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Kjent og fremmed : essays
A blazingly intelligent first collection of essays from the award-winning author of Open City and Every Day Is for the Thief.
With these pieces on politics, photography, travel, history and literature - many of which have become viral sensations, shared and debated around the globe - Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today's most powerful and original voices. On page after page, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people and historical moments.
Cole tells of his engagement with Virginia Woolf through her diaries, before reflecting on an episode of temporary blindness in New York. He looks at the rise of Instagram and interrogates the value of its images. He examines the transition of the candidate Obama, the avid reader, into a 'forever-war' president on the global stage.
Persuasive and provocative, erudite yet accessible, Known and Strange Things is an opportunity to live within Teju Cole's wide-ranging enthusiasms, curiosities and passions, and a chance to see the world in surprising and affecting new frames.
With these pieces on politics, photography, travel, history and literature - many of which have become viral sensations, shared and debated around the globe - Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today's most powerful and original voices. On page after page, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people and historical moments.
Cole tells of his engagement with Virginia Woolf through her diaries, before reflecting on an episode of temporary blindness in New York. He looks at the rise of Instagram and interrogates the value of its images. He examines the transition of the candidate Obama, the avid reader, into a 'forever-war' president on the global stage.
Persuasive and provocative, erudite yet accessible, Known and Strange Things is an opportunity to live within Teju Cole's wide-ranging enthusiasms, curiosities and passions, and a chance to see the world in surprising and affecting new frames.
121 pages, ebook
First published August 9, 2016
527 people are currently reading
8634 people want to read
About the author
Teju Cole
48 books1,311 followersI was born to Nigerian parents and grew up in Lagos. My mother taught French. My father was a business executive who exported chocolate. The first book I read (I was six) was an abridgment of Tom Sawyer. At fifteen I published cartoons regularly in Prime People, Nigeria’s version of Vanity Fair. Two years later I moved to the United States.
Since then, I’ve spent most of my time studying art history, except for an unhappy year in medical school. I currently live in Brooklyn.
Since then, I’ve spent most of my time studying art history, except for an unhappy year in medical school. I currently live in Brooklyn.
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December 29, 2016
This book of essays by Teju Cole aren’t always essays: they might be scraps of thought, well-digested and to an immediate point. They are fiercely intelligent, opinionated, meaningful in a way that allow us to get to the heart of how another thinks. And does he think! Let’s be frank: many of us don’t do enough thinking, and Cole shows us the way it can be done in a way that educates, informs, and excites us.
The work in this volume are nonfiction pieces published in a wide variety of outlets and that he chose from an eight-year period of travel and almost constant writing. The emphasis in these pieces, he tells us in the Preface, is on “epiphany.” We can enjoy kernels of ideas that may have had a long gestation, but have finally burst onto the scene with a few sentences but little heavy-handedness or any of the weight of “pronouncements.” This reads like a bared heart in the midst of negotiating life, as James Baldwin says in The Fire Next Time, “as nobly as possible, for the sake of those coming after us.”
Cole references Baldwin in all these pieces in his unapologetic gaze, but he does so explicitly in several pieces, notably “Black Body” in which he tells of visiting the small town in Switzerland, Leukerbad (or Loèche-les-Bains), where Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain found its final form. Cole expands on his time in Switzerland in “Far Away From Here,” which might be my favorite of these essays. Cole tells how he was given six months to write while living in Zurich and though he did precious little writing, he was totally absorbed every day, gazing at the landscape, walking the mountains, photographing the crags, trails, and lakes, thinking, unfettered. This is someone who carries all he needs in his head, and I loved that freedom as much as he.
But how can I choose a favorite from among these pieces when each spoke of ways to approach a subject with which we have struggled—or haven’t yet…About race and class: “how little sense of shame [Americans] seemed to have,” he writes, looking at America from his upbringing in Lagos. Cole echoes Baldwin again in “Bad Laws” about Israel and its laws concerning the rights of Palestinians:
Photography is one of Cole’s special interests and he is eloquent in Section Two "Seeing Things" discussing what makes great photography as opposed to the “dispiriting stream of empty images [that the] Russians call poshlost: fake emotion, unearned nostalgia.” And then he discusses “Death in the Browser Tab,” wherein he tells us what he sees and what he knows after retracing the steps caught by the phone footage of Walter Scott, shot in the back with eight bullets from a .45-caliber Glock 21.
Politics is what humans do, though “the sheer quantity of impacted bullshit in politics” is clearly not something Cole relishes. In "The Reprint" Cole admits he did not vote until sixteen years after he was eligible, and when he did vote finally, for Obama, “like a mutation that happens quietly on a genetic level and later completely alters the body’s function, I could feel my relationship to other Americans changing. I had a sense—dubious to me for so long, and therefore avoided—of common cause.” He notes that Obama was “not an angry black man, the son of slaves” but a biracial outsider who invisibly worked his way to the center of the political establishment by piggybacking the experience of American blacks -- hiding in plain sight. The night Obama won, Cole was in Harlem.
When Cole talks about literature I experience a frisson. There is nothing quite like someone very clever and well-spoken addressing something about which one cares deeply. His insights add to my pleasure, and detract nothing. His description of the poetry of Derek Walcott remind me of the first time I encountered Walcott’s work: “This is poetry with a painterly hand, stroke by patient stroke.” I have forever thought of Walcott in this way, in color and in motion: turquoise and pale yellow, cool beige and hibiscus pink, the palest gray and an ethereal green I am not sure is water, air, or sea grass. The ocean creates tides through his work, and it seems so fresh.
When Cole writes of his visit to V.S. Naipaul in “Natives on the Boat," we sense how Cole’s initial reserve is eventually won over by Naipaul’s deeply curious and wide-ranging questions. In the very next essay, “Housing Mr. Biswas,” Cole writes an ecstatic celebration of Naipaul’s accomplishment in creating the “smart and funny, but also often petulant, mean, and unsympathetic” Mr. Biswas in Trinidad,
Reading all these essays in one big gulp was a lot to digest so I am going to recommend a slower savoring. This is a book one must own and keep handy for those small moments when one wants a short, sharp shock of something wonderful. By all means read it all at once so you know where to go back to when you can dig up copies of some of the photos he talks about or want to recall how Cole manages in so few words to convey so much meaning. His is a voice thoughtful in expressing what he sees and yet so vulnerable and human I want to say—read this—this man is what’s been missing from your lives.
These collected essays will be published August 9, 2016. I read the e-galley provided to me by Netgalley and Random House. I note that some of the essays about art or photography that were initially published in newspapers sometimes were accompanied by examples of the work he discusses. In a perfect world, these would be included in the final book, but truthfully, his writing is clear and compelling enough to not make that nicety strictly necessary. Apologies to the publisher for quoting from a galley: my excuse is that the work is previously published and therefore no surprise.
The work in this volume are nonfiction pieces published in a wide variety of outlets and that he chose from an eight-year period of travel and almost constant writing. The emphasis in these pieces, he tells us in the Preface, is on “epiphany.” We can enjoy kernels of ideas that may have had a long gestation, but have finally burst onto the scene with a few sentences but little heavy-handedness or any of the weight of “pronouncements.” This reads like a bared heart in the midst of negotiating life, as James Baldwin says in The Fire Next Time, “as nobly as possible, for the sake of those coming after us.”
Cole references Baldwin in all these pieces in his unapologetic gaze, but he does so explicitly in several pieces, notably “Black Body” in which he tells of visiting the small town in Switzerland, Leukerbad (or Loèche-les-Bains), where Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain found its final form. Cole expands on his time in Switzerland in “Far Away From Here,” which might be my favorite of these essays. Cole tells how he was given six months to write while living in Zurich and though he did precious little writing, he was totally absorbed every day, gazing at the landscape, walking the mountains, photographing the crags, trails, and lakes, thinking, unfettered. This is someone who carries all he needs in his head, and I loved that freedom as much as he.
But how can I choose a favorite from among these pieces when each spoke of ways to approach a subject with which we have struggled—or haven’t yet…About race and class: “how little sense of shame [Americans] seemed to have,” he writes, looking at America from his upbringing in Lagos. Cole echoes Baldwin again in “Bad Laws” about Israel and its laws concerning the rights of Palestinians:
”The reality is that, as a Palestinian Arab, in order to defend yourself against the persecution you face, not only do you have to be an expert in Israeli law, you also have to be a Jewish Israeli and have the force of the Israeli state as your guarantor…Israel uses an extremely complex legal and bureaucratic apparatus to dispossess Palestinians of their land, hoping perhaps to forestall accusations of a brutal land grab.”Earlier Baldwin reminded us that “…few liberals have any notion of how long, how costly, and how heartbreaking a task it is to gather the evidence that one can carry into court [to prove malfeasance, official or not], or how long such court battles take.” Americans looking at Israel and Palestine should be able to discern some outline of our own justifications and methods, and vice versa.
Photography is one of Cole’s special interests and he is eloquent in Section Two "Seeing Things" discussing what makes great photography as opposed to the “dispiriting stream of empty images [that the] Russians call poshlost: fake emotion, unearned nostalgia.” And then he discusses “Death in the Browser Tab,” wherein he tells us what he sees and what he knows after retracing the steps caught by the phone footage of Walter Scott, shot in the back with eight bullets from a .45-caliber Glock 21.
Politics is what humans do, though “the sheer quantity of impacted bullshit in politics” is clearly not something Cole relishes. In "The Reprint" Cole admits he did not vote until sixteen years after he was eligible, and when he did vote finally, for Obama, “like a mutation that happens quietly on a genetic level and later completely alters the body’s function, I could feel my relationship to other Americans changing. I had a sense—dubious to me for so long, and therefore avoided—of common cause.” He notes that Obama was “not an angry black man, the son of slaves” but a biracial outsider who invisibly worked his way to the center of the political establishment by piggybacking the experience of American blacks -- hiding in plain sight. The night Obama won, Cole was in Harlem.
“There was as exuberant and unscripted an outpouring of joy as I ever expect to see anywhere… Black presidents are no novelty for to me. About half my life, the half I lived in Nigeria, had been spent under their rule, and, in my mind, the color of the president was neither here nor there. But this is America. Race mattered.”Cole will speak out in "A Reader's War" against Obama’s “clandestine brand of justice” and his “ominous, discomfiting, illegal, and immoral use of weaponized drones against defenseless strangers…done for our sakes.” He admits that Obama believes he is trying “to keep us safe,” and writes “I am not naive…and I know our enemies are not all imaginary…I am grateful to those whose bravery keeps us safe.” It is one of the most difficult questions about political and military power that we face today and Cole wrestles the issue heroically. Not any of us have yet answered this question well, and until we do, the disconnect between justice and drone strikes will continue to plague us. We have unleashed a terrible swift sword on far away lands while we continue to suffer the brutality of a thousand cuts from our own citizens. Cosmic justice?
When Cole talks about literature I experience a frisson. There is nothing quite like someone very clever and well-spoken addressing something about which one cares deeply. His insights add to my pleasure, and detract nothing. His description of the poetry of Derek Walcott remind me of the first time I encountered Walcott’s work: “This is poetry with a painterly hand, stroke by patient stroke.” I have forever thought of Walcott in this way, in color and in motion: turquoise and pale yellow, cool beige and hibiscus pink, the palest gray and an ethereal green I am not sure is water, air, or sea grass. The ocean creates tides through his work, and it seems so fresh.
When Cole writes of his visit to V.S. Naipaul in “Natives on the Boat," we sense how Cole’s initial reserve is eventually won over by Naipaul’s deeply curious and wide-ranging questions. In the very next essay, “Housing Mr. Biswas,” Cole writes an ecstatic celebration of Naipaul’s accomplishment in creating the “smart and funny, but also often petulant, mean, and unsympathetic” Mr. Biswas in Trinidad,
“an important island in the Caribbean but not a particularly influential one on the world stage…the times and places—the farms, the roads, the villages, the thrumming energy of the city, the mornings, afternoon, dusks, and nights—are described with profound and vigilant affection…it brings to startling fruition in twentieth century Trinidad the promise of the nineteenth century European novel.”He’s right of course. Naipaul is a beloved writer of a type of novel no longer written, and perhaps now not often read.
Reading all these essays in one big gulp was a lot to digest so I am going to recommend a slower savoring. This is a book one must own and keep handy for those small moments when one wants a short, sharp shock of something wonderful. By all means read it all at once so you know where to go back to when you can dig up copies of some of the photos he talks about or want to recall how Cole manages in so few words to convey so much meaning. His is a voice thoughtful in expressing what he sees and yet so vulnerable and human I want to say—read this—this man is what’s been missing from your lives.
These collected essays will be published August 9, 2016. I read the e-galley provided to me by Netgalley and Random House. I note that some of the essays about art or photography that were initially published in newspapers sometimes were accompanied by examples of the work he discusses. In a perfect world, these would be included in the final book, but truthfully, his writing is clear and compelling enough to not make that nicety strictly necessary. Apologies to the publisher for quoting from a galley: my excuse is that the work is previously published and therefore no surprise.
February 6, 2017
I find it difficult to rate and review a book of essays; just like short stories, some I connected with, some I skimmed. This was my first book from the Malaprops Homeward Bound subscription, and I was pleased to get it in the mail because I would have read it eventually anyway. I've read all books by this author. My favorite is still the novel Open City, I think because it gave him the opportunity to pull some of his smaller ideas together into a longer narrative. I feel like some of these essays suffer because of a short timeline, maybe a deadline or a word limit. Some feel like just the beginning of his thoughts on a subject, and he does return to some of the ideas in multiple essays. At least three mention James Baldwin, and he even follows the path of a journey Baldwin took, continuing the journey.
But because the essays are grouped by larger topic, "Reading Things," "Seeing Things," and "Being There," some of the smaller threads are dropped and picked back up again. That's okay, there are numerous ways of organizing an essay collection, but I felt like some of these writings could be expanded. That small complaint is actually more of a compliment. I like what Teju Cole does with ideas over time.
Overall, Cole is a great observer - of people, of places, of art. He notices things, he remembers what he has read, and these connections strengthen his work and interactions with people. This is what I like about his fiction as well.
I learned about people I'd never heard of:
-Derek Walcott, Caribbean poet (mentioned in the company of a bunch of other 20th century Caribbean writers I also had not heard of: Edouard Glissant, Patrick Chamoiseau, Aime Cesaire, Maryse Conde, Samuel Selvon, George Lamming, C.L.R. James... I feel like I know nothing!)
-Andre Aciman (I read his essay on Aciman's Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere right after finishing a novel by him, but otherwise knew nothing, so this read was timely)
-Peter Sculthorpe (an Australian composer)
-endless photographers (Cole has a great love of photography, and is a photographer himself... luckily this book has some reprinted that he discusses)
I enjoyed his thoughts on growing up in Nigeria and the various issues associated with that background, essays on race and war, etc. The essay on Obama's first presidential win was almost too much to take this week, but even then he is able to capture his own joy, others' joy, and others' indifference, just in the journey home.
And like always, there is more here about the movement of cities, something which connects all of his work, and is probably what I love most.
But because the essays are grouped by larger topic, "Reading Things," "Seeing Things," and "Being There," some of the smaller threads are dropped and picked back up again. That's okay, there are numerous ways of organizing an essay collection, but I felt like some of these writings could be expanded. That small complaint is actually more of a compliment. I like what Teju Cole does with ideas over time.
Overall, Cole is a great observer - of people, of places, of art. He notices things, he remembers what he has read, and these connections strengthen his work and interactions with people. This is what I like about his fiction as well.
I learned about people I'd never heard of:
-Derek Walcott, Caribbean poet (mentioned in the company of a bunch of other 20th century Caribbean writers I also had not heard of: Edouard Glissant, Patrick Chamoiseau, Aime Cesaire, Maryse Conde, Samuel Selvon, George Lamming, C.L.R. James... I feel like I know nothing!)
-Andre Aciman (I read his essay on Aciman's Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere right after finishing a novel by him, but otherwise knew nothing, so this read was timely)
-Peter Sculthorpe (an Australian composer)
-endless photographers (Cole has a great love of photography, and is a photographer himself... luckily this book has some reprinted that he discusses)
I enjoyed his thoughts on growing up in Nigeria and the various issues associated with that background, essays on race and war, etc. The essay on Obama's first presidential win was almost too much to take this week, but even then he is able to capture his own joy, others' joy, and others' indifference, just in the journey home.
And like always, there is more here about the movement of cities, something which connects all of his work, and is probably what I love most.
September 8, 2016
1st essay. Cole goes to the same town in Switzerland that Baldwin visited. Musing on race and what it means to be black.
More to follow.
More to follow.
August 22, 2016
This collects 55 short pieces under three headings: literature, visual arts, and travel. Part I, “Reading Things,” holds most appeal for fans of his novels. Alongside straightforward book reviews are essays in which he engages with his literary heroes. A 400-page book of disparate essays is a hard ask; even photography aficionados may struggle through the long middle section. All the same, patience is rewarded by Part III, “Being There,” in which Cole deftly blends memoir and travelogue. Again and again he reflects on displacement and ambiguity. Born in Michigan but raised in Nigeria, he returned to the States for college. Though erudite and wide-ranging, these essays are not quite as successful as, say, Julian Barnes’s or Geoff Dyer’s in making any and every topic interesting to laymen. Still, Cole proves himself a modern Renaissance man, interweaving experience and opinion in rigorous yet conversational pieces that illuminate the arts.
See my full review on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website.
See my full review on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website.
November 23, 2020
Reading Teju Cole’s essay collection is like taking a masterclass in thinking and seeing and writing. His approach is both nimble and vigilant — whether he is discussing the books he has read, the photography he has examined, or the places he has visited.
In the opening essay we find Teju Cole retracing the steps of James Baldwin by visiting a rural village in Switzerland. Baldwin has spent a few weeks in Leukerbad in the 50s and published an essay on the experience of being the first black man in an all-white village, his tone both bemused and sorrowful. Visiting the same village some 60 years later, Cole meditates on what has changed and what hasn’t — the ways in which money and mode of dress now shield him from hostility, the ubiquity of black culture and black music, contrasted with pervading systems of callous disregard (Switzerland being a mere lens through which to re-examine the situation back home in the US).
This opening essay forms the backdrop, the implied soundtrack, to the essays that follow. The weather: brooding, persuasive, stimulating. I particularly enjoyed Cole’s think pieces on photography, his area of formal expertise. Here he looks at topics such as the affirmative power of portraiture as examined through the work of West African photographers Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibe; followed by Roy DeCarava’s shadowy explorations of “opacity” in visual narrative (“the right not to have to be understood on others’ terms, to be misunderstood if need be”).
As someone who takes primarily “pretty” photographs of the world around me, Cole’s ideas on “patient seeing”, on reticent imaging, on the conceptual provocations found in mystery, hit me with a force — each essay a self-contained Wunderkammer of fascination.
My only critique: I yearned for greater compression in the collection, particularly in the travel section. We get 55 essays, many previously published online, varying greatly in depth and subject matter. I wanted less of an “all-you-can-eat buffet” and more of a tightly curated assembly. I was also missing, at times, what Vivian Gornick calls “personal journalism” – the grounding of big ideas in the reflections of the personal (in other words: more personal context, more intimacy).
That said, this collection is a formidable catalogue of hours spent thinking, seeing, sifting and sequencing. As a testament to constellational thinking and the “double take of seeing”, this atlas of musings is well worth your attention.
Mood: Cerebral, analytical
Rating: 8.5/10
Also on Instagran.
Some of my favourite essays with links to online previews
• Black Body
• Portrait of Lady
• Object Lesson
• Saul Leiter
• A True Picture of Black Skin
• Gueorgui Pinkhassov
• The White Saviour Industrial Complex
Memorable quotes
What do I believe in? Imagination, gardens, science, poetry, love, and a variety of nonviolent consolations. I suspect that in aggregate all this isn’t enough but it’s where I am for now.
Photography is inescapably a memorial art. It selects, out of the flow of time, a moment to be preserved, with the moments before and after falling away like sheer cliffs.
Rural landscapes can give the double illusion of being eternal and newly born. Cities, on the other hand, are marked with specific architecture from specific dates, and this architecture, built by long-vanished others for their own uses, is the shell that we, like hermit crabs, climb into.
In the opening essay we find Teju Cole retracing the steps of James Baldwin by visiting a rural village in Switzerland. Baldwin has spent a few weeks in Leukerbad in the 50s and published an essay on the experience of being the first black man in an all-white village, his tone both bemused and sorrowful. Visiting the same village some 60 years later, Cole meditates on what has changed and what hasn’t — the ways in which money and mode of dress now shield him from hostility, the ubiquity of black culture and black music, contrasted with pervading systems of callous disregard (Switzerland being a mere lens through which to re-examine the situation back home in the US).
This opening essay forms the backdrop, the implied soundtrack, to the essays that follow. The weather: brooding, persuasive, stimulating. I particularly enjoyed Cole’s think pieces on photography, his area of formal expertise. Here he looks at topics such as the affirmative power of portraiture as examined through the work of West African photographers Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibe; followed by Roy DeCarava’s shadowy explorations of “opacity” in visual narrative (“the right not to have to be understood on others’ terms, to be misunderstood if need be”).
As someone who takes primarily “pretty” photographs of the world around me, Cole’s ideas on “patient seeing”, on reticent imaging, on the conceptual provocations found in mystery, hit me with a force — each essay a self-contained Wunderkammer of fascination.
My only critique: I yearned for greater compression in the collection, particularly in the travel section. We get 55 essays, many previously published online, varying greatly in depth and subject matter. I wanted less of an “all-you-can-eat buffet” and more of a tightly curated assembly. I was also missing, at times, what Vivian Gornick calls “personal journalism” – the grounding of big ideas in the reflections of the personal (in other words: more personal context, more intimacy).
That said, this collection is a formidable catalogue of hours spent thinking, seeing, sifting and sequencing. As a testament to constellational thinking and the “double take of seeing”, this atlas of musings is well worth your attention.
Mood: Cerebral, analytical
Rating: 8.5/10
Also on Instagran.
Some of my favourite essays with links to online previews
• Black Body
• Portrait of Lady
• Object Lesson
• Saul Leiter
• A True Picture of Black Skin
• Gueorgui Pinkhassov
• The White Saviour Industrial Complex
Memorable quotes
What do I believe in? Imagination, gardens, science, poetry, love, and a variety of nonviolent consolations. I suspect that in aggregate all this isn’t enough but it’s where I am for now.
Photography is inescapably a memorial art. It selects, out of the flow of time, a moment to be preserved, with the moments before and after falling away like sheer cliffs.
Rural landscapes can give the double illusion of being eternal and newly born. Cities, on the other hand, are marked with specific architecture from specific dates, and this architecture, built by long-vanished others for their own uses, is the shell that we, like hermit crabs, climb into.
July 17, 2018
Teju Cole is a novelist, photographer, and essayist. He is an American citizen, born here but raised in Nigeria. He is the author of several of my most favorite books: Open City and Every Day is for the Thief. I was fortunate enough to see him at an exhibition of his photographs here in NYC last summer and to listen to him speak about the pictures and his process.
Known and Strange Things: Essays is a collection of essays on a variety of topics. One section is devoted to photography, a subject about which I know only a little, but his meditations on different works, his discussions of process and his general musings on art are fascinating. In another section, Cole explores his experiences as a traveler (of which he seems to do a great deal!) and what those experiences say both about the places he visits and himself as the visitor. And then there is a section in which he examines social/political events all over the world, including Nigeria where he was raised and the United States where he is now. His essay on immigration, written several years ago, is sadly highly relevant today. He writes about the sufferings of people attempting to enter or reenter the U.S., their deaths, their separations from their families, and why they are leaving their countries (in this case, Mexico). He also looks at the role the United States has played in destabilizing governments and economies throughout the world and the moral implications and actual results of these policies.
Cole's is an interesting mind to spend time with. Never dull, it's like having a conversation with a find mind and artist. Of course, it's a conversation in which you're listening and responding only with the thoughts he has provoked but in the company of such a fine writer, this was sufficient for me.
Known and Strange Things: Essays is a collection of essays on a variety of topics. One section is devoted to photography, a subject about which I know only a little, but his meditations on different works, his discussions of process and his general musings on art are fascinating. In another section, Cole explores his experiences as a traveler (of which he seems to do a great deal!) and what those experiences say both about the places he visits and himself as the visitor. And then there is a section in which he examines social/political events all over the world, including Nigeria where he was raised and the United States where he is now. His essay on immigration, written several years ago, is sadly highly relevant today. He writes about the sufferings of people attempting to enter or reenter the U.S., their deaths, their separations from their families, and why they are leaving their countries (in this case, Mexico). He also looks at the role the United States has played in destabilizing governments and economies throughout the world and the moral implications and actual results of these policies.
Cole's is an interesting mind to spend time with. Never dull, it's like having a conversation with a find mind and artist. Of course, it's a conversation in which you're listening and responding only with the thoughts he has provoked but in the company of such a fine writer, this was sufficient for me.
June 11, 2018
I am a novelist, and my goal in writing a novel is to leave the reader not knowing what to think. A good novel shouldn't have a point.
This past Saturday my wife and I viewed the Parts Unknown episode devoted to Lagos. This viewing was obviously burdened with grief. What did my mourning betray? I spent much of the weekend lodged in such contemplation but alas Saturday I watched Anthony Bourdain traipsing the frenetic streets of the Nigerian capital.
He made allusions to the improvisational nature of the city, how it self-regulated. There was only a casual gloss to the idea that the city "policed itself". This minor point was the subject of essay late in Cole's collection. Lynching or popular justice is still somewhat common in Nigeria. Apparently it is often documented on Youtube. I told my best friend who was about to fly back from the Netherlands I wish I could unread the graphic essay. This is Cole's gift: he makes us uneasy, not expectedly like when discussing racial politics but about the reality of the fleeting human experience.
Cole name-drops, but with a deadpan air. He introduces figures, like Peter Sculthorpe of whom I wasn't at all aware. He cites lines of poetry and ruminates on why in Brazil the wait staff ignore him in a restaurant. Much of this volume is on photography which offers minimal interest to me. There is also some excellent journalism. Cole went to Harlem in 2008 the night of president Obama's election. Cole looks at his unlikely origins born in Michigan, raised in Nigeria and back to the US as a plethora of challenges and opportunities. He is haunted by his own doppelgänger: W.G. Sebald. He parses Sebald's work and reflects. there is a rich vein of estrangement in his work. perhaps in my own life. Maybe that's why even when in deep disagreement with the author, Teju Cole feels like home.
This past Saturday my wife and I viewed the Parts Unknown episode devoted to Lagos. This viewing was obviously burdened with grief. What did my mourning betray? I spent much of the weekend lodged in such contemplation but alas Saturday I watched Anthony Bourdain traipsing the frenetic streets of the Nigerian capital.
He made allusions to the improvisational nature of the city, how it self-regulated. There was only a casual gloss to the idea that the city "policed itself". This minor point was the subject of essay late in Cole's collection. Lynching or popular justice is still somewhat common in Nigeria. Apparently it is often documented on Youtube. I told my best friend who was about to fly back from the Netherlands I wish I could unread the graphic essay. This is Cole's gift: he makes us uneasy, not expectedly like when discussing racial politics but about the reality of the fleeting human experience.
Cole name-drops, but with a deadpan air. He introduces figures, like Peter Sculthorpe of whom I wasn't at all aware. He cites lines of poetry and ruminates on why in Brazil the wait staff ignore him in a restaurant. Much of this volume is on photography which offers minimal interest to me. There is also some excellent journalism. Cole went to Harlem in 2008 the night of president Obama's election. Cole looks at his unlikely origins born in Michigan, raised in Nigeria and back to the US as a plethora of challenges and opportunities. He is haunted by his own doppelgänger: W.G. Sebald. He parses Sebald's work and reflects. there is a rich vein of estrangement in his work. perhaps in my own life. Maybe that's why even when in deep disagreement with the author, Teju Cole feels like home.
September 6, 2019
Again rather a mixed bag for me. Teju Cole caught my attention last year with his fabulous Open City, an original walk through New York, to which his Nigerian roots in particular added an extra dimension. This book is something completely different: a series of previously published essays, a colorful collection of indeed "known and strange things". I was - of course - most charmed by his reflections on writers such as James Baldwin and W.G. Sebald. Cole shows quite a bit of erudition, and what is striking again is how easily he jumps from the Western "higher" culture to the African and back. This American of Nigerian origin clearly profiles himself as "trans-identical", although he continues to maintain a special sensitivity to the inherent American racism against blacks.
The entire middle section, which mainly focuses on his passion for photography, appealed to me much less, not only because I have little affinity with it, but especially because the photos discussed were not printed themselves (you will find a small selection at the end of the book).
But then there is the last third of the book, where Cole taps into the most diverse topics. This part is sometimes very political in focus, very radical indeed. In particular former president Barack Obama is the culprit of Cole: for Cole he is not a true African American, just part of a villain political system and Cole calls him a downright mass murderer, due to the massive deployment of drones in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, killing thousands of innocent civilians. Cole is vehemently kicking against the idealized image of Obama with the (left-wing) West European intelligentsia and the "liberals" in the States.
Also the entire "Cony" discussion is being revived: Cole caused quite a stir in 2012 when in a few tweets he criticized the outrage over the documentary about the brutal Ugandan children's army leader. In a kind of apologetic essay he tries to explain exactly what he meant then, namely puncturing the "White Saviour Industrial Complex".
In short: Cole certainly has an own, radical voice that is worth hearing, but I wasn't really blown away by this book.
The entire middle section, which mainly focuses on his passion for photography, appealed to me much less, not only because I have little affinity with it, but especially because the photos discussed were not printed themselves (you will find a small selection at the end of the book).
But then there is the last third of the book, where Cole taps into the most diverse topics. This part is sometimes very political in focus, very radical indeed. In particular former president Barack Obama is the culprit of Cole: for Cole he is not a true African American, just part of a villain political system and Cole calls him a downright mass murderer, due to the massive deployment of drones in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, killing thousands of innocent civilians. Cole is vehemently kicking against the idealized image of Obama with the (left-wing) West European intelligentsia and the "liberals" in the States.
Also the entire "Cony" discussion is being revived: Cole caused quite a stir in 2012 when in a few tweets he criticized the outrage over the documentary about the brutal Ugandan children's army leader. In a kind of apologetic essay he tries to explain exactly what he meant then, namely puncturing the "White Saviour Industrial Complex".
In short: Cole certainly has an own, radical voice that is worth hearing, but I wasn't really blown away by this book.
February 19, 2017
An impressive collection of elegantly written essays!
I have read a couple of fiction books by Teju Cole and was interesting in reading his essay collection to see if his nonfiction writing would shed light on his fiction writing. Not only did I gain a new appreciation for his fiction writing but was treated to a thoughtful contemplative journey of timely and informative issues.
While this enthralling collection covers a diverse range of subjects it is the sincere honesty in the writing that had me in a thoughtful mood after each essay. I highly recommend this collection to readers looking for an intelligent thought-provoking read
I have read a couple of fiction books by Teju Cole and was interesting in reading his essay collection to see if his nonfiction writing would shed light on his fiction writing. Not only did I gain a new appreciation for his fiction writing but was treated to a thoughtful contemplative journey of timely and informative issues.
While this enthralling collection covers a diverse range of subjects it is the sincere honesty in the writing that had me in a thoughtful mood after each essay. I highly recommend this collection to readers looking for an intelligent thought-provoking read
June 17, 2017
3 to 5 stars (depending on the essay). After reading Cole's novel Open City a few years ago, I decided I didn't like it. But the novel wouldn't let me go, staying with me for days and weeks and even now, years later. So I revised my opinion. Any book that makes me think, that guides me towards viewing life differently, is invaluable. That's what Cole does in this collection of essays.
The first section, Reading Things, is a selection of reviews on literature and poetry. The 2nd section, Seeing Things, consists of photography reviews or thoughts about the landscapes he has visited. Just as I was getting used to a cerebral zone, with the neurons in my brain forming thoughts they hadn't considered before, Cole changed gears in the third section, Being There, and hit me hard, right in the heart.
The first section, Reading Things, is a selection of reviews on literature and poetry. The 2nd section, Seeing Things, consists of photography reviews or thoughts about the landscapes he has visited. Just as I was getting used to a cerebral zone, with the neurons in my brain forming thoughts they hadn't considered before, Cole changed gears in the third section, Being There, and hit me hard, right in the heart.
December 14, 2017
I feel so smart reading his essays. The reader gets coles education and world view pretty much rammed down the throat but it IS fun and educational.
Read
August 31, 2022Perhaps Teju Cole is a better essayist than a novelist. After all, of the two novels I've read of his, I far preferred the more autobiographical one, the one that seemed to be more of an exploration of what Nigeria is and what it means to be Nigerian in the present moment. Open City had great stuff in it too, but the twist ending honestly seemed like something a publisher would have stuck on to make it seem more "novelistic." No man, keep it up with the Sebald shit! You clearly want to just do that!
Known and Strange Things likewise has the sort of ekphrastic quality throughout, which makes it for me a pleasantly chilly read. Sure, there's the article about white saviors and the lolcows of Kony2012 that got people heated (and boy oh boy do I hate my country's national sentimentality in all its forms, the banality of an American Idol episode impressed upon the evil of geopolitics), but that's an outlier. Mostly Teju Cole seems to just want to think about art and perception and things. Me too.
Known and Strange Things likewise has the sort of ekphrastic quality throughout, which makes it for me a pleasantly chilly read. Sure, there's the article about white saviors and the lolcows of Kony2012 that got people heated (and boy oh boy do I hate my country's national sentimentality in all its forms, the banality of an American Idol episode impressed upon the evil of geopolitics), but that's an outlier. Mostly Teju Cole seems to just want to think about art and perception and things. Me too.
February 21, 2018
I just get to know this writer a few days ago. It seems to me that he is very popular among university students. This book deals with a range of essays. So no matter what is your taste, you will find something interesting in this book. I particularly liked his essays on James Baldwin, Naipaul, but the one that I really enjoyed reading is titled 'Bad Laws.' In this essay, he writes about what happens to (or being done to) Palestinian people in the name of Law. Even though my understanding of that part of the world is limited, what I see in the essay that how Laws, so often, irrespective time and place, are used against the weak.
His essay on Baldwin about race in parts reads as if, by default, he is 'essentializing' ideas about race. This is very often the case especially in the case of black writers, (except for Toni Morrison). Most Black writers about race in ways that further add on to the already existing knowledge banks that keep the Blacks firmly in their place. So I do not want to rewrite Cole's well-intentioned words here. These essays on race also read as if he were saying what the 'white men' want him to say.
There are too many essays on Photography. Since I am not so keen on them, I skipped them. The book is an easy read even though it is a long book.
His essay on Baldwin about race in parts reads as if, by default, he is 'essentializing' ideas about race. This is very often the case especially in the case of black writers, (except for Toni Morrison). Most Black writers about race in ways that further add on to the already existing knowledge banks that keep the Blacks firmly in their place. So I do not want to rewrite Cole's well-intentioned words here. These essays on race also read as if he were saying what the 'white men' want him to say.
There are too many essays on Photography. Since I am not so keen on them, I skipped them. The book is an easy read even though it is a long book.
November 15, 2017
Nov 15 2017
tba
_____________
nov 9 2017
i am determined to finish this book by Dec. 31, 2017!! i abandoned it in 2016. the essays in the final third appeal to me much more strongly. or maybe i needes a rest from art and literary reviews one after another
thus far these politically edged essays hook me in, they are more streamlined. like Cole's night in NYC at 125th and ACP Blvd 7th Ave on Nov 4 2008 night Obama won the presidency. or reasons he sees Obama as a more representative of late 20 c immigrant story presidency than first African American . or Ebola, Nigerian government.
tba
_____________
nov 9 2017
i am determined to finish this book by Dec. 31, 2017!! i abandoned it in 2016. the essays in the final third appeal to me much more strongly. or maybe i needes a rest from art and literary reviews one after another
thus far these politically edged essays hook me in, they are more streamlined. like Cole's night in NYC at 125th and ACP Blvd 7th Ave on Nov 4 2008 night Obama won the presidency. or reasons he sees Obama as a more representative of late 20 c immigrant story presidency than first African American . or Ebola, Nigerian government.
March 28, 2018
Might be kind of in love with Teju Cole now. A beautifully engaging and readable collection of essays, spanning so many subjects (and so many that I am so delighted by: W.G. Sebald, Anne Carson, Virginia Woolf, just to name a few). His style and logic worked on me in a powerful way. I feel kind of like a fangirl?? Like I might drive an unreasonable distance just to hear him speak for an hour??
January 7, 2017
Teju Cole is master of his crafts. His extensive knowledge, deep understanding, and detailed explanation of them are startling. In this collection of essays, Cole discusses topics ranging from literature to photography to art, music, travel, the Black Lives Matter movement, world politics, social media, Boko Haram, mob lynchings, and so much more.
Reading this book felt like fine dining, or like a journey around the world. The places he takes you may be breathtaking or unexpectedly ramshackle, but rest assured that the view is worth the journey. The end result will be a sound education of the mind and an awakening (poking and proding at the least) of your conscience. This book had me deeply in thought, smiling, and sometimes even giggling.
Not everyone will enjoy it as much as I did, but I recommend that everyone at least pick it up and read, if only for the beautiful, beautiful writing.
Reading this book felt like fine dining, or like a journey around the world. The places he takes you may be breathtaking or unexpectedly ramshackle, but rest assured that the view is worth the journey. The end result will be a sound education of the mind and an awakening (poking and proding at the least) of your conscience. This book had me deeply in thought, smiling, and sometimes even giggling.
Not everyone will enjoy it as much as I did, but I recommend that everyone at least pick it up and read, if only for the beautiful, beautiful writing.
November 5, 2021
With great compassion and intelligence, Teju Cole’s essays engage a wide range of subjects. The book’s first section shines a bright lens on the work of literary giants, such as Baldwin, Transtromer, Walcott, Naipaul, and Sebald. Cole nicely blends his own experiences into his literary examinations. In section two, his passion is the art of photography. It is joyful to read how he discusses famous photographs with the keen eye of a poet. By the book’s third section, Cole turns his attention into that of an activist, as he bears witness to the politics and turmoil around the globe. Startling and frightening pieces, such as “A Reader’s War,” address the horror of drone strikes and what these attacks say about our moral stature. In another powerful piece called “In Alabama,” Cole reminds us that “no generation is free of the demands of conscience,” as he links the bloodshed of the Civil Rights movement to the modern epidemic of young black men murdered by police. Another piece such as “Bad Laws” offers an incisive look at the ongoing crisis between the unjustly-treated Palestinians and the law-enforcing Israelis. Some of the shorter pieces pack just as much intensity. Cole addresses torture in South Africa during apartheid in one piece and the demolition of ancient statues by the Taliban in another. He recounts heartbreaking stories of mob violence in Nigeria, and he concludes the book with the sorrowful fates of immigrants and migrant workers trying to cross the U.S. border. After reading Known and Strange Things, I’m compelled to give deeper reflection to the world at large. The beauty of Cole’s words and the depth of his ideas are at once inspiring and empowering.
July 29, 2016
This book was a bit difficult for me to rate. As is often the case with essay collection not every essay clicked with me but some were really outstanding.
Especially the first part dragged for me. Here Teju Cole writes about a bit about fiction and mostly about poetry. And I like poetry - but this is one area where me not being a native speaker really is a problem. I enjoy German poetry an awful lot but for some reason English poetry doesn't quite work for me. I can understand intellectually that these essays were very well done and presumably super interesting for people more familiar with the subject matter.
This was also true for the second part, where Cole talks about his other passion - photography. While I really enjoyed reading essays by someone so clearly passionate about something, sometimes I wished the photographs were depicted alongside the essay discussing them. Because this again is not really an area I know a lot about.
The last part on the other hand I loved; here Cole talks about traveling in a truly unique way. I absolutely would have loved more of those essays.
I most enjoyed his essays when they were political in some sense. Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot and I certainly learned new things while reading it.
Especially the first part dragged for me. Here Teju Cole writes about a bit about fiction and mostly about poetry. And I like poetry - but this is one area where me not being a native speaker really is a problem. I enjoy German poetry an awful lot but for some reason English poetry doesn't quite work for me. I can understand intellectually that these essays were very well done and presumably super interesting for people more familiar with the subject matter.
This was also true for the second part, where Cole talks about his other passion - photography. While I really enjoyed reading essays by someone so clearly passionate about something, sometimes I wished the photographs were depicted alongside the essay discussing them. Because this again is not really an area I know a lot about.
The last part on the other hand I loved; here Cole talks about traveling in a truly unique way. I absolutely would have loved more of those essays.
I most enjoyed his essays when they were political in some sense. Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot and I certainly learned new things while reading it.
February 19, 2018
"Rich-Read" provoking prose, heavy on arts, fiercely opinionated, comprises a large section on photography, American prejudice, racial struggles and global wars. Each mention of Pakistan warmed my heart, particularly Faiz's poetry in Nayyara Noor's voice - Cole knows how to invoke literary feels...
Read
March 30, 2025finding it a bit difficult to write a review for this one. I tend to find great enjoyment in essay collections, but had a harder time finding it with this one. perhaps the personal, auto fiction nature of “every day is for the thief” led me to believe that these essays would also be personal in nature. however, many times in the first and second section I felt like I was just reading words. the last section brought more of the personal experience I was looking for, but not enough to make up for the first 200 and some pages. I don’t want to be misunderstood, the content was exceptional. I, a 24 year old american-born white woman, have lived a completely different experience than teju — I cannot fault or dismiss him or his work for regarding things I cannot understand. at it’s best, this collection expanded my awareness of and sympathy towards those experiencing oppression and ridicule in places near and far.
October 9, 2016
Een aantal jaren terug was ik tamelijk opgetogen over "Open City", een roman die vol staat met intelligente, verbeeldingsrijke en bijzonder elegant geformuleerde mijmeringen van een flaneur, die met volstrekt open en nieuwsgierige blik kijkt naar New York en ons verrukt met zijn verbazing. Nu heeft Teju Cole dan een bundel essays geschreven waarin hij zelf die rol van verbeeldingsrijk mijmerende flaneur op zich neemt. En weer verrukt hij mij met zijn verbazing, zijn verbeeldingsrijkdom, zijn uiterst intelligente toon, en zijn enorm wijde blik die achteloos schakelt van Afrikaanse kunst naar Mahler, van Nigeriaanse misstanden naar Canetti, of van James Baldwin naar de schoonheid van het Zwitserse landschap. Ook schakelt hij erg elegant van beschouwend naar persoonlijk. Bijvoorbeeld als volgt: "When we write fiction, we write within what we know. But we also write in the hope that what we have written will somehow outdistance us. We hope, through the spooky art of writing, to trick ourselves into divulging truths that we do not know we know. 'Open City', published two months before my eye troubles began, is in part an examination of the limits of sensitivity and of knowledge". Een mooie passage over "Open City", die nog extra pregnant wordt omdat beschouwingen in die roman over "blind spots" resoneren met concrete oogperikelen van Teju Cole zelf en met zijn angsten daarover. Maar ook een passage die mooi de inzet van deze bundel essays verwoordt: schrijven om ongedachte waarheden naar boven te halen, kijken om ongedachte perspectieven te gaan zien.
De bundel bestaat uit drie groepen essays, "reading things", "seeing things" en "being there", gevolgd door een fraaie epiloog over "blind spots" (waaruit ik net citeerde). De essays over "seeing things" vond ik de meest betoverende en verrassende, mogelijk omdat ze gaan over de mij tamelijk onbekende kunst van de fotografie. Teju Cole, zelf fotograaf maar ook kunsthistoricus, doet daarin de ene na de andere prachtuitspraak over verschillende vormen van fotografie (zwart-wit, experimenteel, maar ook b.v. Instagram, Flickr) en hoe al die verschillende vormen nieuwe, soms uiterst raadselachtige perspectieven bieden op onze zo vreemde wereld. Vooral prachtig vond ik hoe Cole die foto's' beschrijft, en door die beschrijving de toch al fraaie en meerduidige foto's nog meerduidiger maakt. Maar de leesimpressies over o.a. Conrad, Sebald, Naipaul en Baldwin in "reading things" vond ik ook lang niet verkeerd, en deze sectie bevat ook een fraaie dialoog tussen Teju Cole en Alesandar Hemon. Mooie leesimpressies, die mij nog weer anders deden kijken naar schrijvers die ik al ken (zoals Sebald) en die mij extra nieuwsgierig maakten naar schrijvers die ik nog niet ken (zoals Baldwin). Ook de meer geëngageerde essays in "being there" vond ik intrigerend. Zo vond ik het bijvoorbeeld prachtig om te zien hoe Cole, als kosmopolitische Nigeriaan met Amerikaans paspoort, zowel Nigeria als de VS met onbevangen blik bekijkt en hoe genuanceerd en elegant hij schrijft over onbegrijpelijke, mij vaak onbekende en soms tamelijk gruwelijke misstanden in beide landen. En die misstanden zet hij vaak bewonderenswaardig raak neer: "In the office is a large map of the border and the Sonoran desert. One red dot for each death, the officer says. The map is a field of proliferating color, like something growing out of control in a petri dish". Of ook door zijn volgende beschrijving van een desolaat, kaal graventerrein voor overleden illegale immigranten: "There are two columbaria for urns. The wind blows thrash across the graves. Some of the grave markers, particularly the older ones, have names and dates on them. May others are simply marked JOHN DOE, JANE DOE or UNKNOWN, though each, to someone somewhere, must once have meant the world, and more".
Dat Teju Cole nog maar veel moge reizen, flaneren, kijken en fotograferen. En dat hij nog maar veel essays en romans moge schrijven. Ik wil ze allemaal lezen.
De bundel bestaat uit drie groepen essays, "reading things", "seeing things" en "being there", gevolgd door een fraaie epiloog over "blind spots" (waaruit ik net citeerde). De essays over "seeing things" vond ik de meest betoverende en verrassende, mogelijk omdat ze gaan over de mij tamelijk onbekende kunst van de fotografie. Teju Cole, zelf fotograaf maar ook kunsthistoricus, doet daarin de ene na de andere prachtuitspraak over verschillende vormen van fotografie (zwart-wit, experimenteel, maar ook b.v. Instagram, Flickr) en hoe al die verschillende vormen nieuwe, soms uiterst raadselachtige perspectieven bieden op onze zo vreemde wereld. Vooral prachtig vond ik hoe Cole die foto's' beschrijft, en door die beschrijving de toch al fraaie en meerduidige foto's nog meerduidiger maakt. Maar de leesimpressies over o.a. Conrad, Sebald, Naipaul en Baldwin in "reading things" vond ik ook lang niet verkeerd, en deze sectie bevat ook een fraaie dialoog tussen Teju Cole en Alesandar Hemon. Mooie leesimpressies, die mij nog weer anders deden kijken naar schrijvers die ik al ken (zoals Sebald) en die mij extra nieuwsgierig maakten naar schrijvers die ik nog niet ken (zoals Baldwin). Ook de meer geëngageerde essays in "being there" vond ik intrigerend. Zo vond ik het bijvoorbeeld prachtig om te zien hoe Cole, als kosmopolitische Nigeriaan met Amerikaans paspoort, zowel Nigeria als de VS met onbevangen blik bekijkt en hoe genuanceerd en elegant hij schrijft over onbegrijpelijke, mij vaak onbekende en soms tamelijk gruwelijke misstanden in beide landen. En die misstanden zet hij vaak bewonderenswaardig raak neer: "In the office is a large map of the border and the Sonoran desert. One red dot for each death, the officer says. The map is a field of proliferating color, like something growing out of control in a petri dish". Of ook door zijn volgende beschrijving van een desolaat, kaal graventerrein voor overleden illegale immigranten: "There are two columbaria for urns. The wind blows thrash across the graves. Some of the grave markers, particularly the older ones, have names and dates on them. May others are simply marked JOHN DOE, JANE DOE or UNKNOWN, though each, to someone somewhere, must once have meant the world, and more".
Dat Teju Cole nog maar veel moge reizen, flaneren, kijken en fotograferen. En dat hij nog maar veel essays en romans moge schrijven. Ik wil ze allemaal lezen.
May 22, 2018
I'm a fan, but the insights on photography are often pedestrian and there are too many of them and he comes off as elitist (often in the takedown of elitism) and a little self-impressed at times. His other work is critical, but not the work of a critic. This feels like a critic's book.
April 12, 2021
La manera en cómo leo los libros a veces la podría comparar con una especie de Big Bang: algunos libros llegan a mis manos sin yo haberlos buscado, por mera aleatoriedad, un regalo, alguien lo dejó olvidado, qué se yo, y con una explosión inicial que se traduce en la lectura de sus primeras páginas: comienza la vida de esa lectura.
Y poco a poco, mientras avanzo entre sus páginas, esa explosión inicial va tomando forma, dotando de orden el mundo a mi alrededor, explicando y respondiendo preguntas hechas anteriormente, y otras que no había podido formular hasta mi encuentro con ese libro.
Teju Cole no me era completamente desconocido, en una de las rachas de Freni en el depa de Serapio vi que él lo estaba leyendo, pero que “el bueno” de él era otro.
También en alguna ocasión vi que papá tenía un ejemplar en español de Cada día es del ladrón (editado en Acantilado con traducción del Marcelo Cohen), y me lo llevé para leerlo “un día de estos”.
Así que cuando cayó a mis manos este ejemplar algo resonaba en mi cabeza.
En los comentarios que escribo sobre mis lecturas, me gusta hablar un poco de cómo llegué yo a cierto libro, o cómo llegaron a mis manos, porque ello dota de cierta aura la lectura, ese “origen” imprime ciertas emociones, y dota de otros valores la experiencia que será leerlo.
Extrañamente, este libro en específico llegó a mí desde Sudáfrica. Ahora no recuerdo qué razones me dio la Rebeca para traerme desde allá este ejemplar, algo debió leer sobre él, o quizá se lo recomendaron, ni idea; el caso es que me gustó el gesto, y creo recordar que comencé a leerlo ese mismo día.
Cuando leí la introducción recuerdo haber sentido una prosa bellísima y una sensación de calma, acompañada de un humor muy fino.
Y entonces lo puse en pausa.
Por mucho tiempo.
Cada que lo veía sentía deseos de leerlo, me gusta como escribe Cole, me gusta mucho. Hay una inteligencia humilde y precisa que se desprende de las líneas en cada página, un ojo que contempla con calma, con pausa, lo que observa, que se detiene a pensar y meditar lo visto, lo sentido.
Y ello me llevaba a posponer su lectura, sentía que mi caos y prisa del momento me estaban impidiendo disfrutar a fondo su lectura.
Strange and Known Things es un libro que abre caminos para la contemplación de tu entorno, te hace preguntarte si cuando viajaste a cierta ciudad la apreciaste con todo lo que se debía apreciar, o si aquella visita a un museo o a una galería fue bien aprovechada; te hace contemplar mentalmente la idea de regresarte sobre tus pasos y volver a recorrer caminos que crees que vale la pena volver a andar.
Tomé algunas notas citando pocas frases del libro, y apunté nombres de personas y lecturas y canciones y fotógafos y más, con la idea de investigarlos después, como: Bessie Smith, Bettye Swann, Jean Wells, sin embargo, la experiencia de leer a Cole es hipnótica, te atrapa y te sumerge en una atmósfera de paz, incluso en aquellos momentos en los que la protesta y el enojo son palpables, pareciera que lo hace siempre desde un lugar firme y seguro.
Ahora no recuerdo por qué pospuse tanto escribir mi comentario, seguro lo dejé para después, como dejo tantas cosas, seguro me enfrasqué en otras lecturas, en la vida que desde antes de terminar de leerlo comparto ahora con Lizbeth y que me tiene, también, embelesado y tranquilo y en paz y enamorado.
Poco antes de terminarlo, busqué qué más tenía publicado Cole, qué más había de él, vi videos en YouTube; y terminé encargando su novela Open City, decidido a leerle todo lo que tenga publicado, todo lo que publique después.
Y poco a poco, mientras avanzo entre sus páginas, esa explosión inicial va tomando forma, dotando de orden el mundo a mi alrededor, explicando y respondiendo preguntas hechas anteriormente, y otras que no había podido formular hasta mi encuentro con ese libro.
Teju Cole no me era completamente desconocido, en una de las rachas de Freni en el depa de Serapio vi que él lo estaba leyendo, pero que “el bueno” de él era otro.
También en alguna ocasión vi que papá tenía un ejemplar en español de Cada día es del ladrón (editado en Acantilado con traducción del Marcelo Cohen), y me lo llevé para leerlo “un día de estos”.
Así que cuando cayó a mis manos este ejemplar algo resonaba en mi cabeza.
En los comentarios que escribo sobre mis lecturas, me gusta hablar un poco de cómo llegué yo a cierto libro, o cómo llegaron a mis manos, porque ello dota de cierta aura la lectura, ese “origen” imprime ciertas emociones, y dota de otros valores la experiencia que será leerlo.
Extrañamente, este libro en específico llegó a mí desde Sudáfrica. Ahora no recuerdo qué razones me dio la Rebeca para traerme desde allá este ejemplar, algo debió leer sobre él, o quizá se lo recomendaron, ni idea; el caso es que me gustó el gesto, y creo recordar que comencé a leerlo ese mismo día.
Cuando leí la introducción recuerdo haber sentido una prosa bellísima y una sensación de calma, acompañada de un humor muy fino.
Y entonces lo puse en pausa.
Por mucho tiempo.
Cada que lo veía sentía deseos de leerlo, me gusta como escribe Cole, me gusta mucho. Hay una inteligencia humilde y precisa que se desprende de las líneas en cada página, un ojo que contempla con calma, con pausa, lo que observa, que se detiene a pensar y meditar lo visto, lo sentido.
Y ello me llevaba a posponer su lectura, sentía que mi caos y prisa del momento me estaban impidiendo disfrutar a fondo su lectura.
Strange and Known Things es un libro que abre caminos para la contemplación de tu entorno, te hace preguntarte si cuando viajaste a cierta ciudad la apreciaste con todo lo que se debía apreciar, o si aquella visita a un museo o a una galería fue bien aprovechada; te hace contemplar mentalmente la idea de regresarte sobre tus pasos y volver a recorrer caminos que crees que vale la pena volver a andar.
Tomé algunas notas citando pocas frases del libro, y apunté nombres de personas y lecturas y canciones y fotógafos y más, con la idea de investigarlos después, como: Bessie Smith, Bettye Swann, Jean Wells, sin embargo, la experiencia de leer a Cole es hipnótica, te atrapa y te sumerge en una atmósfera de paz, incluso en aquellos momentos en los que la protesta y el enojo son palpables, pareciera que lo hace siempre desde un lugar firme y seguro.
Ahora no recuerdo por qué pospuse tanto escribir mi comentario, seguro lo dejé para después, como dejo tantas cosas, seguro me enfrasqué en otras lecturas, en la vida que desde antes de terminar de leerlo comparto ahora con Lizbeth y que me tiene, también, embelesado y tranquilo y en paz y enamorado.
Poco antes de terminarlo, busqué qué más tenía publicado Cole, qué más había de él, vi videos en YouTube; y terminé encargando su novela Open City, decidido a leerle todo lo que tenga publicado, todo lo que publique después.
February 17, 2017
Teju Cole had a really great article in the NYT shortly after the election. I had seen his name floating around and thought he would make for a good read.
The dude is educated, urbane, cosmopolitan, and seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of “high culture.” These people are often impressive, highly polished, and conform their personalities to certain absolutes through sheer force of unrelenting will. But they can come across as tedious; I found this collection to be quite tedious.
There were some good essays—he describes election night 2008 so well! His feelings about the almost magical geologic improbability of Rio de Janeiro mirror my own!—but there were a ton of clunkers, too, often which seemed to be forced, or without anything particularly important or profound to say. I can’t knock him for my own disinterest, but I found the essays on photography to be the blandest, and gave up halfway through that portion of the book.
But he seems like a cool guy. If I saw him around Brooklyn, I’d definitely say what’s up.
The dude is educated, urbane, cosmopolitan, and seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of “high culture.” These people are often impressive, highly polished, and conform their personalities to certain absolutes through sheer force of unrelenting will. But they can come across as tedious; I found this collection to be quite tedious.
There were some good essays—he describes election night 2008 so well! His feelings about the almost magical geologic improbability of Rio de Janeiro mirror my own!—but there were a ton of clunkers, too, often which seemed to be forced, or without anything particularly important or profound to say. I can’t knock him for my own disinterest, but I found the essays on photography to be the blandest, and gave up halfway through that portion of the book.
But he seems like a cool guy. If I saw him around Brooklyn, I’d definitely say what’s up.
Read
May 5, 2021Another very excellent and thoughtful book from Teju Cole (author of “Open City”). This book is filled with intellectually curious essays on the problems of history and society, as well as the joys of film, photography, and travel. Some of my favorite essays included “Black Body”, “Natives on the Boat”, “Tomas Transtromer”, “Age, Actually”, “Memories of Things Unseen”, and “Death in the Browser Tab”. A few passages:
“But when the photograph outlives the body—when people die, scenes change, trees grow or are chopped down—it becomes a memorial. And when the thing photographed is a work of art or architecture that has been destroyed, this effect is amplified even further. A painting, sculpture, or temple, as a record of both human skill and emotion, is already a site of memory; when its only remaining trace is a photograph, that photograph becomes a memorial to a memory. Such a photograph is shadowed by its vanished ancestor.”
“American racism has many moving parts, and has had enough centuries in which to evolve an impressive camouflage. It can hoard its malice in great stillness for a long time, all the while pretending to look the other way. Like misogyny, it is atmospheric. You don’t see it at first. But understanding comes.”
“I have no doubt that he has a good heart. Listening to him on the radio, I began to think we could iron the whole thing out over a couple of beers. But that, precisely, is what worries me. That is what made me compare American sentimentality to a “wounded hippo.” His good heart does not always allow him to think constellationally. He does not connect the dots or see the patterns of power behind the isolated “disasters.” All he sees is hungry mouths, and he, in his own advocacy-by-journalism way, is putting food in those mouths as fast as he can.”
“The question then is whether Amour is one of those films that one urges everyone to see. I don’t think so. It’s difficult to place it as a product; it’s too troubling and bruising to be a nice night out at the movies. You wouldn’t want to watch it after dinner, nor would you want to go to dinner after watching it. But it is undoubtedly the kind of film that will find its viewers, and that will long continue to trouble them in the right ways. For hours after I saw it and, intermittently, for days afterward, I could not shake the world and truths it conveyed.”
— Known and Strange Things: Essays by Teju Cole
https://a.co/8TKwnAr
“But when the photograph outlives the body—when people die, scenes change, trees grow or are chopped down—it becomes a memorial. And when the thing photographed is a work of art or architecture that has been destroyed, this effect is amplified even further. A painting, sculpture, or temple, as a record of both human skill and emotion, is already a site of memory; when its only remaining trace is a photograph, that photograph becomes a memorial to a memory. Such a photograph is shadowed by its vanished ancestor.”
“American racism has many moving parts, and has had enough centuries in which to evolve an impressive camouflage. It can hoard its malice in great stillness for a long time, all the while pretending to look the other way. Like misogyny, it is atmospheric. You don’t see it at first. But understanding comes.”
“I have no doubt that he has a good heart. Listening to him on the radio, I began to think we could iron the whole thing out over a couple of beers. But that, precisely, is what worries me. That is what made me compare American sentimentality to a “wounded hippo.” His good heart does not always allow him to think constellationally. He does not connect the dots or see the patterns of power behind the isolated “disasters.” All he sees is hungry mouths, and he, in his own advocacy-by-journalism way, is putting food in those mouths as fast as he can.”
“The question then is whether Amour is one of those films that one urges everyone to see. I don’t think so. It’s difficult to place it as a product; it’s too troubling and bruising to be a nice night out at the movies. You wouldn’t want to watch it after dinner, nor would you want to go to dinner after watching it. But it is undoubtedly the kind of film that will find its viewers, and that will long continue to trouble them in the right ways. For hours after I saw it and, intermittently, for days afterward, I could not shake the world and truths it conveyed.”
— Known and Strange Things: Essays by Teju Cole
https://a.co/8TKwnAr
May 7, 2020
Prachtig boek met veel mooie citaten in het eerste deel over literatuur.
'Alles leek mogelijk. Alles leek goed. Zulke ogenblikken, dacht ze, waren van die dingen die je altijd bijblijven.' (Virginia Woolf)
Ook is mijn goesting in het lezen van essays nieuw leven ingeblazen.
'De essaykunst: Je schrijft niet nadat je dingen hebt overdacht; je schrijft om dingen te overdenken.' (André Aciman)
En wij lezers mogen dat lezen. Zoals dit stukje van Teju Cole: ' Waar ik dan wel in geloof? In de verbeelding, in tuinen, de wetenschap, de poëzie, de liefde en allerlei niet gewelddadige vormen van troost.'
Of in het tweede deel over vooral fotografie: 'Er zijn dingen die alom zichtbaar zijn en er zijn verborgen dingen, en het leven heeft meer te maken, de echte wereld heeft meer te maken met wat verborgen is, misschien. Denk je niet?' (fotograaf Saul Leiter)
Het derde deel over plaatsen interesseerde me minder maar genoeg om verder te lezen en mijn kennis wat te verruimen over 'de blanke verlossingsindustrie' - waar me bij het lezen vooral beelden uit het boek 'Een honger' van Jamal Ouariachi voor de geest kwamen - onrecht tegenover zwarte gemeenschappen, terugvoerend tot de slavenhandel en de gevolgen die nog steeds doorwerken, Afrikaanse problematiek, politiek.
Aan het lezen van dit boek ook een aardig leeslijstje overgehouden: meer van Sebald, meer van James Baldwin, Derek Walcott, André Aciman, meer van Szymborska, Transtömer (maar die kan ik niet meer te pakken krijgen), Ondaatje...
'Alles leek mogelijk. Alles leek goed. Zulke ogenblikken, dacht ze, waren van die dingen die je altijd bijblijven.' (Virginia Woolf)
Ook is mijn goesting in het lezen van essays nieuw leven ingeblazen.
'De essaykunst: Je schrijft niet nadat je dingen hebt overdacht; je schrijft om dingen te overdenken.' (André Aciman)
En wij lezers mogen dat lezen. Zoals dit stukje van Teju Cole: ' Waar ik dan wel in geloof? In de verbeelding, in tuinen, de wetenschap, de poëzie, de liefde en allerlei niet gewelddadige vormen van troost.'
Of in het tweede deel over vooral fotografie: 'Er zijn dingen die alom zichtbaar zijn en er zijn verborgen dingen, en het leven heeft meer te maken, de echte wereld heeft meer te maken met wat verborgen is, misschien. Denk je niet?' (fotograaf Saul Leiter)
Het derde deel over plaatsen interesseerde me minder maar genoeg om verder te lezen en mijn kennis wat te verruimen over 'de blanke verlossingsindustrie' - waar me bij het lezen vooral beelden uit het boek 'Een honger' van Jamal Ouariachi voor de geest kwamen - onrecht tegenover zwarte gemeenschappen, terugvoerend tot de slavenhandel en de gevolgen die nog steeds doorwerken, Afrikaanse problematiek, politiek.
Aan het lezen van dit boek ook een aardig leeslijstje overgehouden: meer van Sebald, meer van James Baldwin, Derek Walcott, André Aciman, meer van Szymborska, Transtömer (maar die kan ik niet meer te pakken krijgen), Ondaatje...
July 14, 2021
Special and worthwhile without managing to coast on goodness, or perhaps even excellence, for very long. Like life in that way.
He is most clearly limited when trying to discourse about statehood, violence, power, and Obama. He, evidently, worked with a discourse that was limited in its access to these things, one inflected by American mass media. I was adolescent until 2016, and so I don’t really know if media has improved or just my thought, but Teju Cole seems to have spent a lot of time with thought that isn’t worthy of his attention?
His aesthetics do not plumb very deeply into consciousness, its limits and habits (philosophy is the comparison point here— it should be and is). Some genealogy of photography was nice. Some complication of writing and its place was nice, although he mostly bounces off of vulgarities instead of fitting himself out in the ontic.
I needed “Unnamed Lake,” a writing accompanied by Derrida and dreams; “Natives on the boat,” a writing with Naipaul and Conrad and lives; “Poetry of the Disregarded” and “Always Returning” with Sebald; “The Island” somewhere; “A Piece of the Wall” in Arizona and Mexico.
He is least limited in (re)producing melancholy. He mourns enough, but maybe struggles to find better life.
He is most clearly limited when trying to discourse about statehood, violence, power, and Obama. He, evidently, worked with a discourse that was limited in its access to these things, one inflected by American mass media. I was adolescent until 2016, and so I don’t really know if media has improved or just my thought, but Teju Cole seems to have spent a lot of time with thought that isn’t worthy of his attention?
His aesthetics do not plumb very deeply into consciousness, its limits and habits (philosophy is the comparison point here— it should be and is). Some genealogy of photography was nice. Some complication of writing and its place was nice, although he mostly bounces off of vulgarities instead of fitting himself out in the ontic.
I needed “Unnamed Lake,” a writing accompanied by Derrida and dreams; “Natives on the boat,” a writing with Naipaul and Conrad and lives; “Poetry of the Disregarded” and “Always Returning” with Sebald; “The Island” somewhere; “A Piece of the Wall” in Arizona and Mexico.
He is least limited in (re)producing melancholy. He mourns enough, but maybe struggles to find better life.
May 6, 2025
I read Teju Cole’s later essay collection, Black Paper, and really enjoyed it, hence why I picked up this one; sadly it didn’t hit as hard!
Cole has a really warm and intelligent way of presenting and expositing artistic and cultural phenomena and ephemera that have personally intrigued or impacted him, and the way he writes his essays is in a concurrently educational and endearing manner; The first half of the book fell into this kind of approach, while the second half felt more superfluous and almost unnecessarily tacked on. I do find this to be the case with a lot of essay or story collections, where some weaker pieces are included so as to add more substance, and this is totally and completely valid! as well, the pieces that didn’t speak to me might speak to someone else, this is always a possibility, and I admire the capacity to include ranging pieces in a work unknowing of if they will fly or fall, and for whom.
Cole has a really warm and intelligent way of presenting and expositing artistic and cultural phenomena and ephemera that have personally intrigued or impacted him, and the way he writes his essays is in a concurrently educational and endearing manner; The first half of the book fell into this kind of approach, while the second half felt more superfluous and almost unnecessarily tacked on. I do find this to be the case with a lot of essay or story collections, where some weaker pieces are included so as to add more substance, and this is totally and completely valid! as well, the pieces that didn’t speak to me might speak to someone else, this is always a possibility, and I admire the capacity to include ranging pieces in a work unknowing of if they will fly or fall, and for whom.
August 15, 2017
A big collection of Cole's essays, spanning criticism, politics, photography and everything else that takes his fancy. This would be better read in dribs and drabs I think - I binged it all down because it's due back at the library, but a bit more space between some of the essays would have given me more time to process them. As it was, some of the essays on art especially kind of ran into each other. He's a wonderful writer though - clear and engaging but super smart. The essay on the disappointments of Obama and the idea of literature as a humanising force will stick with me.
August 1, 2019
Einige Texte fand ich sehr gut, so zum Beispiel die beiden Reiseberichte auf den Spuren von James Baldwin und W. G. Sebald. Für andere dagegen konnte ich mich nur mäßig begeistern. Teju Cole ist bekanntlich nicht nur Schriftsteller, sondern ebenso ein talentierter Fotograf. Dementsprechend ist dem Thema Fotografie ein beträchtlicher Teil in diesem Buch reserviert. Liebhaber der Fotokunst kommen hier sicher voll auf ihre Kosten, meins war es nicht so.
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