Authors Don't Get to Decide How Their Books Are Read

The salient message in Katy Waldman's Feb. 11, 2021 New Yorker review of "Bina: a Novel in Warnings," goes as follows:

"Anakana Schofield’s new novel, 'Bina,' is almost as recalcitrant as its narrator; both demand, grouchily and wittily, to be taken on their own terms."

Good luck!

When an artist releases a work of art, while he or she may retain legal rights to it, it's in the public domain as to what, if anything, it means. There is absolutely no requirement that it be "taken on its own terms." which seems to imply a certain reading is required. But, Waldman had to come down somewhere in her review and that didn't appear to be easy since Bina, the character, is a grouchy old woman "aged out of economic value and conventional desirability."

"It’s tempting to interpret 'Bina' as a pointed challenge to the feminist marketplace: do you actually care about this lady?" Waldman asks. In other words, if one is a feminist, is one required to care about all women no matter how pedestrian or lackluster in nature? Among other things, does one have time for that?

Waldman is quick to point out that this is a novel of character, not a novel of plot, and in that sense is yet another child of literary modernism -- along the lines of "Casting Shadows" by Jhuma Lahiri, which  I talked about in my previous post.

The intimacy and directness of Bina's interaction with readers is the book's greatest strength and as a result, over time, she makes for great company, Waldman says. As is the case with "Casting Shadows," it's a window into a woman's world and may well be highly illuminating in that respect if one is interested in "getting women right" as male writers of fiction might be. 

But there is no need to take Schofield's writing on any particular terms.  Whatever you make of it is what it is.