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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."