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Theory
A smart, sensual and witty novel about what happens when love and intellect are set on a collision course. This compact tour de force affirms Dionne Brand's place as one of Canada's most dazzling and influential artists.
Theory begins as its narrator sets out, like many a graduate student, to write a wildly ambitious thesis on the past, present, and future of art, culture, race, gender, class, and politics--a revolutionary work that its author believes will synthesize and thereby transform the world.
While our narrator tries to complete this magnum opus, three lovers enter the story, one after the other, each transforming the endeavour: first, there is beautiful and sensual Selah, who scoffs at the narrator's constant tinkering with academic abstractions; then altruistic and passionate Yara, who rescues every lost soul who crosses her path; and finally, spiritual occultist Odalys, who values magic and superstition over the heady intellectual and cultural circles the narrator aspires to inhabit. Each galvanizing love affair (representing, in turn, the heart, the head, and the spirit) upends and reorients the narrator's life and, inevitably, requires an overhaul of the ever larger and more unwieldy dissertation, with results both humorous and poignant.
By effortlessly telling this short, intense tale in the voice of an unnamed, ungendered (and brilliantly unreliable) narrator, Dionne Brand makes a bold statement not only about love and personhood, but about race and gender--and what can and cannot be articulated in prose when the forces that inhabit the space between words are greater than words themselves.
A gorgeous, profoundly moving, word- and note-perfect novel of ideas that only a great artist at the height of her powers could write.
Theory begins as its narrator sets out, like many a graduate student, to write a wildly ambitious thesis on the past, present, and future of art, culture, race, gender, class, and politics--a revolutionary work that its author believes will synthesize and thereby transform the world.
While our narrator tries to complete this magnum opus, three lovers enter the story, one after the other, each transforming the endeavour: first, there is beautiful and sensual Selah, who scoffs at the narrator's constant tinkering with academic abstractions; then altruistic and passionate Yara, who rescues every lost soul who crosses her path; and finally, spiritual occultist Odalys, who values magic and superstition over the heady intellectual and cultural circles the narrator aspires to inhabit. Each galvanizing love affair (representing, in turn, the heart, the head, and the spirit) upends and reorients the narrator's life and, inevitably, requires an overhaul of the ever larger and more unwieldy dissertation, with results both humorous and poignant.
By effortlessly telling this short, intense tale in the voice of an unnamed, ungendered (and brilliantly unreliable) narrator, Dionne Brand makes a bold statement not only about love and personhood, but about race and gender--and what can and cannot be articulated in prose when the forces that inhabit the space between words are greater than words themselves.
A gorgeous, profoundly moving, word- and note-perfect novel of ideas that only a great artist at the height of her powers could write.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published September 18, 2018
43 people are currently reading
2,263 people want to read
About the author
Dionne Brand
55books469followersAs a young girl growing up in Trinidad, Dionne Brand submitted poems to the newspapers under the pseudonym Xavier Simone, an homage to Nina Simone, whom she would listen to late at night on the radio. Brand moved to Canada when she was 17 to attend the University of Toronto, where she earned a degree in Philosophy and English, a Masters in the Philosophy of Education and pursued PhD studies in Women’s History but left the program to make time for creative writing.
Dionne Brand first came to prominence in Canada as a poet. Her books of poetry include No Language Is Neutral, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, and Land to Light On, winner of the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium Award and thirsty, finalist for the Griffin Prize and winner of the Pat Lowther Award for poetry. Brand is also the author of the acclaimed novels In Another Place, Not Here, which was shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Award, and At the Full and Change of the Moon. Her works of non-fiction include Bread Out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return.
What We All Long For was published to great critical acclaim in 2005. While writing the novel, Brand would find herself gazing out the window of a restaurant in the very Toronto neighbourhood occupied by her characters. “I’d be looking through the window and I’d think this is like the frame of the book, the frame of reality: ‘There they are: a young Asian woman passing by with a young black woman passing by, with a young Italian man passing by,� she says in an interview with The Toronto Star. A recent Vanity Fair article quotes her as saying “I’ve ‘read� New York and London and Paris. And I thought this city needs to be written like that, too.�
In addition to her literary accomplishments, Brand is Professor of English in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.
For more information, please see
Dionne Brand first came to prominence in Canada as a poet. Her books of poetry include No Language Is Neutral, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, and Land to Light On, winner of the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium Award and thirsty, finalist for the Griffin Prize and winner of the Pat Lowther Award for poetry. Brand is also the author of the acclaimed novels In Another Place, Not Here, which was shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Award, and At the Full and Change of the Moon. Her works of non-fiction include Bread Out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return.
What We All Long For was published to great critical acclaim in 2005. While writing the novel, Brand would find herself gazing out the window of a restaurant in the very Toronto neighbourhood occupied by her characters. “I’d be looking through the window and I’d think this is like the frame of the book, the frame of reality: ‘There they are: a young Asian woman passing by with a young black woman passing by, with a young Italian man passing by,� she says in an interview with The Toronto Star. A recent Vanity Fair article quotes her as saying “I’ve ‘read� New York and London and Paris. And I thought this city needs to be written like that, too.�
In addition to her literary accomplishments, Brand is Professor of English in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.
For more information, please see
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 120 reviews
July 8, 2020
This is one of those novels that does what it sets out to do absolutely perfectly; but what it sets out to do isn't going to be for everyone. THEORY is about an unnamed academic narrator (likely a Black woman or afab person--but deliberately ambiguous) as they chronicle their life's important love affairs and how they interrupt and fuel their decade-long dissertation project.
This is all character study, with an amusing and unreliable narrator, who is at times hilariously lacking in self-awareness but at others shares comments such as "The problem with not having a lover is that there is no distraction from the person I am... There's no one to fix, in other words, except me."
If the names Althusser and Fanon and the terms like Lacanian feminist aren't familiar to you, you likely won't get much from this novel. For anyone with a background in humanities academia though, THEORY is fascinating, funny, and thought-provoking. It made me laugh out loud a few times, and certain lines had me stop to think and let my mind ponder a train of thought.
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This is all character study, with an amusing and unreliable narrator, who is at times hilariously lacking in self-awareness but at others shares comments such as "The problem with not having a lover is that there is no distraction from the person I am... There's no one to fix, in other words, except me."
If the names Althusser and Fanon and the terms like Lacanian feminist aren't familiar to you, you likely won't get much from this novel. For anyone with a background in humanities academia though, THEORY is fascinating, funny, and thought-provoking. It made me laugh out loud a few times, and certain lines had me stop to think and let my mind ponder a train of thought.
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January 6, 2019
I mean it’s an interesting idea, but it went right over my head for the most part. I didn’t care about any of the characters- they all seemed just like metaphors for big ideas and ramblings. This felt like reading a really pretentious essay where the author just tries to use every big word they know. Meh
November 3, 2018
I think of Selah and Yara and Odalys now, not as hindrances, not even as transit points to myself or as the lessons of my life � but as the life itself, the theory of my life. They and I are not made of nothingness. They've gone on in their own narratives. I've gone on in mine. I must sit in the knowledge of them; we remain adjacent. They've given me, in part, material for a lifetime of theory, but I can't live in the prosthetic. They are not my arms, not my body, nor my head, not even my imagination � they escape and exceed me and I am left with me.
begins with a footnote about a visit from the narrator's brother, who is horrified by his (unnamed and ungendered) sibling's living conditions. The apartment that the brother steps into, for the first time in years, is a hoarder's paradise of books and papers � some ripped or crumpled; none of which the narrator is willing to part with � and we soon learn that all of this clutter represents every thought or theory that the narrator has written down over the course of the fourteen or so years that they have been working on a PhD dissertation. Nearing forty and freshly invigorated to assemble all of this brilliance into a 700 page thesis (with 2100 pages remaining for a furtherance of their theories), the narrator begins by considering the three lovers that they have had throughout the dissertation writing process. These three women � Selah, Yara, and Odalys � represent body, mind, and spirit, and as the narrator's doctoral focus is a radical evaluation of gender and racial norms, every relationship is analysed through these lenses. There is a skewering of academia (and blame assigned to those self-proclaimed progressives who have benefited from and perpetuate the elitist patriarchal system) and a sympathetic look at a person who aspires to live in the mind but who keeps being drawn back into the world of others. Because Dionne Brand is a celebrated poet, it's her words and phrasing that most intrigued me here, and as a result, I'm going to quote her at length to give a real picture of what this book is like.
The first section is named for Selah � a woman who is the embodiment of beauty and voluptuousness, and whom the narrator loves but doesn't engage with intellectually; Selah is a nice distraction during the early and productive days of dissertation writing:
Back to the body as intelligence: the body is, after all, a living organism � with its own intention, separate from the parsed out, pored over intentions that one can say come from the mind. The mind's interpretation of the body is irrelevant. The body pursues its own needs and its own desires with fibre optic precision not even yet detailed by scientists. Selah's body, for example, had decided on cinnamon, and it has, to my way of thinking, synthesized all of the atmosphere around it to smell of cinnamon. Or let me withdraw that previous statement. Perhaps it is my body, my olfactory nerve, that decided on cinnamon at the appearance of Selah, and so it collected the smell of cinnamon around the presence of Selah. On the other hand, there might be a third theory unknown to both Selah and me that accounts for the cinnamon. Whatever the truth of this, Selah smelled like cinnamon.
The second section is for Yara � an activist artist who collects hopeless stray people, and who is always challenging the narrator to join her revolutions:
I couldn't bind Yara to the normative, to an uncritical monogamy, a monogamy unexamined and taken for granted. And I couldn't deny Yara the full and true expression of her sexuality, especially on the basis of an uncritical acceptance of the norm. The normative was a doldrum we had all been lured into by the forces of capital, et cetera. This is what I knew and felt, even as I also felt a certain sting of jealousy and loss whenever one of those people showed up with Yara. In my analysis this “sting� was a vestigial emotion that probably predated capital, or perhaps had its root in capital, but was nevertheless what remained of different social relations and circumstances. My theory of myself is that any idea I can understand � that is, if it can be explained along ethical and moral lines as essentially unharmful, and as contributing to my intellectual life, my growth as a human being � I will embrace. And who was I, my theory theorized, who was I to claim hegemony over Yara's body? I've never wanted control of anyone, least of all their body. And least of all Yara's. Yara. I wanted Yara to have all she wanted.
The third section is for Odalys � a Colombian woman who believes in all manner of magic, spells, and spiritual ritual. Although they wouldn't seem to have much in common, the narrator and Odalys are satisfied seeing each other once a week:
Let me say from the outset I loved Odalys' body the way one loves a theory. Not, say, the theory of relativity � that would be too simple and unitary, I suggest. And besides, I know nothing of science. A theory such as the theory of language is more the theory that comes to mind. How it is acquired and why certain sounds occur in certain regions; the uses of the tongue, et cetera. A theory such as one suggested by Chomsky's works might best describe my fascination. To be more precise, it wasn't Odalys' body but the sense of Odalys' body, like a universal weight in the world. Perhaps, perhaps it was the weight of her presence, the “mental grammar�. Sometimes I think I created Odalys out of what I needed, and what I needed was a balancing weight to my theories � some presence that would deny or counter those theories through embodiment.
The final section is called Teoria/Theory (“Teoria� being Odalys' nickname for the narrator, meaning “Theorist�), and it goes further into the progression of the narrator's thinking over the years, pushback they have encountered from the PhD committee (obviously due to their inability to recognise groundbreaking genius), and more information about that visit from the brother (which provides nice background about the siblings' homelife and how that might have led to here). Throughout, the narrator is constantly quoting and referencing sources that I'm unfamiliar with: at one point they recall how they used to walk along with Selah and think-out-loud about what they were reading, and when they'd get back home and ask Selah for the details so they could capture them on paper, Selah would reply, “You were talking about some guy.� And that's what a lot of this felt like; the narrator quoting some guy instead of truly self-reflecting � and I'm sure that's the point. There's the nice irony of the narrator relying on the scholarship of (mostly) dead white men to upend gender and racial norms in their work and the slow revelation of a lonely life lived in self-imposed exile in an ivory tower; the piles of books and papers serving as refuge and defense against the unknowable world. It can be a slog to read through the scholarly passages � attributed to other philosophers and the narrator � but that's the life and the point, I suppose; it's a relief to me that the narrator's PhD advisor couldn't untangle their theories either (even if there is truth here):
Our gaze should light now on the male body, its location and its excesses. Theory has failed so far to witness the spectacle of the masculine. Theory has merely assumed the spectacle of the masculine as a priori. Theory has fallen down in rooting out this ubiquitous being that commands everything but appears nowhere, is fed and nurtured on a corpse, and requires more and more feeding. So the female body is placed on the pyre every day, roasted and dressed to enliven this necrophiliac. Who is at the center of this body, how is it constituted, how is it hidden from observation; who enforces this regimen of necrogenesis? This is my line of inquiry. Simply, who is the being that feeds off the corpse of femininity?
Theory is probably a work of genius, but one that I found slippery to get into. While I really liked the disconnects between things that the narrator writes and the things that the reader can see are otherwise in the relationships with the three women, the idiosyncratic writing style (while admittedly revelatory of the character) kept me at an emotional distance. Even so, I found sadness here; how sad is it that someone who thinks so much can know so little? I may not have exactly loved this read, but I can't give it fewer than four stars.
June 7, 2020
A dissertative novel. This read requires all attention, all brain cells' engagement. Unlike any novel I have read to date.
-This is the way power works—it wants both power and forgiveness. I hate this kind of greed in the powerful, the belief that their most heinous acts ought to be understood and forgiven. And if not, they will kill you.-
Theory is quite literally a dissertative novel, through which Brand takes us down the rabbit hole of our main character, who struggles to complete and submit their own dissertation, but applies their way of thought and love of philosophy and literature to steep the reader in the progressions, digressions and egressions of their relationships.
Each relationship is dissected, reviewed and analyzed in a theorized way as the characteristics of each partner is uncovered. Our main character is also aware of the metamorphosis they undergo with each successive lover. Although we never get the perspectives of said lovers, the attraction, magnetism, and intensity of their personalities is vividly conveyed by our MC.
This book had me glued to a dictionary, so be prepared. I have never read a novel quite like this, put together in this particular format, but I quite enjoyed the elevation and broadening of my vocabulary and reading expectations.
-This is the way power works—it wants both power and forgiveness. I hate this kind of greed in the powerful, the belief that their most heinous acts ought to be understood and forgiven. And if not, they will kill you.-
Theory is quite literally a dissertative novel, through which Brand takes us down the rabbit hole of our main character, who struggles to complete and submit their own dissertation, but applies their way of thought and love of philosophy and literature to steep the reader in the progressions, digressions and egressions of their relationships.
Each relationship is dissected, reviewed and analyzed in a theorized way as the characteristics of each partner is uncovered. Our main character is also aware of the metamorphosis they undergo with each successive lover. Although we never get the perspectives of said lovers, the attraction, magnetism, and intensity of their personalities is vividly conveyed by our MC.
This book had me glued to a dictionary, so be prepared. I have never read a novel quite like this, put together in this particular format, but I quite enjoyed the elevation and broadening of my vocabulary and reading expectations.
September 23, 2018
“I felt anxiety was a necessary part of being conscious in the world; it was a prerequisite of a moral and ethical life.�
I feel the need to preface this review by stating that I did not go into this book with an unbiased mind. I have had the opportunity to learn from and work with Dionne Brand in the past. She is one of the most brilliant people I have ever met, and I could spend hours just listening to her thoughts and the way she articulates them.
I read Theory with Brand’s voice in my mind. I can’t say that I fully understand what happened in the book, but I can say that I enjoyed it. There were shining moments of brilliance that stopped me in my tracks and caused me to re-read the words until they imprinted themselves in my mind (for example, the sentence “It is, in fact, the male body that is biology.� continues to float through my mind a day after reading it). Theory weaves together the all-consuming world of academia with the all-consuming world of love and attraction, and through the dissertation that our narrator is working on, Brand touches on a variety of issues in contemporary society (including issues of race, class, gender, privilege, erasure etc.).
One of my favourite quotes, which is powerful as hell, is as follows: “Their lives had been lived in privilege and elitism. They had fooled themselves into thinking that merely because they had privilege, they had earned it. They’d never taken into account the violence their existence had perpetrated on the world, on the very people who lived around them. They’d oiled their way into schools and clubs and journals and conferences. They actually believed that this made them worthy � they confused their privilege with intellect. These professors weren’t conservatives, by any means. Oh no, they would never consider themselves in that category. They were left-wing scholars, social theorists. But I knew, and they knew, that academia was a place for perpetuating class and class privilege. It was a place for training up the ruling classes so they could continue ruling.�
Brilliant author. Brilliant book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for providing me with an advanced readers copy of Theory in exchange for an honest review. All of the quotes I have provided in this review are from the published version of the book, not the ARC.
I feel the need to preface this review by stating that I did not go into this book with an unbiased mind. I have had the opportunity to learn from and work with Dionne Brand in the past. She is one of the most brilliant people I have ever met, and I could spend hours just listening to her thoughts and the way she articulates them.
I read Theory with Brand’s voice in my mind. I can’t say that I fully understand what happened in the book, but I can say that I enjoyed it. There were shining moments of brilliance that stopped me in my tracks and caused me to re-read the words until they imprinted themselves in my mind (for example, the sentence “It is, in fact, the male body that is biology.� continues to float through my mind a day after reading it). Theory weaves together the all-consuming world of academia with the all-consuming world of love and attraction, and through the dissertation that our narrator is working on, Brand touches on a variety of issues in contemporary society (including issues of race, class, gender, privilege, erasure etc.).
One of my favourite quotes, which is powerful as hell, is as follows: “Their lives had been lived in privilege and elitism. They had fooled themselves into thinking that merely because they had privilege, they had earned it. They’d never taken into account the violence their existence had perpetrated on the world, on the very people who lived around them. They’d oiled their way into schools and clubs and journals and conferences. They actually believed that this made them worthy � they confused their privilege with intellect. These professors weren’t conservatives, by any means. Oh no, they would never consider themselves in that category. They were left-wing scholars, social theorists. But I knew, and they knew, that academia was a place for perpetuating class and class privilege. It was a place for training up the ruling classes so they could continue ruling.�
Brilliant author. Brilliant book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for providing me with an advanced readers copy of Theory in exchange for an honest review. All of the quotes I have provided in this review are from the published version of the book, not the ARC.
July 29, 2021
Ça faisait longtemps que je n’avais pas lu un (très) bon roman de thèse, qui parvient à marier adéquatement le jargon académique, les affres de la rédaction et les tracas du quotidien. Ici, Brand repousse justement la limite de ces trois aspects de la vie universitaire vue comme ontologique et omnipotente. Un livre qui fait semblant d’être compliqué tout en faisant semblant d’être simple. Un.e narrateur.trice qui joue allègrement sur l’ambiguïté de son propre regard intersectionnel et conformiste. Une dissertation sur l’amour et le corps, sur l’institutionnalisation de l’intelligence et des affects, où la blancheur et la masculinité deviennent des objets inversement fétichisés. Un roman verbeux mais pas prétentieux pour deux sous, qui ose s’ouvrir et se fermer sur une note en bas de page de plus de 20 lignes. Fallait le faire, Dionne Brand l’a fait.
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August 15, 2023jon's recommendation! it's been a while since i've read something that's made me feel excited about LANGUAGE. thought there was a lot of force/rigor behind the writing! sometimes became repetitive/circular in a way that felt exhausting but i think was also the point
March 13, 2020
this is one of the best fucking books I've ever read. potentially the best novel I have ever read.
March 2, 2021
This novel reads like an essay although it is a work of fiction. Thought provoking and at times quite humorous.
June 23, 2018
Dionne Brand impresses with a novel that brilliantly navigates the intersections of academia, love, race, gender, etc!
November 21, 2018
The author never gives the reader a reason to care about any of these characters, making the narratives about them tedious and boring. I couldn’t make it past halfway.
March 2, 2023
ugh my prof is so sexy and has such good taste in books 😍😍😍😍😍 probably the most sally rooney esque book i’ve read thats not by sally rooney
March 2, 2023
I hate this narrator. I believe the narrator to be an incredibly shallow, self-absorbed, and insecure narcissist with a superiority complex. And while the narrator is aware of some of the time of their own shortcomings I don't see much of genuine grappling with it (maybe with one of the last lines). It's the way that this person sees everyone else as so inferior to themselves, they can only ever find fault in their academic peers. They think not only that their work will be great and will impact the literature (which is fine and healthy) but that their work will be superior to the work of their peers and their supervisor and most work in the field. It's the way this character feels so superior for noticing that the academy holds up many of the same values or class systems that it simultaneously critiques. WOw! Never heard that take before in my life!
In relationships, the narrator even notes that they've dated the same person over and over again. If you feel this way, you're doing something wrong. Granted, sometimes we'll notice particular traits that many of our partners may have (this is called having 'a type') but the reason I'm so critical of the author here is that I don't think they separated enough from their own perspective to see/genuinely love their romantic partners.
Listen, I'm also going to be ageist here but I do think some of what irritated me about this narrator is that they are in their thirties and almost forty by the end of the story. Of course, I do not expect that people will have it all figured out by their 30s. But it just felt like the narrator was so emotionally immature for their age (and for the amount of life experiences they've had. I don't think the narrator took a single, what we might call 'lesson', from one relationship and carried it into the next. Not at all.) It's sort of like Salinger's Catcher in the Rye or Franny and Zooey, (though Salinger is way better) but part of what makes Salinger's often emotionally unintelligent characters work so well is the youth of these characters; it feels so visible how their lack of work/love experience is deluding them, or where their frustration and angst is coming from. And in Catcher we feel the growth of Holden or the potential of who he could change into. (This is not a comprehensive account of why Salinger is great, but I guess I'm just trying to distinguish I like some characters with huge flaws while other times it ruins the reading experience.)
I love the idea of books being sectioned by the relationships with other people (ie each 'chapter' was the name and beginning of a new romantic relationship). I love this idea, very vignette-like. But the narrator's total self-absorption (again, beyond the fact that it was formed like an introspective style) made each section blend into one another, instead of truly differentiating from one another and being beautiful unique self-contained sections. Any sort of descriptive feature given to the love interests lacked specificity.
Granted, I do feel sympathy for the character, especially as they've experienced difficulties related to their parentage, race, and gender. I do not think writing a dissertation is easy by any means nor is navigating the dating world. I also find the tone and format unique, you'd be able to recognize this book from a few sentences read out to you. And many sentences or thoughts were interesting.
But I hate this narrator.
In relationships, the narrator even notes that they've dated the same person over and over again. If you feel this way, you're doing something wrong. Granted, sometimes we'll notice particular traits that many of our partners may have (this is called having 'a type') but the reason I'm so critical of the author here is that I don't think they separated enough from their own perspective to see/genuinely love their romantic partners.
Listen, I'm also going to be ageist here but I do think some of what irritated me about this narrator is that they are in their thirties and almost forty by the end of the story. Of course, I do not expect that people will have it all figured out by their 30s. But it just felt like the narrator was so emotionally immature for their age (and for the amount of life experiences they've had. I don't think the narrator took a single, what we might call 'lesson', from one relationship and carried it into the next. Not at all.) It's sort of like Salinger's Catcher in the Rye or Franny and Zooey, (though Salinger is way better) but part of what makes Salinger's often emotionally unintelligent characters work so well is the youth of these characters; it feels so visible how their lack of work/love experience is deluding them, or where their frustration and angst is coming from. And in Catcher we feel the growth of Holden or the potential of who he could change into. (This is not a comprehensive account of why Salinger is great, but I guess I'm just trying to distinguish I like some characters with huge flaws while other times it ruins the reading experience.)
I love the idea of books being sectioned by the relationships with other people (ie each 'chapter' was the name and beginning of a new romantic relationship). I love this idea, very vignette-like. But the narrator's total self-absorption (again, beyond the fact that it was formed like an introspective style) made each section blend into one another, instead of truly differentiating from one another and being beautiful unique self-contained sections. Any sort of descriptive feature given to the love interests lacked specificity.
Granted, I do feel sympathy for the character, especially as they've experienced difficulties related to their parentage, race, and gender. I do not think writing a dissertation is easy by any means nor is navigating the dating world. I also find the tone and format unique, you'd be able to recognize this book from a few sentences read out to you. And many sentences or thoughts were interesting.
But I hate this narrator.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 27, 2023
Disliked this book so so so much! This is exactly why i left the academia. No! Not what the author was saying about academia, but the author themselves who has nothing to say except for futile rants that sound smart but it’s not. It left a very bad taste in my mouth.
July 18, 2023
As someone working on a thesis (and possibly procrastinating my way through the summer reading fiction), this book was a kick in the arse. At turns funny, sad, and poignant, the protagonist's unfinished and unspecified dissertation looms like an imperious character, colonizing their life and apartment.
In short: a mood.
In short: a mood.
July 14, 2019
I know it is a clichée thing to write: This novel is not for everyone (and actually it is also quite trite because, in the end, no book is for everyone). But with Dionne Brand's novel Theory I felt that to be true even more than with a lot of other books. Theory is a book narrated by a woman in her late 30s ("Soon, in October, I'll be forty. I hate to begin with this disappointing fact, but what can I do.") who has been labouring on her PhD thesis for more than a decade. She is at the same time insecure and oddly confident - in her work as in her other life choices. The narrator (who is nicknamed Teoria by one of her partners) recounts in four parts four love relationships: three with women and the last with her thesis. The women all become more or less surfaces for the narrator's reflections on theory, family, academia, relationships, politics. She interweaves interpersonal anecdotes with quotes from theorists. And while this is a novel I was reminded of Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts (also with regards to the at times uncomfortable ways the narrator writes about other people) and to a lesser degree Anne Garréta's Not One Day. I really enjoyed Theory and I did laugh often and when the book more or less ended with a Žižek take-down in its second to last footnote (yes, there are footnotes) I laughed loudly. But I do think if you do not share the narrator's interests in certain theories and have a knowledge of at least a good part of the referenced authors, the book is way less (if even at all) enjoyable. So, I would not recommend it to everyone but I know some people in my life who will absolutely love this one and I can't wait to share it with them.
"All acts of conformity to power set time back. They set back thinking. A minute, subatomic change would've occurred in how social relations are perceived and extended had the regimen of power been disrupted."
"All acts of conformity to power set time back. They set back thinking. A minute, subatomic change would've occurred in how social relations are perceived and extended had the regimen of power been disrupted."
September 19, 2019
Theory is a standalone contemporary novel written by Dionne Brand. It centers on an unnamed, ungendered, Ph.D. student reflecting on a visit from older brother Wendell. It has been short-listed for the 2019 Toronto Book Awards.
Theory is written like a dissertation on love. It’s the story of a narrator who is in graduate school, writing their Ph.D. thesis, and, during the course of some fifteen years or so, falls in love with three other women. Each chapter looks at the stormy love affair with these folks: Selah, beautiful but too vain for her own good; Yara, an artist who takes on more passion projects for social justice than she should; and Odalys, who dabbles mercilessly with the occult. With each successive relationship, the narrator gets more and more lost in their thesis. Finally, the last chapter of the book is random notes about their family life and upbringing and what they come up with in terms of a way forward in their work.
Theory is written rather well. The narrative is told in four parts: the first three parts are devoted to different lovers with the final section covers the unending relationship the narrator grapples with � their thesis. Brand creates wonderful characters with such dichotomies like a narrator who says they are devoted to their academic work who is easily derailed by beautiful woman, who remarks how unremarkable their childhood was and yet reveals how much lasting hurt is rooted in it, who rails against corporate predators but wrinkles their nose when their activist lover houses actual victims of such predators.
All in all, Theory is a wonderfully written novel that explores the themes of love, family, and academia.
Theory is written like a dissertation on love. It’s the story of a narrator who is in graduate school, writing their Ph.D. thesis, and, during the course of some fifteen years or so, falls in love with three other women. Each chapter looks at the stormy love affair with these folks: Selah, beautiful but too vain for her own good; Yara, an artist who takes on more passion projects for social justice than she should; and Odalys, who dabbles mercilessly with the occult. With each successive relationship, the narrator gets more and more lost in their thesis. Finally, the last chapter of the book is random notes about their family life and upbringing and what they come up with in terms of a way forward in their work.
Theory is written rather well. The narrative is told in four parts: the first three parts are devoted to different lovers with the final section covers the unending relationship the narrator grapples with � their thesis. Brand creates wonderful characters with such dichotomies like a narrator who says they are devoted to their academic work who is easily derailed by beautiful woman, who remarks how unremarkable their childhood was and yet reveals how much lasting hurt is rooted in it, who rails against corporate predators but wrinkles their nose when their activist lover houses actual victims of such predators.
All in all, Theory is a wonderfully written novel that explores the themes of love, family, and academia.
January 8, 2019
This novel features the most deliciously hateable narrator I've read in ages. Brand delights in capturing the fragile and haughty ego of academia, the self-absorption, and the complete lack of practical follow-through on theory as the genderless narrator fails time and again to translate their lofty ideas on gender and sex into their personal relationships.
Teoria chronicles her failed loves, always younger and removed from academia, with clinical analysis of their failings and a self-deprecating shrug at her own.
Brand throws in wonderfully obtuse academic jargon that makes just enough sense, but still skewers the all-encompassing and self-referential theorizing that plagues the social sciences.
I wouldn't say it's always an enjoyable read. It at times reminds me of the omnipresent cringe sitcoms like Arrested Development and Curb where you kind of sympathize with and hate the unlikeable characters.
But it is beautifully written and pitch perfect in tone, as you'd expect from Brand, who's known predominantly as a poet.
This novel is a perfecr freeze framed middle finger portrait of everything wrong with academics.
Teoria chronicles her failed loves, always younger and removed from academia, with clinical analysis of their failings and a self-deprecating shrug at her own.
Brand throws in wonderfully obtuse academic jargon that makes just enough sense, but still skewers the all-encompassing and self-referential theorizing that plagues the social sciences.
I wouldn't say it's always an enjoyable read. It at times reminds me of the omnipresent cringe sitcoms like Arrested Development and Curb where you kind of sympathize with and hate the unlikeable characters.
But it is beautifully written and pitch perfect in tone, as you'd expect from Brand, who's known predominantly as a poet.
This novel is a perfecr freeze framed middle finger portrait of everything wrong with academics.
September 14, 2018
Theory follows a narrator on their journey to write a thesis that explores their relationship history. Three different relationships are brought up that appear to follow the heart, the head and the spirit as each relationship is very different and alters the narrator in a distinct way. As the narrator tries to complete their thesis we see the crossover between culture, race, gender, class and politics. I struggled to really follow the point of the book and did not gain anything profound from it. I did however enjoy how the narrator did not have a name or gender throughout. I think that was a really great statement. I have never read a book that was written like this and enjoyed how my mind wandered back and forth between genders. Thank you to Netgalley for a free preview copy.
January 24, 2022
Enjoyable read for those privy and maybe even a little intrigued by academias /quirky/ way of obfuscating an individual.
While my only gripe is that the language was jargon heavy, I see the irony about a narrator speaking in academic jargon while stressing over a dissertation, the focal conflict of the story.
It was a quick and relatable read for me and I appreciated how relationships, specifically woman loving woman relationships were highlighted, especially the stressful nature of these relationships in the context of an individual having a vocation claim the same sort of hyper attention and fixation a relationship may take on a person.
While my only gripe is that the language was jargon heavy, I see the irony about a narrator speaking in academic jargon while stressing over a dissertation, the focal conflict of the story.
It was a quick and relatable read for me and I appreciated how relationships, specifically woman loving woman relationships were highlighted, especially the stressful nature of these relationships in the context of an individual having a vocation claim the same sort of hyper attention and fixation a relationship may take on a person.
March 6, 2023
had a good time! 😋❤️🔥�
February 7, 2022
“There are multiple reasons why I find myself in the situation of not having completed my dissertation; on the other hand, I believe one ought to take stock of one’s own bullshit.”�
Theory, the latest novel by Dionne Brand, begins and ends with a footnote. The unnamed, ungendered narrator (though easily presumed lesbian/queer/non-binary person) retells three romances over the course of writing their dissertation: Selah, embodiment of beauty; Yara, the altruistic playwright; and Odalys, the faith-healer. Through these relationships we learn more about the narrator’s ambition and their struggle to complete their dissertation.
This is a funny book. Often you are laughing at the narrator for their folly, their lack of intuition and self-honesty in relationships, be they collegial or personal.
But in some ways you are laughing at yourself. I think one of the major themes in this book is how expectations in the family and the university shape our love lives in turn. When one is negotiating with professionalizing ambitions at home and at work and, yes, in “love,� where do you turn? The narrator is constantly qualifying their opinions, revising their statements, taking back judgments of character. So in one light, it’s no wonder they never finished the diss. But they make a good case for themselves:
“At the root of the problem are the quotations and references. One is not allowed an original thought. I asked the committee: Does Derrida keep quoting everyone before him to make sure he is right? Does Spivak have to array around her all the dead philosophers and theorists to prove her credentials for speaking? And finally, there’s no reference for what I want to do. Why can’t I simply speak without having to have that speech legitimated by god knows who?�
Theory, the latest novel by Dionne Brand, begins and ends with a footnote. The unnamed, ungendered narrator (though easily presumed lesbian/queer/non-binary person) retells three romances over the course of writing their dissertation: Selah, embodiment of beauty; Yara, the altruistic playwright; and Odalys, the faith-healer. Through these relationships we learn more about the narrator’s ambition and their struggle to complete their dissertation.
This is a funny book. Often you are laughing at the narrator for their folly, their lack of intuition and self-honesty in relationships, be they collegial or personal.
But in some ways you are laughing at yourself. I think one of the major themes in this book is how expectations in the family and the university shape our love lives in turn. When one is negotiating with professionalizing ambitions at home and at work and, yes, in “love,� where do you turn? The narrator is constantly qualifying their opinions, revising their statements, taking back judgments of character. So in one light, it’s no wonder they never finished the diss. But they make a good case for themselves:
“At the root of the problem are the quotations and references. One is not allowed an original thought. I asked the committee: Does Derrida keep quoting everyone before him to make sure he is right? Does Spivak have to array around her all the dead philosophers and theorists to prove her credentials for speaking? And finally, there’s no reference for what I want to do. Why can’t I simply speak without having to have that speech legitimated by god knows who?�
October 11, 2019
I thought this was a wonderful story. Wonderfully written, albeit a little complex structurally in my opinion towards the ending, but a beautiful tale about trying to find your way through to the finished product in love, education and work. I loved the poetic flourishes the author employed describing each female love interest that the main character was infatuated or in love with - their appearance, their passions, their zest for life. I love that all the women in these romantic entanglements were so open in some way and so closed in others. It read like a memoir, which was super fun as well. I could see this as a film and I'd run to the theatre to see it.
I was in love with the first-person narration. A powerful, educated black woman experiencing what many educated black women go through trying to find a balance in love and work. It was voyeuristic candy, experiencing the memories through the eyes of the main character, you can see where she went wrong in her relationships with the three women and where red flags existed with each person including our girl, the narrator. I'll be revisiting this book in the future so I can take another stab at finding my footing with some of the complexities described in the final chapter, Teoria Theory.
Overall, I can see why it won the 2019 Toronto Book Award. It was the announcement that she had won the Toronto Book Award that inspired me to read the book. I saw it in the Toronto Star and I'm glad that I did!
I was in love with the first-person narration. A powerful, educated black woman experiencing what many educated black women go through trying to find a balance in love and work. It was voyeuristic candy, experiencing the memories through the eyes of the main character, you can see where she went wrong in her relationships with the three women and where red flags existed with each person including our girl, the narrator. I'll be revisiting this book in the future so I can take another stab at finding my footing with some of the complexities described in the final chapter, Teoria Theory.
Overall, I can see why it won the 2019 Toronto Book Award. It was the announcement that she had won the Toronto Book Award that inspired me to read the book. I saw it in the Toronto Star and I'm glad that I did!
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February 9, 2019Review by Tavleen Purewal
Dionne Brand's novel Theory opens with a short, footnoted, epigraphic introduction: "Occam’s razor." Occam’s razor is a principle for solving problems in which the simplest solutions are considered the most truthful. This anything-but-simple footnote fills the remainder of the page, spilling over to the next, in which the narrator speaks about turning 40 soon, their incomplete and ambitious PhD dissertation, and a recent uneasy visit from their brother.
The visit reminds the narrator how kinships and lovers have interrupted their intellectual pursuits. They decide to take stock of the reasons for why the dissertation is incomplete. Abiding by the principle of Occam’s razor, the narrator simplifies the reasons to three women: Selah, Yara, and Odalys, each of whom are accorded a chapter.
Keep reading:
Dionne Brand's novel Theory opens with a short, footnoted, epigraphic introduction: "Occam’s razor." Occam’s razor is a principle for solving problems in which the simplest solutions are considered the most truthful. This anything-but-simple footnote fills the remainder of the page, spilling over to the next, in which the narrator speaks about turning 40 soon, their incomplete and ambitious PhD dissertation, and a recent uneasy visit from their brother.
The visit reminds the narrator how kinships and lovers have interrupted their intellectual pursuits. They decide to take stock of the reasons for why the dissertation is incomplete. Abiding by the principle of Occam’s razor, the narrator simplifies the reasons to three women: Selah, Yara, and Odalys, each of whom are accorded a chapter.
Keep reading:
July 16, 2019
I glanced over some other reviews of this book as I approached the end and came across a few people who felt this book went over their head, or they didn’t quite understand it all... I understand this feeling when reading Dionne Brand’s work but in the case of this book, I totally got it and think Theory may be my favourite of her novels. I had the pleasure of purchasing this book at the launch at the Art Gallery of Ontario and having Dionne Brand herself sign it. I listened then as people spoke of the book, and in particular, her use of footnotes. The first section put me off starting the book for a while. I knew I had to be in the right headspace.
Personally, I have been going through a reflective time. I read this book slowly and used it to mirror my own processing of how I participated in some of my past relationships. I recognized the place from which this protagonist communicated from, deep in an internal monologue.
Personally, I have been going through a reflective time. I read this book slowly and used it to mirror my own processing of how I participated in some of my past relationships. I recognized the place from which this protagonist communicated from, deep in an internal monologue.
February 8, 2019
i feel like a lot of this book went over my head, unfortunately, but what i did get is a searing, stimulating novel of intelligence and messy consumptive relationships and the specific obsession of a project. brand is beyond brilliant, and she sees her subjects and characters from every unflinching point of view. reading this was like running drills in my brain. in a very good way. she examines academia in such a perfectly scathing way, and i want her interpretation of it to actually exist.
January 30, 2019
"I arrive at matters late. I'm an academic in life as well as in practice. I can only study a thing once it has passed."
Brand writes an imperfect yet still astounding treatise on quiet love and its distraction, while asking what makes up a life. Can we truly know who we are before our thesis is complete?
Brand writes an imperfect yet still astounding treatise on quiet love and its distraction, while asking what makes up a life. Can we truly know who we are before our thesis is complete?
May 15, 2023
beautiful, brilliant, devastating, humorous - everybody read!!! underrated gem
December 31, 2024
One of my favourite pieces of fiction I’ve read this year. Such beautiful writing and absolutely absorbing. The experiences of struggling away at a dissertation feel so real to me as I’m trying to complete my own within the coming year.
There are three main sections of the novel, each section focused on a lover of the protagonist’s. The first is for Selah (a sensuous aesthete of great beauty), the second Yara (a fervently selfless and generous playwright), and third Odalys (a spiritual mystic fascinated with the occult). The final section is named after the protagonist Teoria (Greek for ‘theory�).
There were many beautiful reflections on all sorts of interesting things, and the protagonist engages in the work of Gramsci, Adorno, Althusser, Lacanian feminists, Fanon and Christina Sharpe, but for some reason the most memorable thing I encountered in this book was the protagonist mentioning her seeing Kathleen Battle at Roy Thomson Hall. I spent one Saturday evening listening to Battle’s compilation of Mozart opera arias put out by Deutsche Grammophon and it was so gorgeous. I’ve listened to Battle’s albums many times since then.
The academic tone, while perhaps a device performed in irony and critique, but for me it was something I actually appreciated a lot. I sympathized maybe too much with the protagonist, where I feel they were maybe meant to be somewhat unlikable and self-important, at least it seems like suggested that the novel read that way for them.
I attended the Alchemy Lecture this year, curated by Christina Sharpe (mentioned in this novel), and of course as the editor of the Knopf imprint, Alchemy, Dionne Brand herself was in attendance. I was snacking on little pieces of finger food only meters away from her and other writers I fiercely revere, who were presenting that evening. I ended up purchasing myself a copy of Brand’s Theory after the evening and it is in my collection at home and I’d be happy to lend it to a friend/acquaintance in the GTA (feel free to reach out, it is also available on TPL’s Libby collection as an audiobook).
There are three main sections of the novel, each section focused on a lover of the protagonist’s. The first is for Selah (a sensuous aesthete of great beauty), the second Yara (a fervently selfless and generous playwright), and third Odalys (a spiritual mystic fascinated with the occult). The final section is named after the protagonist Teoria (Greek for ‘theory�).
There were many beautiful reflections on all sorts of interesting things, and the protagonist engages in the work of Gramsci, Adorno, Althusser, Lacanian feminists, Fanon and Christina Sharpe, but for some reason the most memorable thing I encountered in this book was the protagonist mentioning her seeing Kathleen Battle at Roy Thomson Hall. I spent one Saturday evening listening to Battle’s compilation of Mozart opera arias put out by Deutsche Grammophon and it was so gorgeous. I’ve listened to Battle’s albums many times since then.
The academic tone, while perhaps a device performed in irony and critique, but for me it was something I actually appreciated a lot. I sympathized maybe too much with the protagonist, where I feel they were maybe meant to be somewhat unlikable and self-important, at least it seems like suggested that the novel read that way for them.
I attended the Alchemy Lecture this year, curated by Christina Sharpe (mentioned in this novel), and of course as the editor of the Knopf imprint, Alchemy, Dionne Brand herself was in attendance. I was snacking on little pieces of finger food only meters away from her and other writers I fiercely revere, who were presenting that evening. I ended up purchasing myself a copy of Brand’s Theory after the evening and it is in my collection at home and I’d be happy to lend it to a friend/acquaintance in the GTA (feel free to reach out, it is also available on TPL’s Libby collection as an audiobook).
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October 4, 2020Literary fiction. I really like Brand's writing but, for whatever reason, it has been quite a few years since I last read any, so I was very happy to sink my teeth into this one. The narrator describes three love affairs that take place as she attempts to finish her doctoral dissertation. As someone who has spent a great deal of time around academics and who, though not an academic myself, lives rather too much in my head, it struck several chords. I think I was most taken by its successful all-at-once holding of so many of the contradictions � the hypocrisies as well as the tragically earnest tensions � characteristic of many who relate critically to the world and engage it to a large extent through the life of the mind. It's that mix of penetrating insight and wilful obliviousness, intellectualizing that is simultaneously a tool to understand life and a mechanism to avoid it, the self-deprecating honesty and hilarious capacity for unaware (or acknowledged and then repressed) self-deception, the compulsion to find the thing to write, to say, that will solve it all even when you know very well that such a thing does not exist, the lure and harshness of the academy, the particular modes of foolishness that head-bound people are prone to in life and love. And that might sound heavy, but it really isn't. Smart, readable, and fun.
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