Each month, we comb through dozens of soon-to-be-published books, for ideas and good writing for the Review’s site. Often we’re struck by particular paragraphs or sentences from the galleys that stack up on our desks and spill over onto our shelves. We sometimes share them with each other on Slack, and we thought, for a change, that we might share them with you. Here are some we found this month.

—Sophie Haigney, web editor, and Olivia Kan-Sperling, assistant editor

From Mohammed El-Kurd’s Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal (Haymarket):

Chimpanzee societies wage war against each other. Crows make and use tools. Dolphins talk to each other and talk about us. They have different dialects and various synonyms for “human” (some of them are slurs). Language, as such, is not what distinguishes us from other creatures that roam the earth. Nor is it intelligence. Sentiments—complex, sophisticated sentiment—it is said, are what make humans unique. How we refine or distort our emotions, codify them into structures, how we systematize our layered and recursive interior lives, how we immortalize our fleeting expressions into art, policy, or poison is what makes us stand out. Or so we tell ourselves.

In the framework of humanization, Palestinians are not entirely deprived of “uniquely human emotions,” however, the Palestinian’s affective allowance—the range of sentiments one is permitted to express openly—is extremely restricted and shrinks with every perceived “wrongdoing.” We are allowed to be hospitable (Yosef Weitz, the “Architect of Transfer,” wrote in his diary about the unsuspecting Palestinians who served him food and welcomed him in homes he later stole). We are implored to be peaceful (or submissive) and forbearing, and we are tolerated when we are. We are meek and we shall inherit no earth. What we are not allowed is the future: we cannot be ambitious or cunning; we cannot aspire to sovereignty or revenge. We are robbed of the right to complexity, to contradictory feelings, the right to “contain multitudes.” Our sadness is without teeth. Perhaps we can be bitter (see: “Palestinian Rejectionism”), but belligerence and hostility—foreign concepts to our oppressors, apparently—exile us outside of humanity once more. The only thing we are permitted to look forward to is the day’s end.

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Each month, we comb through dozens of soon-to-be-published books, for ideas and good writing for the Review’s site. Often, we’re struck by particular paragraphs or sentences from the galleys that stack up on our desks and spill over onto our shelves. We often share them with each other on Slack, and we thought, for a change, that we might share them with you. Here are some of the curious, striking, strange, funny, and wonderful bits we found, in books that are coming out this month.

—Sophie Haigney, web editor, and Olivia Kan-Sperling, assistant editor

From Antonio di Benedetto’s novel The Suicides, originally published in Spanish in 1969 and newly translated by Esther Allen (NYRB Books):

Leaning forward, I scrutinized the photos. Each showed a human body, fully clothed, lying on the ground. “I see that all three are dead,” I said.

“That’s not a particularly clever response.”

I could tell the biting tone was a warning. I needed to see better, and faster.

 

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Each month, we comb through dozens of soon-to-be-published books, for ideas and good writing for the Review’s site. Often, we’re struck by particular paragraphs or sentences from the galleys that stack up on our desks and spill over onto our shelves. We often share them with each other on Slack, and we thought, for a change, that we might share them with you. Here are some of the curious, striking, strange, and wonderful bits we found, in books that are coming out this month.

—Sophie Haigney, web editor, and Olivia Kan-Sperling, assistant editor

From Byung-Chul Han’s The Spirit of Hope (Polity):

Acting out of fear is not a way of acting that supports a sustainable future, which would require a meaningful horizon and action that forms part of a narrative. Hope is eloquent. It narrates. Fear, by contrast, is incapable of speech.

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Each month, we comb through dozens of soon-to-be-published books, for ideas and good writing for the Review’s site. Often, we’re struck by particular paragraphs or sentences from the galleys that stack up on our desks and spill over onto our shelves. We often share them with each other on Slack, and we thought, for a change, that we might share them with you. Here are some of the curious, striking, strange, and wonderful bits we found, in books that are coming out this month.

—Sophie Haigney, web editor, and Olivia Kan-Sperling, assistant editor

From Kathryn Davis’s Versailles (Graywolf):

I was a pretty girl; I glittered like the morning star. My red lips would open and it was anyone’s guess what would come out. A burst of song. Something by Gluck, a pretty girl in pain maybe, impaled on the horn of the moon. The Kings of France, starting with Charlemagne. A joke.

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Each month, we comb through dozens of soon-to-be-published books, for ideas and good writing for the Review’s site. Often, we’re struck by particular paragraphs or sentences from the galleys that stack up on our desks and spill over onto our shelves. We often share them with each other on Slack, and we thought, for a change, that we might share them with you. Here are some of the curious, striking, strange, and wonderful bits we found, from books that are coming out this month.

—Sophie Haigney, web editor, and Olivia Kan-Sperling, assistant editor

From Hélène Cixous’s Rêvoir (Seagull Books), translated from the French by Beverley Bie Brahic: 

I lie, I say I’m going to the hairdresser, secretly I’m off to see you, I am on my way right to the day when the Question peeps up, I no longer know which day that was. Dispatched on the instructions of Time, of Age, like a sprite ready to demand the Shadow’s identity card, proof of domicile, like the spirits of dates delegated to persecutions, of retirement dates, of warrants of life, of entry into silences, of fateful anniversaries

          Day broke, the tale was back on the road, I followed it

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