Letter from Brussels

Disturbing novels, heavy tongues and foreignness

peekaboo ! je suis à bruxelles!

Helllooooo friends!

Gosh, my mind is teeming with things to share with you all. The sun is shining here in Brussels, the city I am spending the next couple of weeks in as part of a writer’s residency (merci Passa Porta and the National Center for Writing!). If you’re in town, I’m in conversation with the brilliant author Sheena Patel next week, would love to see you in the crowd!

I must say, being thrown back into a Francophone society reminds me so much of my time in Paris, and all the complicated feelings that came with it. The friction that comes with daily interactions in a language that is not your own, the apprehension of the grocery shop, the strange brands and the unfamiliar aisles, the heaviness of being a true outsider, forever filled with the desire to stay inside, in the safety of four walls and your own mind, lest your tongue stumbles and you find yourself naked as a newborn, just trying to buy some milk.

But there is nothing like foreignness to open one’s eyes to the world. For me, it is such a generative and invigorating experience, like an ice bath of the mind. It places me in the ideal writer’s mindset, forced to notice the contours of my environment, to pay attention to details, cues, changes in the air, because the complacency of habit and belonging can no longer be relied upon. It’s terrifying, but in a low stakes way, and I could use some lowering of the stakes in these strange ol’ times.

One of the things I enjoy doing when in a new place is reading the literature, or engaging with the art, from that society. A fine film or novel can be a shortcut to understanding so much about the place’s dynamics, tensions, history (after, of course, taking the hop-on, hop-off Bus, which is something I do, if available, in every city I visit!).

audio tour + open top roof? what better way to get introduced to a city!

Belgium has so far been an curious place to get to know. A bi, or tri-lingual society (French, Dutch, German speakers), with a history of occupation (many different European neighbours have ruled over the land), a history of gross colonisation (see: Congo), and now the capital of the EU. It feels, so far, like Paris’s rougher, regional cousin - some of the airs, but keen to prove itself, as if wanting to be counted. ‘We have famous people too!’ the audio guide on the bus tour trilled, as if we were all holding their lack of ‘real’ celebrity against them.

One thing I wasn’t expecting was the prevalence of dark, gothic horror in Flemish art. Yesterday, I finished Lize Spit’s ‘The Melting’, a translation of a popular Dutch language book published in 2016.

Folks, I don’t know if I recommend it. It’s accomplished, yes, a confident debut that skyrocketed Spit’s name to literary fame. That said, a light weekend read it is not. I’ve not been that disturbed by a piece of literature in quite a while, though the fact I finished is testament to her prose. It reminded me of the last book that I found similarly tough to read, Paradais by Fernanda Melchor (Mexican, writing in Spanish). I put that book down 20 pages in, out of an instinct of genuine self-preservation. From the LA Review of Books:

[Paradais] is a fairly short book (128 pages) centered on a single incident: the rape and murder of a well-to-do woman and her family by her teenaged neighbor and gardener. There is little plot to speak of aside from this event, which is confined to a harrowing eight-page sentence near the novel’s end, and the buildup to it. The rest of the book is concerned primarily with immersing readers in the inner lives of the two perpetrators.

What is the point of these types of novels, I wonder? Tackling class, poverty, violence, sex - but never in a redeeming manner, most often pushing pushing pushing the boundaries, let’s see how awful we can make these teenage children behave, let’s gawk at how they treat each other, let’s delve into excruciating detail the ways they violate, humiliate and maim, how they revel in their basest desires, how adults do nothing but enable, excuse, suffer - what is this about? Who is it for? Are readers horrified? Titillated? Entertained? What about the translators, the editors, the agents? Who picks up these stories of grotesque, unrelenting abuse that seem to have no rhyme or reason that I can understand beyond ‘that’s what young boys and girls do when left to their own devices’?

The above reviewer points out Melchor’s desire to tackle the epidemic of femicide in Mexico, to get into the minds of those who rape and murder women, and do it in their own language. I guess she has succeeded in that, but I’m not sure what the point for a reader is. There is no catharsis, we know things like this happens. Is there value to being shown the gory details? Do I need to know what goes into the mind of a genocidiare, for example, to be effective at stopping genocide? Not even Allah judges us on our thoughts, so perhaps the thoughts should be left alone. I don’t know…

I couldn’t find a comprehensive English language review of Lize Spit’s novel to share with you all, but I found this piece about Flemish literature fascinating. According to the article, the book I need to read next is ‘The Sorrow of Belgium’, the 1983 classic by Hugo Claus. I don’t often read World War Two books - not really my jam, so to speak, but nothing like the promise of insight into a new culture to get me going! Have any of y’all read it? There are also a couple of Flemish-Moroccan authors mentioned (Fikry El Azzouzi and Rachida Lamrabet) that I will check out as well, inshallah. Let’s hope they’re not all like Leïla Slimani, there’s only so much self-hating anti-Muslim sentiment I can take!

Right. That’s enough for now. I want to get another moment outside before the weather changes again, it’s so indecisive! I will leave you with my recommendations, and a request for any Brussels related suggestions, thoughts, tips! Bonne journée!

---

Watch: Dead Boy Detectives

One of my favourite types of Netflix show: Low stakes, high drama, fantasy YA with cheeky young people figuring life (or death) out. I’ve only seen the pilot so far, and it’s a vibe! Here’s hoping Netflix won’t cancel this like it did Lockwood and Co (which if you haven’t seen, you’re missing out!). I have not seen Baby Reindeer yet, which is what everyone is talking about, and I don’t know if I will. Maybe in like, six months when I’m in fuller mental health, lol.

Read: George Monbiot comes face to face with his local conspiracy theorist

A piece engaging with a theme I’ve mulled on without success: how do we deal with conspiracy theorists when there are so many actual conspiracies that turn out to be true? Monbiot, a Guardian journalist, tackles this issue in a piece that I think reveals a number of insights. He writes:

In her excellent book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein explains how today’s conspiracy fictions are a distorted response to the impunities of power. We know we’re being lied to, we know justice is not done, we see the beneficiaries flaunting their immense wealth and undemocratic power. Conspiracy fantasists may get the facts wrong, “but often get the feelings right”.

I would add a couple of thoughts. I see conspiracy fictions as a form of reassurance. This might sound odd: they purport to reveal “the terrifying truth”. But look at what they’re actually saying. Climate breakdown? It’s a hoax. Covid? All fake. Power? Just a tiny cabal of Jews. In other words, our deepest fears are unfounded.

Conspiracy fictions also tell us we don’t have to act. If the problem is a remote and highly unlikely Other – rather than a system in which we’re deeply embedded, which demands a democratic campaign of resistance and reconstruction – you can wash your hands of it and get on with your life. They free us from civic responsibility. This may be why those who take an interest in conspiracy fictions are so seldom interested in genuine conspiracies.

Listen: ‘Modern Love’ podcast

A sparkling little gem from this morning. Esther Perel reading a controversial essay from the archives, titled What Sleeping With Married Men Taught Me About Infidelity. Esther reads the article then has a conversation with the host about the topic, one I find endlessly fascinating. Infidelity touches so many of our lives, and yet we don’t talk about it in public forums, almost at all. Why is that?

---

As always, thanks for reading, for sharing, for your support of my work and your wonderful engagement with my weekly musings. If you have capacity in this moment to upgrade to a paid subscription, which will give you access to the archive, exclusive chats and other features, I would be so grateful.

Until next week, stay well inshallah!

Yassmin