Book salon is back
Plus once more on why I don't use the word 'queer' any longer
Last night, about 30 people gathered at a friend’s home to talk about a book. (This friend also happen to be one of the longest subscribers to this newsletter.) Or rather, we talked about a whole host of issues connected to that book, not just the book itself. The author was there to tell us about his work, and then we asked questions and did a few of the “more a comment than a question” contributions. No one had read the book, which is just coming out and is priced at the academic publishing level. A terrific evening was had all the same; some of the pressing issues of our time discussed, some personal stories shared.
This format, I realize, is the salon format of yore. Very different from the book club, where a bunch of friends come to drink wine, admit they haven’t read the book and talk about other things, a book salon comes together like so:
A spacious living room, an easy flow to and from kitchen
Some nibbles and drinks (wine glasses and bottles in the kitchen for self-serve) - nothing complicated
A good mix of people who are interested in the topic(s) to be discussed
A non-fiction book. Harder to do this with a novel that no one has read; unless the talk is about a classic that many will have read or know about
Host may call on people to speak. “So-and-so, I’m sure you have thoughts about this” breaks the ice like a song
The presentation can be about almost anything: a book that hasn’t been written yet, multiple books on overlapping topics, a trend in publishing… but it’s good to ground it in a book rather than talking about any old thing.
I’m told another edition of the salon will be about a book in progress on the topic of immigration - controlled? open borders? how much? why, in the first place? Meanwhile, if you have the space, I recommend you try this in your own home. And please report back.
The tale of two queers
Now that everyone with an asymmetrical haircut, a tattoo and a daydream of opening up their marriage calls themselves queer, it’s logical that the LGB people are abandoning it. Like the ‘non-binary’ identity, ‘queer’ has become something you try on for size as a young person - while you’re reading poststructuralists and old gay liberation thinkers and Judith Butler and the anglo-Foucauldians. But then you grow up. It’s only in the academe that the word persists. When was the last time I used the word to mean gay and lesbian? Must be in 2017, when I wrote a piece about four young lesbian and bisexual women from Montenegro for the Ms Magazine online outlet and in the interest of saving space titled it ‘Queer Women of Montenegro’. But already back then the word was bursting at the seams with extraneous meanings.
Last five years have been particularly tough on the concept. When I hear someone describe themselves or anybody else as ‘queer’ I know they’re either extremely young, or not quite sure what their orientation is, or they’re a well-meaning straightie who can’t keep up, and who can at this point? (“Wait, I thought queer was reclaimed? What, reclaimed, then abandoned? I can’t keep up!” is what they think but politely don’t say when you tell them you don’t call yourself queer.) Or - it’s someone who’s dwelling in the aging vocabulary corner of the humanities and soc sci departments in major North American cities.
So an acquaintance emails me out of the blue the other day to tell me about her friend’s MA research.