Where Things Touch: A Meditation on Beauty

by Bahar Orang

To devote oneself to the study of beauty is to offer footnotes to the universe for all the places and all the moments that one observes beauty. I can no longer grab beauty by her wrists and demand articulation or meaning. I can only take account of where things touch.

Part lyric essay, part prose poetry, Where Things Touch: A Meditation on Beauty grapples with the manifold meanings and possibilities of beauty. Drawing on her experiences as a physician-in-training, Orang considers clinical encounters and how they relate to the concept and very idea of beauty. Such considerations lead her to questions about intimacy, queerness, home, memory, love, and other aspects of human experience. Throughout, beauty is ultimately imagined as something inextricably tied to care: the care of lovers, of patients, of art and literature, and the various non-human worlds that surround us.

Eloquent and meditative in its approach, beauty, here, beyond base expectations of frivolity and superficiality, is conceived of as a thing to recover. Where Things Touch is an exploration of an essential human pleasure, a necessary freedom by which to challenge what we know of ourselves and the world we inhabit.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Essays, Queer, Philosophy, Canada, School

115 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2020

Reviews

[Brando · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now I want to date this book

[OK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely, lovely, so so lovely. Atmospheric and sunlit and intelligent and quietly fracturing.

Loved the idea of aesthetics as an epistolary practice. Ending on a meditation of mis/understanding + miss/understanding was the perfect way to braid the book together.

5/5

[Heather O'Neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this very quick and short form book of essays/poetry the author Bahar contemplates what beauty is through the lens of her life and those that are around her.

I picked up this book based on the review that I saw in NPR's Book Concierge. I unfortunately could only find it through the publisher, but they had the ebook available, which I was happy about.
The book is really short and can be finished in one sitting (even with time to re-read some of the passages). According to the synopsis of this book and some reviews I read I did think that this book was going to be more about a reflection on beauty through the eyes of a doctor, which it wasn't at all. I felt like it leaned more towards her relationship and the beauty with that. Her use of figurative language is great and some of the passages were beautiful and I re-read them. This genre usually is one that I don't read, but I'm glad that I did.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

imagine reading something so beautiful that you have to put the book down to cry, and can't quite explain why; you wonder what makes these strings of words so touching. if Bahar could hear you, she'd probably say - where's the beauty, in the words or in your reaction to them? and now you know it's in where things touch.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

took me so long to read but not for any negative reasons.. this book is so incredibly beautiful that it feels too heavy at times. so so rich in its content and sooooo poetic i love the words she uses and she also references many artworks (by the likes of frida kahlo, anne carson, abbas kiarostami, etc.) and its just so overwhelmingly beautiful

[charlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

a meditation on beauty indeed. this book is so lovely and full of light and intimacy that i teared up—it's perfect.

[Josh Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is gorgeous and really moved me

[olivia miss_ipkiss_reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

I happened upon this book accidentally. I intended to pick up a couple fantasy books and somehow found myself in the poetry section. I know next to nothing about poetry, but this book called to me from the shelves. When I read that this was a series of poems and short essays dedicated to unravelling beauty through the lens of a physician in training, it felt like some kind of divine intervention put this book in my path.

I see myself coming back to this work throughout my life. Every read will breathe new life and create new meaning. I find comfort in the fact that there are people like Orang who have devoted their lives to being physicians, but refuse to sacrificed their artistic dispositions. It makes me feel empowered to do the same.

"to devote oneself to the study of beauty is to offer footnotes to the universe for all places and all the moments that one observes beauty. I can no longer grab beauty by her wrists and demand articulation or meaning. I can only take account of where things touch."

[Meli · Rating 5 out of 5]

A whole little book dedicated to beauty? Glorious. Orang’s words are both rooted and sublime. In particular, I loved reading her thoughts on beauty and care, beauty and disgust, and beauty and poetry itself. I’m always grateful when an author takes a sentiment right from my own mind-heart and articulates it far better than I ever could, and Orang did that over and over again. A book to re-read, and to own!

“Offering attention, sustained and wide, to pomegranate or otherwise, is loving, I think.”

[Alex Prong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Alexandre · Rating 4 out of 5]

"L'amour est une mécompréhension".

[Zack W · Rating 5 out of 5]

And I'm left waiting, waiting for their touch, the touch that assures me I am here.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

i plan to read this book again and again. i have dog-eared many pages. i will copy several quotes to mail to friends on little doodled cards. Orang's contemplation of beauty is part memoir, part essay, part poem, all in small fragments. She uses beauty as the central subject to branch out to art, film, philosophy, pain, failure, form, relationships, queerness and more. I would add this book to a list of books very much needed at this time, in fact it would be on my desert island list.

[Zacharie Nadouille · Rating 1 out of 5]

name dropping. empty pages. the french translator kept misgendering the ex.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

At a little over 100 pages, you can easily read this book in one sitting, but you won't want to. Every word, every prose, every period, will take hold of your heart and refuse to let go until you have absorbed the intention behind Orang's words.

To use Orang's own words to describe this book, "...I feel that, more often than not, meaning slowly emerges from a reading that allows the thing to remain as itself - whole, having a life beyond my contact with it." And I continue to sit here today reflecting on passages I read days and months ago, revisiting the words, reflecting on their beauty.

To reduce this book, as one reviewer has, to just "another book by a doctor" is a mistake. A prejudgment that reveals someone who hasn't opened these pages and hasn't understood their value. Orang's exploration of patient care is subversive and while it exists within the realm of medicine, also extends far beyond it into intimacy, queerness, beauty, love, pain and human connection.

[Linnea Beeceedee · Rating 1 out of 5]

I expected to love this book. Poetry, queerness, relationships, beauty- sounds great. However, I found it full of name dropping, doctor ego and saying queer for the sake of queer. And trust me, I'll happily paint everything gay. This book could be summarized in a few sentences. I'm a doctor. People experience breakups. Everything is queer. The nature of things is amazing. And while I appreciate all of these sentences, they were not shared in interesting ways and were very much just told to the reader. I can only hope that the book was lost to me because I chose the audio version rather than the print version.

[Catherine-Alexandre Brigande · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chercher la beauté pour en éparpiller un peu partout sur la page. Lire ce livre c'est toucher à ce qui nous échappe, à ce qui nous suit pourtant : la part de tendresse, d'ouverture, d'attention, de poésie qui se cache dans chaque journée, dans les détails furtifs qu'on capte souvent du coin de l'oeil. Un livre qui nous transporte près du coeur, près des organes, près de nos vulnérabilités et qui, se faisant, ouvre quelque chose en nous, comme on tombe amoureuse.

[Elena Scrivner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do we really need another book by a doctor? Would rather listen to patients’ stories, they know more.

[Lucia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many instances of having to pause for a moment (or ten) to process the absolute jaw dropping awe of Orang’s words and her assembly of them. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever read.

[Elo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un texte qui a provoqué des images, des questions, un sentiment de méditation. Qui nécessite d’être relu et manipulé avec attention. C’est doux, beau, et contrairement à mes habitudes, j’accepte de ne pas tout comprendre tout en me sentant comprise.

“Mais je veux que cela soit bien clair : la beauté n’est pas l’objet, le visage, le paysage pas même la fleur. La beauté est la coconstitution de l’humain et de la fleur ; la beauté est un engagement entre le texte et le texte […].
“Regarder est liberté ; regarder la mer, en devenant ce que nous sommes, est une révélation de la beauté.”

[BookishSelections · Rating 4 out of 5]

This essay or piece of poetry by Bahar Orang was so profound. This attempt to explain what beauty is touched upon so many emotions and moments of life that could be beauty and are but aren’t. Orang’s way of writing had me mesmerized. There were so many points made in this book that left me asking myself questions that I’m not sure I’ll ever have proper answers to and that in itself made reading this all the more wonderful.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Please understand, beauty is not a problem to be solved; beauty is not a question to be answered; beauty denies enclosure or straightforwardness. Beauty is something opening, and if you are lucky, the thing opening is you, your body, your palms and your feet, so you are more surface to press against the earth.”

[Sanne Donkers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is not meant to be read the way I just read it. This is not a book you pick up and finish in one sit. Yet I did it like that and that might have influenced my reading experience in a negative way, because it is a beautiful (kinda ironic that I use this word) and well written book that deserves more attention. My impatience let me to ‘ruin’ my reading experience.

[Boku · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meditations on beauty indeed! This is a lovely collection of short prose poems that pull and are pulled from multiple philosophical, aesthetic, academic, and theoretical angles. A lovely little book for anyone who ever finds themselves sitting in quiet contemplation wondering, "What is [...]?"

[My Tam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A crescendo - the build up from a meditation on beauty to a fully well referenced literary critique of poetry and freedom. It was a slow start for me, an unfolding, a deepening, then a deeply connected read of the human condition from the perspective of a physician and poet. Highly recommend it.

[Meg]

(this book came up during our lit theory month so I picked it up, the library had catalogued it under "Aesthetics" while the publisher had put it in under " Canadian essays - 21st century") I thought there would be more medical stuff tbh. But I will take lovely queer meditations no problem.

[Toniwake · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has so many words! A lot of theory in there that I took as poetry and allowed to flow, probably not understanding half but ok with that. I’m on the other side of medical training and am glad that she captured her impressions

[Zier · Rating 4 out of 5]

writing was fragmented yet fitting - like one's thoughts. some ideas were interesting but intertwined with words that were a bit too flowery. but then again, i'm not a poem person so i'm still glad i picked this up

[Lisa Pijuan-nomura · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first book of 2021 and I loved it. Bahar Orang does makes us think about beauty in a whole new way. I was stopping every other page to write down some of my favourite quotes.

[Colton Butcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and touching. I loved how thoughtful and human it was. It’s an incredibly fast read, perfect for a weekend afternoon.