Reading Wednesday

Read Sister Deborah by Scholastique Mukasonga, a short novel in which a young girl, Ikirezi, in 1930s Rwanda is healed by a Black American "prophetess" who has become a local cult figure, preaching the coming of a Black, female messiah; two decades later, Ikirezi - now an anthropologist at Howard University - investigates the life story of the mysterious Sister Deborah she had encountered as a child. ( ... )

Approximately 30% into Moby Dick, which is actually... really fun??? WHO KNEW. The fact I'm listening to this as an audiobook is definitely what (finally!) made it click for me. Ishmael is a mess and I love him. Currently at the "facts(?) about whales" interlude. (Although we've moved on to albino animals in general, I guess?) I'm also reading The Terror by Dan Simmons - historical fiction about the doomed Franklin expedition with a supernatural twist; my weirdly specific reading niche this year is shaping up to be "people having a bad time on boats" - which is interesting to read alongside Moby Dick because, on one hand, the scene with Sir John Franklin's shipboard sermon on the story of Jonah gave me a sense of deju vu, after Father Mapple's; on the other, one of Melville's Whale Facts was that whales can teleport "the Nor' West Passage, so long a problem to man, was never a problem to the whale."

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