A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
Completed January 2026
Brief Summary:
A Room with a View follows English heroine Lucy, a young girl from a small village (I think) outside of London. She is wealthy, in the grand scheme of things, but not of a high class...I think. Lucy is...naive. She grew up pretty sheltered, not having to make decisions or form opinions for herself. In the first chapter, we meet the Emersons, who begin to open up Lucy’s mind to other thoughts beyond what she’s been told to think. There are other characters too: Charlotte, her cousin, who’s poorer and frantic, Ms. Lavish who...frankly I don’t remember much about besides her frantic energy and dedication to writing a book (though I only remember that because she succeeds in writing the book. There are two...priests? I don’t understand the structure of the Catholic church so give me some slack. There are other people too but frankly I don’t care.
75% of the book follows Lucy’s travels in Florence, Italy. It’s her first real introduction to life outside of her family, outside of England. Things begin to change for her when she watches a man die in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, and is
rescued by George Emerson, the younger of the two Emerson men. Thus begins the most understated, subtle love story I have ever read. We spend a lot of time with Lucy as everyone around her, each more obnoxious and opinionated than the last, make grand declarations about the state of the world, the purpose of life, and the way to live as a woman. More than anything, they passed judgments on others, especially the Emersons. The Emersons however, exist as a mirror. The elder Mr. Emerson is distinctly counter-culture in his thoughts and his opinions. George is...sort of silent.
Spoilers ahead
Their Florence era ends suddenly, after George Emerson kisses Lucy on a balcony in a fit of beauty and passion. Upon our return to England, we find Lucy to be engaged to a Cecil Vyse, son of a couple who were in Florence...I think. Cecil is boring, rich, and snobby in the way that only a rich man who’s never really done anything but exists can be. It’s very clear to us, and everyone in Lucy’s life, that Cecil is unsuitable for Lucy. It is clear to us, but likely not everyone else, that Lucy doesn’t even love Cecil. For at the same time, the Emersons are moving into the neighborhood. The last 25% of the book is spent with Lucy grappling with her feelings for Cecil and for George, and doing so in the way all us avoidant-attachment ladies do, by making plans to run away to Constantinople. It honestly got to a point, with like, one chapter left, that I thought that it may end without any resolution in their relationship, because she is
just that avoidant.
Thoughts:
I told my dad I was reading this book and he said, ‘I don’t get the author. He’s too subtle for me’. Now, to be honest, I didn’t really get what he meant. Still don’t. But, I don’t disagree. For a book that is essentially a coming of age romance, the romance is very lackluster. I think Forster’s dedication to portraying Lucy’s foolishness barred him from allowing her to express her love.
I liked Lucy. I thought she was a fun character, a girl who was struggling to escape from the muddled expectations set before her by different branches of society, who cared more for others’ opinions than her own. I can relate to that. She’s an interesting character, if you forget she was written by a man Which--I don’t think he did a terrible job, especially considering the time, but I found his women still left a lot to be desired, especially in their relationships with each other. I love ridiculous women. I love foolish women. I love women who defend each other and who betray each other. But these women still felt shallow. Especially considering we’re reading this book primarily through the eyes and mind of Lucy, I wish Forster didn’t write her to hate women so.
My favorite parts of this book were the beginning and the end. I loved the first chapters, exploring Florence, meeting new people, subverting expectations. I loved the end mostly for Mr. Emerson’s “grow the fuck up” speech.
There’s an obvious language and cultural barrier to my understanding of this book. The language was so flowery that it often took me multiple tries to finish a sentence, and rarely did I find a paragraph worth saving. But here are the two I did.
“Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.”
This really is what kept me engaged with the book, my understanding of Lucy’s struggle to adjust to life and independence. When you stop doing what everyone thinks you should do (but secretly don’t want you to do).
“He told us another day that views are really crowds--crowds of trees and houses and hills--and are bound to resemble each other, like human crowds--and that the power they have over us is sometimes supernatural, for the same reason. [...] For a crowd is more than the people who make it up. Something gets added to it--no one knows how--just as something has got added to those hills”
Blackouts by Justin Torres
Completed January 2026
Brief Summary:
Blackouts follows our narrator (unnamed I think, but I could’ve missed it) and his conversations with his...mentor...sort of, Juan, on Juan’s deathbed. It’s centered around a real study done about the biological reasons for homosexuality. The book itself is sprinkled with real images of artworks, pages from the study, and photographs.
Spoilers ahead
The book is a work of fiction, however, it is based off of real conversations author Torres had with Juan about his life. Both our narrator and Juan are gay Puerto Rican men. We don’t really know how they met (or at least I don’t remember) but it’s clear that they have a strong bond. The story rolls out over various conversations the two have, telling stories about themselves and their families. Mostly, we’re watching the story behind the case study unfold. We learn that much of the research done, particularly on the women, was done by Jan Gay, a woman who, for a brief moment in time, was a mother figure to Juan. We learn about the history of the study, the research done by queer people, manipulated by homophobic scientists.
We also learn a lot about our narrator’s life. It’s a book told through stories, meant to memorialize this relationship and this history more than to make a point.
Thoughts:
Blackouts has to be the most uniquely formatted and presented book I have ever read.
I think what I truly loved about this book was how it felt like a stream of consciousness, chopped up. It reminds me a bit of how I journal, sewing together random thoughts and memories. I didn’t realize until I read the Afterword that this book was essentially a fictionalized memoir. I knew that much of the content was based in reality, but I didn’t realize just how personal the stories and the relationship truly was. I mean at one point, I imagined Juan to be entirely a figment of our narrator’s imagination.
I think this line between reality and fiction in memory is so interesting to me. In the process of my recent journaling, I’ve been reflecting a lot on reality vs memory...and whether or not an objective reality even exists. In particular, I often think about the ways my friendships have fallen apart. In the moment, I usually compartmentalize, blame the other person for everything, justify everything I’ve done as a reasonable reaction to what others have done to me. That’s not the point. My point is that Torres’ afterword sparked a train of thought in me that makes me want to reread this book from an entirely new viewpoint. I mean, I suppose that reading a book as a work of fiction isn’t that different from reading a book as a log of foggy memories, manipulated by time and distance. But it is. It’s also such a different feeling for me, the heartfelt way that Torres describes Juan and their time together.
It’s a love story, in many ways. Something that seems to extend beyond our notions of what romantic or sexual love can or should be. At one point, Juan tells the story of the Book of Ruth through a queer lens: that Ruth and her mother-in-law are lovers, with evidence through the language, through the messiness of translation. “Entreat me not to leave you”. It is a line that they then repeat to each other, later on.
Some things I’ve saved to read, watch, etc later:
- Puig
- Piñero
- The Book of Ruth
Favorite Quotes:
“A rose is a rose is a rose, and she knew what she knew what she knew”
“From a certain distance, the catastrophic must be indistinguishable from the sublime”
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
Completed January 2026
Brief Summary:
Martyr! follows a young Iranian man, Cyrus. A writer, a poet. Cyrus is obsessed with martyrdom. The son of Iranian immigrants growing up in the 90s (I think), he’s been exposed to a lot of death, most notably the death of his mother in 1988 when the US government shot down an Iranian passenger plane. His obsession with martyrdom seems to be a reaction or coping mechanism to her death. He has an obsession with death, but more than that, dying a death worthy of martyrdom. By the time we meet Cyrus, he’s pretty sober, off of hard drugs and alcohol, so it’s not that he’s entirely suicidal, but he has a careless attitude towards life itself, preferring to live a life obsessed, devoted to the concept of martyrdom. Sprinkled throughout the book, Cyrus has dreams where historical figures from completely different times and places come together and speak. Sometimes, real people from his life are there too.
Spoilers Ahead!
The book sets off when Cyrus learns of an exhibition at the New York MoMA called Death Speaks (I think) with Iranian artist Orkideh. The exhibition is surely based on Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present. Essentially, artist Orkideh is dying from cancer, and decides to spend her final days living in the museum. During open hours, visitors are encouraged to come and speak with Orkideh. Cyrus--Iranian poet obsessed with dying--obviously has to go. Thus begins a series of conversations between Cyrus and Orkideh, culminating in one major slip of the tongue (or not)
!for real. SPOILERS ahead.! Where Orkideh makes an offhand comment about Cyrus’ mother dying in a plane crash, something he never told her.
While the book is mostly from the perspective of Cyrus, we get a collection of chapters from the POV of other characters--Zee, Cyrus’ best friend, Cyrus’ dad, uncle Arash, and most excitingly for me, his mom, Roya. We learn that his mother, back in Iran, fell in love with the wife of one of Cyrus’ father’s friends. We learn that Roya is not the one who died in the crash, but her lover, so she took the opportunity and created a new life for herself under the name Orkideh. Unfortunately, this slip of the tongue was the final release she needed, and she passed away before Cyrus could even realize it.
The end of the book takes on a magical realism twist, with Cyrus deciding to live life, not for death, but for love.
Thoughts:
Martyr! is a book that feels like it was written just for me. So much of this book forced me to reckon with parts of myself that I either don’t want to or hadn’t even considered.
A big part of my 2026 is aiming to decenter mass perception of media and coming into my own opinions and feelings and understandings of art and media. I didn’t annotate this book as I am still coming out of a years-long reading slump and short-form media addiction, so I wanted to put as little pressure as possible on myself. Instead, I just took photos of parts that intrigued me, and then proceeded to delete them.
I loved this book. Why?
Cyrus’ obsession with martyrdom:
I mean, this is the whole book, is it not? What does it mean to be a martyr? What does it mean to have lived a live--and died a death--worthy of the title? This concept, this struggle, was something that I felt extremely relatable. Like any 20-something, I am constantly struggling with the fear of living a meaningless life, an uneventful life, a small life. Martyr! forces you to consider what in your life is important, to you and to others. What changes must you make to your life and your outlook in order to feel satisfied?
At the moment, I’m obsessed with curating the perfect life, the perfect image, the perfect persona. I’m also actively trying to force myself to confront the “ugly” and the gross of myself and my image. I go to work with no face makeup on, acne on display, but I can’t leave the house without eyeliner and mascara. My online presence is so censored and hidden, that even on my private accounts, my private stories, etc., I feel the weight of being seen. But is that satisfactory? It’s become clear to me that it’s not. That the more conformed I feel to society, the less satisfied I am with myself.
Even before reading Martyr!, I was obsessed with leaving a legacy. At times, this manifests as an urge to be famous. Other times the thought of being known outside of my personal circle is the most horrifying thing that could cross my mind. More often than not, this urge manifests as a secret, private fantasy. Wanting to be remembered and memorialized by the people who loved and knew me, or maybe by some small, cult following. I want to leave something physical behind as well, like how Cyrus would leave his writings and Orkideh would leave her art. I think that’s a big part of why I started this website... I want to be memorialized somehow. By strangers and by people who knew me, since, neither really could ever know me fully.
Orkideh’s Abandonment:
I won’t pretend to have an ounce of understanding for the type of life Orkideh was living or could have lived, but this was something that really stuck in my mind throughout the rest of the book. Would I abandon my child for romantic love? Would I abandon my child if they believed I was dead? How would it feel to know that I was sitting across from my child, and that he did not know who I was? I think that last one really stuck with me. These were decisions she made, out of love, out of necessity, and I truly think I cannot fault her for those decisions. But I wonder, if in that moment that Cyrus first sat down across from her, what she felt. Whether or not she would do it all over again or not.
Beyond the story itself, I loved Akbar’s writing style. Here are some of my favorite lines and why:
“If art’s single job was to be interesting, then the room with Orkideh sitting in it was art of the highest order. The artist’s tiny living body swallowed by an inorganic frenzy of clothing, shadow. The eroded surfaces of Orkideh’s face were like Martian crags and craters that, like a perfect photograph, caught in astonishing clarity the entire spectrum of visible light from pure light to pure dark.”
It’s interesting, going back though my camera roll and finding these photographs. What is it about these lines that spoke to me in that moment? Does it still speak to me now? “If art’s single job was to be interesting”. My brain keeps catching on that. I feel that my art historical study, alongside my personal affection for culture, is constantly battling the lackluster, loose, and everchanging definitions of “art”. I watched a YouTube video recently that emphasized something that I do believe in my head (but struggle to believe in practicality), that the measurement of art on a scale of good to bad is inherently false, and that we should be gauging art by A) personal affections: whether or not we like it and WHY and B) the value the art is attempting to convey and how successful it is at conveying it. So this line sticks out to me now, “IF art’s single job was to be interesting”. No concrete, “art’s job is to be interesting”, but a hypothesis.
I do think that at the time, I was more drawn in by the style of descriptive language that Akbar uses here. Now, bear with me, I haven’t done any sort of literary analysis in years, and frankly, I was never very good at looking at language. But I think what struck me then, and strikes me now, is how visceral of an image I get of this woman. “The artist’s tiny living body swallowed by an inorganic frenzy of clothing, shadow.”
“My God, I just remembered that we die. But--but me too?! Don’t forget that for now, it’s strawberry season” -- Clarise Lispector
Obviously, this is a Clarise Lispector quote, but it’s one that precedes a chapter, heads it. I don’t know what that’s called. So much of this book is spent with Cyrus’ thoughts: how to be a martyr, who is a martyr, etc. And me, with my little celebrity pilled brain, is sitting there going, this guy gets it! I need to live a life worth dying for, worth being remembered for. And here comes Ms. Lispector. Don’t forget to lead a fulfilling life that goes beyond the way you are remembered and who you are remembered by. I feel like the question “do you fear death” comes up a lot, and I never really know the answer to it. I definitely fear not making an impact, but I’ve come to realize even more than that, that I fear not enjoying and truly living my life.
“My hunch is that Mad Man gave the dog up. Either that or he finally broke her. Anyways, she’s old now, or else she’s dead. But I have this fantasy that she’s still chewing up the living room, still slamming against the limits of that cage, only now she’s vocalized, yapping and howling, and it’s a kind of music, and the whole neighborhood can hear her frustration and understand. And the song is a lament, something camp and bluesy, about how there ain’t no shame in being a bitch, but, Lord, be a bitch that barks.”
There ain’t no shame in being a bitch, but Lord, be a bitch that barks. This changed me, I think. I’ve always been a bit of a bitch. I’ve always been upfront about my bitchiness. But I also feel like I, in a manner similar to everything else divisive in my life, take the most neutral approach to being a bitch.
“This music the church thought was too beautiful for common people, pearls before swine, isn’t that what they say? Though pigs are smarter than dogs, and pears are just rocks.”
“That’s when everything became supersaturated. One of those memories you can squeeze like a rag and watch details drip and pool. Minor chords on a twelve-string guitar twinging out of the little speakers. [...] How it felt like the perfect song then, even though we were together, the bud of us just starting to open. Something in the song’s plaintive yearning, that’s what it was, bone-deep yearning. We held the song’s preemptive nostalgia between us like a candle, swaying as its flame smocked the wick, our faces illuminated and flicking it it, that flame, yearning, idiot yearning, yearning so strong it bends you, buckles you, like waves or miracles.”
“When asked about the difficulties of sculpture, Michelangelo said, “It is easy. You just chip away all the stone that isn’t David.” It’s simple to cut things out of a life. You break up with a shitty partner, quit eating bread, delete the Twitter app. You cut it out, and the shape of what’s actually killing you clarifies a little. The whole Abrahamic world invests itself in this promise: Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t fuck or steal or kill, and you’ll be a good person. But you can live a whole life not doing any of that stuff and still avoid doing any good. That’s the whole crisis. The rot at the root of everything.”
Honored to say that that British dude who makes book YouTube videos pulled this quote as well. I would like to say that this is a philosophy I abide by, or would like to abide by... but... yeah. Honestly I’m not sure that this is something that I would be able to actually download into my subconscious. Like, It’s something that I understand but not something I practice. I have a hard time doing anything. It’s my constant detriment.