey on white (ugh) toast and nescafe’.

Plath also often talks about her inspirations in her letters. Since I’ve already quoted Woolf in this article, it seems only right to include Plath’s opinion on her: ‘I get courage by reading Virginia Woolf’s Writer’s Diary; I feel very akin to her’, writes Plath to her mother in a 1957 letter in March. Plath was a great fan of Woolf’s work, although the two writers never met, and Plath’s student notes from her study of To The Lighthouse survive, as does her own annotated copy of the book. After reading three books by Woolf one week in July 1957, including The Waves and Jacob’s Room, which she wrote about in her letters to her mother and in her journal, Plath was inspired to write ‘Venus in the Seventh’, a chapter of her first novel Falcon Yard. Falcon Yard was never published; a romantic, semi auto-biographical comedy named after the place where Plath first met Hughes, most of the novel was burned in a bonfire by Plath after she found out about Hughes’ infidelity in 1962. The novel was supposed to be a birthday present to him. Around the same time, Plath also burned nearly a thousand of her own letters to Hughes, and several of his own to her. But I’ve wandered off track. In one letter, Plath writes about the purchase of her poem ‘Epitaph for Fire and Flower’ for publication in Poetry Magazine and reminisces on it being started on Benidorm beach. In another, she writes about sitting in the ‘long green grass’ by the river in Grantchester !8

Meadows, sketching cows. Plath and Hughes were infamous for scrawling notes on each other's drafts of poetry, and in one letter from 1956, Plath comments on several of Hughes’ poems that he presumably sent to her, including a poem called ‘Horses of the Sun’, which I believe to be the first draft of what would become ‘The Horses’, critiquing it and adding her own suggestions.

Though we see Plath’s imaginative spark in her letters, it is somewhat predictable that we should also be exposed to a feeling of deep dissatisfaction with life: ‘I am living a kind of death life’, she writes in a letter from 1957.

Plath struggled with mental illness that began when she was just eight years old, after the death of her father. Plath failed to commit suicide in 1953, aged 20. In 1963, she succeeded.

Lily Glenn, UVI

Flickr: Jennifer Boyer

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Navigating the Depths of Human Connection: Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends It was Sally Rooney’s first novel, Conversations With Friends which launched her into global literary fame. In it, she explores the seemingly never ending spectrum of human connection, which proves to be extensive and versatile in both simplistic and unconventional ways. In the novel, the four central characters (Frances, Bobbi, Nick and Melissa) find themselves in the midst of a complicated romantic situation. Whilst the thought of four people being entangled in such a chaotic situation may seem far-fetched, Rooney’s delicate writing style from Frances’ perspective makes it seem entirely comprehensible.

Her thoughts are carefully presented to the reader, and although we might question her morality sometimes, it is clear why she is doing what she does.

Having four characters in a novel and attempting to create and elaborate on profound connections between all of them is challenging, and may seem too extensive for some writers, but it all works in Conversations With Friends. Firstly, there is Frances, whose relationship with her best friend and ex-girlfriend Bobbi is complicated from the beginning of the book. The two of them appear to be working out fine as friends, but it quickly becomes clear that the relationship between the two runs much deeper than just being ‘ex-girlfriends’.

Within their relationship are feelings of inferiority, jealousy, frustration, admiration, and tension (to name a few).

True to the title of the novel, there are plenty of “conversations” between Frances and Bobbi, which display the true depths of human connection.

During the duo’s witty conversations (which shift between intelligent banter and mindful life observations), Rooney demonstrates just how vividly feelings can be conveyed via conversation, even when the topic has nothing to do with said feelings. The tone, the delivery, and the context behind the words are !10

Flickr: Ronald E

Beautiful World, Where Are You was published in 2021 enough to make even the most apparently superficial discussions intimate. As the novel progresses, the complexity of the girls’ relationship is intensified as they meet Nick and Melissa. Frances develops a connection to Nick, Melissa’s husband. This connection is arguably the most significant in the novel, and it is especially complicated. This is not only due to the fact of him being married, but also due to the two’s different personalities, which clash in the form of misunderstandings, which lead to numerous difficulties, as well as their different perceptions of what their relationship is. Initially, their relationship is sparked due to the fact that their ‘other halves’ are far more focused on each other than they are on them. This feeling of disregard is what pushes them together, rather than an immediate attraction. The relationship between Bobbi and Melissa is somewhat of a mystery to the readers. As the novel is presented !11

through Frances’ eyes, it remains unclear what exactly occurred between the two (other than a few rouge confessions from Bobbi to Frances), and so its portrayal is tainted by Frances’ own feelings of insignificance and jealousy.

This has the effect of demonising it to a degree, as despite Bobbi and Melissa doing exactly as Frances and Nick did, the two of them (certainly Melissa) act partially as antagonists. This messy foursome comes back to the partnership between the spouses, which although is not elaborated upon to the extent that the affair between Frances and Nick is, is arguably the most interesting one in the whole book. Despite being a married couple, their relationship is far from conventional. The pair’s complex history stretches beyond Frances’ knowledge (although she does learn information as her affair progresses). They’ve overcome obstacles such as feelings of disdain, ambivalence, and even more affairs. As a result of these obstacles, the leading feeling in their relationship appears to be complacency and acceptance.

Behind this intricate web of relationships is each character's personality. When creating this web, due to its many different angles, it is a challenging task for Rooney to enable her characters to have developed personalities, but she manages to do so. Due to her subtle but impactful prose, her characters are fleshed out, each accruing distinctive traits whilst also avoiding becoming mere stereotypes. For example, Frances is a nuanced character, whose personality seems to conflict with itself occasionally. She is a woman who cares deeply about how others perceive her, despite presenting herself as nonchalant, and unfazed by what is occurring around her. Bobbi, similarly to Frances, presents herself differently to how she feels inwardly. Her bright, bold personality does not reflect her prevalent insecurities which often come to the surface during her increasingly frequent confrontations with Frances. The book's ongoing preoccupation with the theme of character facades displays how they can (and do) interfere with connections within relationships. Each character struggles and is reduced to upset and pain as a result of being unable to properly convey !12

their feelings to one another. This is a result of their personalities, which are in a sense nothing more than a veneer. By showing how the characters allow their insecurities and lack of authenticity to sabotage their relationships, Rooney is explaining how the raw and vulnerable nature of human connection is not able to work alongside phoney, fabricated personalities, which have become the norm.

Frances, as she is discovering the true depth of her numerous connections, is presented in such a way that her thoughts and actions are startlingly relatable beyond the surface level. This is partly due to Rooney’s writing skills - she has a rare ability to write in a way which is sharply intelligent, but also minimalistic, without any unnecessary superficial touches. As well as her problems revolving around her feelings of insecurity Flickr: felibrilu

Rooney’s second novel, Normal People, played her at the centre of the literary zeitgeist

and self loathing, a key part of Frances’ issues stem from her relationship with her parents and her home life. Whilst she does not e n d u re a ny t h i n g ex t e n s i ve l y

dramatic or traumatising, their relationship is one which is strained and slightly turbulent. This has a significant impact on Frances, and alters the way in which she interacts with others.

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It’s incredibly gripping and engaging how extensively Rooney manages to explore every crevice of human connection, exploring how each character's individual struggles, inner thoughts, backgrounds and quirks affect not only their relationships, but also the way in which they present themselves to the world. The same can be said for her other novels, Normal People and Beautiful World, Where Are You?, where the characters' depth appears to be endless and their connections are unique, complicated and distinctive. If you’re looking for books where the characters' relationships, interactions and connections are greatly impactful, then Sally Rooney’s writing is ideal.

Delara Rahimi, LVI

Flickr: Chris Bolland

Rooney speaking in Cambridge in 2017

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Searching for a Connection: Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man I was given Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man for my birthday by a friend.

Published in 1964, it explores the necessity of meaningful relationships through the protagonist's inability to feel a sense of belonging or connection with those who surround him. The novel follows a single day in the life of George Falconer, a gay professor from England who teaches literature at a University in Los Angeles, as he attempts absolve his grief following the death of his partner through unsuccessful, artificial relationships with others. To me this is a novel about loss: of direction, of companionship, of identity, and of connection. His story is certainly a lonely one, yet the novel is witty and hopeful, led by an introspective voice which commends the very human ability to overcome solitude by persisting through the mundanity of each day.

The presentation of the isolation of George is established initially through his internal fragmentation. Not only is he shown to be distanced from a greater collective, as a result of his nationality and sexuality, but Isherwood creates a sense of inner division which means that an authentic connection with others is impossible. Whilst looking in the mirror in the morning, George sees “many faces within its face”, suggesting that the character views himself as being a composite of many selves rather than a single individual. This lack of wholeness illustrates a sense of disconnect, both internally and with others.

The language used to describe this sensation is almost scientific; he sees himself as ‘preserved like fossils on superimposed layers’. The idea of being ‘superimposed’ suggests that George sees himself as a palimpsest, and a collection of memories and people, rather than a complete person. The novel opens and closes with similarly biological language too. Waking up is shown to be a mechanical and emotionless process: ‘the entire intercommunication system is issued the first order of the day: UP’. At this stage of the novel, George is referred to as ‘it', further reinforcing this idea of a separation !15

between his soul and the vessel that is his body. The novel ends, at the end of George’s day, with his death, when he is ‘throttled out of its oxygen, the heart clenches and stops’. This focus on the body as a biological organism reinforces the idea that George represents a lack of connection between his past and present, and instead views himself as a collection of biological parts.

Awakening and departing are both presented as very passive processes here, building this sense of dissociation between body and mind. Later in the novel, we see this fragmentation feeding into a difficulty to establish a connection with others.

George’s sexuality is also a key factor in building his sense of social disconnect.

Here, it is important to think about the context of the novel: the state of California legalised same sex activity in 1976, however it wasn’t until 2003 that a similar law was passed nationwide. The novel, therefore, set in 1964, takes

Flickr: Renaud Camus

Detail from a 1968 painting of Isherwood and his partner Don Bachardy,

by David Hockney !16

place in a climate of secrecy and of, at times, loneliness, in which George is characterised as an outsider. This, combined with an internal fragmentation and isolation, stunts his ability to establish public social connections with others. Instead, George revels in brief exchanges and often meaningless interactions between himself and other men. In a bookshop, one of his students offers to buy him a pencil sharpener, causing George to blush ‘as if he has been offered a rose’. This fleeting moment is distorted by George’s starvation for social interaction, emphasising the fact that this is a character who is deprived of moments of companionship.

In 2009, this book was adapted into a film, starring Colin Firth as George. The film was very well received and a relatively accurate adaptation, however whether it be the cinematography or the scripting, the film substitutes the quiet determination of George in the novel for a slight melodramatic feel. What makes Isherwood’s novel poignant, is not the fact that George carries a gun with him for the entire day, as he does in the film, but that everything is so mundane. We see George engage in uninspiring daily activities like shopping for groceries and meeting up with a friend. However, the wearisome nature of George’s day is contrasted by the fullness of his interior life as he muses on ageing and nationality, among other themes. This is a novel about loneliness, yes, but it is also about the persistence to overcome this loneliness, when those we love are inaccessible.

Lola Carver-Broome, UVI

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The ‘Perfect Couple’: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice Marriage in Pride and Prejudice is presented as a complex balancing act between love and practicality, which some women manage to find, and celebrate, and some do not. The societal circumstances at the time, forcing many young women to marry simply to support their families financially, and without requirements for feelings of real affection, are represented and challenged through Austen’s illustration of the storylines of the Bennet sisters, and of her portrayal of the ‘perfect couple’, and of ‘happy marriage’. The development of each of the key characters throughout the novel, provides a plot that embellishes and builds around the theme of ‘happy’ marriage, with each character providing a different portrayal of it, and each storyline supporting the need for both love, and financial and social practicality within marriage, suggesting Austen’s authorial intent in promoting this.

The novel begins with: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Austen makes it clear that she is somewhat humoured by the contents of it, and uses it almost sarcastically, mocking the standards and expectations of marriage and female marital roles at the time.

The theme of practical marriage was, although relevant for most young women at the time, particularly important in the case of the Bennets, who required the daughters to marry well in order to financially support themselves and their family. (Mr Bennet’s inheritance was planned to go to Mr Collins after his death). Similar storylines were shared with other female written novels featuring themes of marriage and financial reliance (Sense and Sensibility, Little Women, I Capture the Castle etc.).

Austen creates a template for the ‘perfect couple’, and portrays the theme of love and practicality most significantly in the character of Elizabeth Bennet.

The story of affection which unfolds between her and Mr Darcy encapsulates !18

Flickr: Suzy Hazelwood

the complex relationship between love and practicality which Austen presents and explores throughout this novel. Darcy’s extremely fortunate economic situation provides financial functionality: it is more than enough to support Elizabeth and her entire family, and the pride they overcome to find harmony as a couple provides the symmetry, emphasised by Austen as vital to a ‘happy marriage’. The relationship between the two depicts such balance that they provide the model for Austen’s definition of a ‘perfect couple’. Darcy and Elizabeth are, although not the only couple who reach a balance between the two, arguably the most significant in Austen’s portrayal of ‘happy marriage’, as the other characters in the novel express an inability to reach an equal amount of happiness as them. They become an archetype for Austen’s definition of a ‘perfect couple’. The symmetry in love and practicality is also demonstrated in the very happy relationship between Jane Bennet and Mr Bingley (arguably the novel’s only other ‘happy’ couple) and although their love story is presented as somewhat secondary to Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, they provide another example within Austen’s novel of the necessity for love and practicality in a happy marriage, and they strengthen her depiction of a ‘perfect couple’.

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Austen also offers us characters who clearly fail to find this necessary balance, therefore cementing her opinions on marriage by suggesting what entails if there is no symmetry and creating an antithesis to her ‘perfect couple’.

Charlotte Lucas is a case of this, whose lack of romantic ‘allure’ means she feels compelled to accept the proposal of awful Mr Collins, simply because she does not want to be an ‘old maid’, and, as admitted by her, she does not believe love to be essential to a marriage. The way Austen illustrates the story between Lucas and Collins suggests an authorial intent in expressing disapproval, as she portrays Mr Collins as a disliked, pompous and unpleasant character, and whilst Charlotte Lucas does not seem to be unhappy, Austen’s message is clear in undermining and opposing this type of practical and loveless marriage through her illustration of Mr Collins’ character. Whilst Charlotte marries out of sheer prudence, Lydia marries out of passion.

Flickr: Christa Uymatiao

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Another example is the relationship between Lydia Bennet and George Wickham, whose relationship is based on naivety, flirting, and a forced marriage. Lydia, the youngest Bennet sister, pursues a passionate love affair with Wickam, eloping and risking tarnishing the family’s reputation. The impracticality of the marriage is made clear in Austen's writing, as Wickham’s poor economic situation means a financial dependence on Darcy’s generosity and love for Elizabeth, in paying off his past debts. Furthermore, whilst practicality is not present in the relationship between the two, love is certainly not a two sided factor either: whilst Lydia believes herself to be in love with him, Wickham’s extremely poor intentions mean Darcy has to force him into marrying her. The unpleasantness Austen illustrates in Wickham’s character, and in Lydia’s irritating, irrational and insensitive nature suggests her disapproval of such relationships and how they contradict her depictions of a ‘happy marriage’, or a ‘perfect couple’.

Eleni Fraser, LVI

Flickr: JR P

Chatsworth House, in the Derbyshire Dales, is a likely contender for the inspiration of Pemberley, in Austen’s novel !21

‘girl mutated’ The problem with doubling is that Once started, it is near impossible to stop.

A kind of eternal division, Poetic mitosis of the self Until you become waxy orange and sweet, Splitting open to show fourteen segments with pips So sharp that they cut the tongue Or a pomegranate, rubies falling out like teeth.

I could not catch them all if I tried, Two hands to hold a thousand screaming sisters.

The first time it happened was my eighteenth year.

I halved myself under the morning sun, Curving out to break the stitches that hold a body tight, Flesh opening in a yawn To leave me one and not the other and both and not either, Child and adult, a russian doll that seems to duplicate itself Without intention Because it gets harder to control, I gain a double standing on the white stripe of a motorway When a car screams down the tarmac blazing oil and rubber, Frying me in its headlights like a tiny Icarus And I become both dead and alive Now I am the traveller and the road, But, wait, not just that; I am the flush of cold, a single tree and every twisted branch, and the stars Blinking down with frozen eyes Watching its body mirrored back across the miles.

Martha Vine, UVI !22

From the desk of Elizabeth Bishop ‘Insomnia’ The moon in the bureau mirror looks out a million miles (and perhaps with pride, at herself, but she never, never smiles) far and away beyond sleep, or perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.

By the Universe deserted, she'd tell it to go to hell, and she'd find a body of water, or a mirror, on which to dwell.

So wrap up care in a cobweb and drop it down the well into that world inverted where left is always right, where the shadows are really the body, where we stay awake all night, where the heavens are shallow as the sea is now deep, and you love me.

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‘One Art’ The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

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Plucked from the Shelves: Our Book Recommendations

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara I got given this book by a friend for my birthday (thanks to you Weronika) but I didn’t read it until a few months later having been told it is entirely devastating. At around 800 pages, this book is heavy both in terms of subject matter and length, but the pacing is swift and controlled and it can be raced through surprisingly fast. It is rare that I find myself wishing that a book of this length would be longer, but in this case, I certainly did. The novel follows the lives of four friend as they navigate their relationships through changing success, addiction, wealth, and trauma. The characters, dialogue, and plot are so bleakly real it really is a book that will stay with you long after you have finished it. For Yanagihara, where the past is equally as important as the present, and so I will be interested to see how its upcoming adaptation tackles the novel's complex and dark narrative.

‘He experienced the singular pleasure of watching people he loved fall in love with other people he loved.’

Assembly by Natasha Brown Assembly is Natasha Brown's debut novel about a Black British woman as she prepares to attend a lavish garden party in the country, held by her white boyfriend’s family. In an !25

interview, Brown said "I wanted to examine how an identity (Black, millennial, woman) is transformed into genre." The novella (only 100 pages) is written in a fragmentary style, in short flashes of scenes that has been compared by critics to a modern Mrs Dalloway. Wealthy and successful, Brown’s unnamed heroine reflects on the colonial past and elitism of Britain from the perspective of a Black woman in a white male dominated industry; simultaneously struggling with the exhaustive pressure to ‘make it’ in life, the main character is forced to navigate oblivious privilege and uncomprehending micro-aggressions.

Meanwhile, the novel explores existentialist ideas as Brown’s heroine finds herself in a life that seems increasingly devoid of meaning or satisfaction.

'Don’t make anyone uncomfortable. Don’t inconvenience. Exist in the negative only, the space around. Do not insert yourself into the main narrative. Go unnoticed. Become the air’

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!27 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland The Picture of Dorian Gray Of Mine and Men Treasure Island Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire

codes to identify seven more?

Can you find the titles of these ten novels hidden here, and crack the emoji Games

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