3/5 stars
What's it about? Badkhen reflects on humanity, origins, and the inequities of our world in this collection that is part travelogue, part reckoning. Bright Unbearable Reality figures into the chorus of responses to the pandemic and its aftermath.
How’d I find it? One always finds something on the sale tables at Powell’s.
Who will enjoy this book? If Zadie Smith’s Intimations resonated with you, Badkhen’s thoughts might, too.
What stood out? Badkhen takes a graceful approach to mass migration, displacement, and injustice, and, while her sumptuous language doesn’t always work, it’s intoxicating to read. She pulls from across the spectrum of human creativity to enrich her subjects, like, for example, when she references the sculptures of Roni Horn in an essay set during a pilgrimage across the Sahara.
Which line made me feel something? From “Dark Matter:” “Why refuse to address head-on the two experiences that pinnacle our humanness, violence and astonishment, why find circuitous ways to describe them; why not behold and marvel at what is before us on its own terms, just as it is; what avarice within us makes us plow right through the miraculous, or past it, without pause, makes us insatiable?”