je lis trop: visit my house

overview of 2023 in books + celebrating three years of je lis trop!

Last month, walking through an exhibition in Tate Britain, a thought popped into my mind: this is too much, all at once! My phone kept reminding me how there was no storage left for anything new, and this thought, a red exclamation point, felt like my mind’s equivalent of such a notification, warning me against the overload of information and sensory experience. 

Two words stand out this year: the mentioned overload and questions. Sometimes, it felt like I lived not through life itself—this indescribable, unpredictable substance—but through questions. Questions made up my every day, and I transferred them to many of the newsletter issues. How should I make important life decisions? How can I stop worrying? Why do I keep living in books? 

Reading remained a central activity that fueled, raised, and answered many of my questions. I didn’t slow down my tempo, which I’d hoped for last December (as always, I wanted to be immersed in as many narratives as possible). For this issue, I planned to sketch a horizon and jump through all these narratives. But I faced an obstacle: the impressions were so varied they couldn’t be put on the same register.

And so I thought and thought about this horizon until it became more like a… multi-storied house containing secret rooms. I was fascinated by this discovery. Last month, I wrote about a red room, but the room metaphor is apt for the whole year, actually. One by one, each room emerged.

And now I want to visit this house.

Bedroom: Beautiful & lovely

Bedrooms are private spaces where the inner life can prosper. This would be the most romantic room in the house, with soft-colored walls and fresh flowers, all submerged in a pastel haze. Here, I’d put my favorite books.

The combination of “beautiful” and “lovely” surely sounds sweet, maybe even without substance. However, it’s the opposite of what I want to say. I’d use these adjectives to describe the books that touched me the most. My favorites of this year. Norah Lange’s Notes from Childhood, for example. It was a unique reading experience and a whirlwind of inspiration, which encouraged reflections on my own childhood. And I don’t mean fact-based reflections: who did what, when, and how I felt about it. Lange’s vignettes triggered a slew of deeply atmospheric memories, prompting me to interrogate my connection to my childhood and its enduring traces.

Another beautiful and lovely book was Jessica Au’s Cold Enough for Snow, which I read in December. This book would be a small, delicate aquarelle painting hanging in the bedroom. It is about a mother’s and daughter’s journey to Tokyo, the places they visit, and the discussions they have; the story is meandering and has so many memories and beautiful objects. In many ways, that’s how I imagine a perfect book.

Lastly, Celia Paul’s Self-Portrait flowed like a river, a calm river outside the window. It has simple yet beautiful language and evocative examples of her art. Viewing her paintings, memories of my childhood desire to draw resurfaced. I’m looking forward to reading her other book, Letters to Gwen John.

Meditation room: Right place & right time

The meditation room would only have two objects: a comfortable chair and a window with a view of the sea. In this room, I could dream.

David Lynch’s and Kristine McKenna’s book Room to Dream soothed me when I was utterly lost and demotivated creatively, doing everything from a place of fear. Its lessons were vital to me at the time. Thanks to them, I got my sights back on what was truly important: nurturing ideas, meditating, and choosing to play rather than shiver and fret while on this Earth.

Once the mind is (relatively) calm, or at least free from fear, its whimsies can show up in full beauty. Here, I must mention Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet. I am grateful to have discovered Carrington’s art—both literary and visual—this year. Reading about the 92-year-old protagonist Marian and her fantastic adventures, I laughed and felt so light. As if everything was alright, here and now.

Lastly, Mary Oliver’s work felt like a heightened meditation. Her poems released me from my silly worries, even if temporarily. For the beauty of trees, birds, water, and all the small magical things of life, I recommend turning to Devotions.

Library: Biographies

This room would be a library with a fireplace, a place to delve into the very real lives of others. This is ironic: once you realize that people’s recollections and input can be unreliable, biographies become just as surreal as works of fiction.

Aside from the already mentioned book about David Lynch, I read more biographies. The biggest one was Heather Clark's Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, which I'd place among my favorite books this year. Clark researched and wrote down Sylvia Plath's life with great sensitivity and meticulousness, crafting a persuasive portrait in the process. I had a unique chance to glimpse into Plath's mind and her work (and not only the mature, well-known work that gets all the praise but also the talent that glimmers in her juvenilia).

I also read Amy Odell's Anna about Anna Wintour. This book once and for all proved how naive I was at fourteen, fantasizing about the job of a fashion editor and wondering what it entailed. As I couldn’t really know that, I came up with the responsibilities myself—90% creative + pure glam and 10% social duties—and then based all my future hopes and dreams on that fantasy. Once I read through all this struggle and drama of fashion magazines, I closed the last page with a sigh: wow, I want none of this. I never did.

Lastly, I spent a few days in the company of Surreal Spaces: The Life and Art of Leonora Carrington written by Joanna Moorhead, dipping into the fantastical narrative of Carrington's life, complemented by her paintings. If you're looking for books with lots of amazing visuals, pair this book with the already mentioned Celia Paul's Self-Portrait and David Hockney & Martin Gayford's Spring Cannot be Cancelled: David Hockney in Normandy. 

Drawing room: Experimentation

Imagine a bright, spring-like, daffodil-filled room with so much stuff that both the mind and the eye grow excited and confused. In the middle of it is a treasure chest overflowing with even more things. You know that some of them you’ll like, and some of them you won’t, but the process of going through them all is so exciting.

Since I am a mood reader, I need to switch things up once in a while. So occasionally, I ventured into new genres, and doing that felt exactly like rummaging through the mentioned treasure chest.

For example, romance with Emily Henry’s Book Lovers, which I liked and also didn’t—I’m sorry, I can’t put it in any other way. Or a historical novel Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar, which was unforgettable (the distant figure of a Roman emperor Hadrian seemed so alive on the page!) Or science with Carlo Rovelli’s Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, thanks to which I realized that the tangible physical world could very well mirror our most delicate, poetic intuitions. That the world deserved to be viewed as a miracle. Just read this: “The world is not made up of tiny pebbles. It is a world of vibrations, a continuous fluctuation, a microscopic swarming of fleeting tiny-events.”

Lounge: New discoveries

This could be a room with soft music, drinks, and people you meet for the first time, but you just know—from the first sight, or, more appropriately, from their first words—you won’t be able to forget. In this room, I’d gather some of my newly discovered authors that left a particularly big impression.

Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch left me in awe thanks to its storytelling trickery, a book so clever and engaging I couldn’t put it down. Contemporary releases rarely give me that feeling of I’ll definitely come to this later in my life, but I could see it happening with The Rabbit Hutch.

Gunty is accompanied by two other big discoveries: Romain Gary (I read The Kites and Promise at Dawn) and Yukio Mishima (I read The Temple of the Golden Pavilion). I read one after another, and even if I had no intention to compare these two authors, my mind was drawing up a list of similarities and differences. Their writing is sensitive, emotional, and poetic. And yet, they have completely different sensibilities. While Romain Gary’s stories pulsate with humor and hope, Mishima’s words are soaked in mystery and darkness.

Conversation Room: Nostalgia & disturbances

A significant number of authors I read this year could be called discoveries; they could all legitimately mingle in the lounge. But I’d like to walk some of the other notable discoveries of this year—a company of talented women—to a more intimate conversation room. I would have so many questions for them.

First would be Anna Kavan and her Machines in the Head. Reading this collection of short stories wasn’t easy. Kavan’s stories contain desolate cities, fiery accidents, and utter despair. I was scared for her, sad for her. I was rooting for her, even if there was no game she could win, as all the odds seemed stacked against her. I stayed until the end because of her tender voice.

On a lighter note, Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping fully captured me in its atmosphere, like a bug in an intricately woven spiderweb. Writing these lines, I remember the distant roar of the train, the watery smell and the watery wind, the sky shining as if it were tin. I can see Sylvie’s green dress as if she were sitting beside me on that wooden chair in a white kitchen.

I’d also invite Lorrie Moore. I read her short stories in 2022, and this year, thanks to a wonderful friend, I was introduced to her novel Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? It conjured a mood so powerful and nostalgic I could compare it to Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way.

Gallery: Books & cities

Let’s enter a gallery with pictures of different cities hanging on its walls.

This year, I was fortunate to see many vibrant places whose names have lived in my notebooks and scrapbooks and dreams ever since I was a teenager (cue: Tokyo and Provence). As expected, books were always with me.

Here are the most memorable book-city pairings: Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club and Kraków (oddly fitting), Hiroko Oyamada’s The Hole and Kyoto (surreal and enthralling), Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies and Tokyo (fleeting and melancholy; I wish I had kept track of how many different benches in Tokyo's parks I sat on while reading this book), Claire Keegan’s Foster and Oslo (heartwarming), Lucie Elven’s The Weak Spot and Paris (also surreal, with a hum of mystery and menace, which perfectly matched my mood since I was a little bit sick, feverish), Patti Smith’s Just Kids and the whole region of Provence (a particularly moving combination), Julia Armfield’s Salt Slow and London (tricky, menacing). 

Dining hall: The birthday

Lastly, we enter a big dining hall-disco where I’d host a party. It’s because December 16 marked three years of this newsletter!

je lis trop is my biggest passion project, and it’s a little hard to believe it’s already been three years. I’m proud of them. Apart from the obvious fact that je lis trop has been a therapeutic opportunity to reflect on books I’ve read, I’ve also advanced creatively through writing it. I changed a few formats, used my coding skills, tried out new rubrics, and slowly but surely discovered my wish to write short stories. I also found so many people to connect to, which is an immense gift. A big thank you goes to you all! 

I have bookish dreams for 2024—the biggest one is to explore new realms and find myself in new territories. Hopefully, I’ll meet you there.

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More reading

Archive of je lis trop issues before it was moved to Substack! If you’re unsure where to start, why not take a look at one of my favorite issues, May 2021.

Essay on mood reading in the Playground magazine (Issue 1)! It’s been a while since I saw my work in print rather than floating online, and it’s such a thrill. I wrote about my approach, gave some personal examples of the right books at the right time or the right books at the wrong time (it’s always an intriguing game), and why mood reading is worth trying.

My short story “Solitary Heaven”. It might be newly published, but the story was written in 2019. I wanted to capture my mom’s aunt’s house and my fascination with it. Write about its pink, blue, flower-patterned rooms. Write about my fantasies while sitting in a main bedroom, talking imaginary things into an old phone.