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4.25
| 9,109
| May 23, 2024
| Jun 06, 2024
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really liked it
| “Being one of four sisters always felt like being part of something magic.” Blue Sisters is the kind of book that, depending on my mood, I will either “Being one of four sisters always felt like being part of something magic.” Blue Sisters is the kind of book that, depending on my mood, I will either detest or adore. Fortunately, this time around, it was the latter. Having given Coco Mellors’ debut a hard pass, I was weary of reading more by her, yet, the premise for Blue Sisters sounded a lot less insipid than the one for C&F. While certainly not flawless, Blue Sisters makes for a tender, if occasionally too sentimental, exploration of sisterhood, grief, and self-sabotage. It should definitely appeal to fans of the people-fucking-up genre (examples being films like: The Worst Person in the World, Passages, Return to Seoul, Frances Ha and series like The Bisexual) or readers who enjoy complex sibling dynamics (such as in Yolk, Sunset, Butter Honey Pig Bread, The Arsonists' City) or female-centered books like Writers & Lovers, We Play Ourselves, and Self-Portrait with Boy. “Their family had always been good at hellos and goodbyes, moments ending even as they began. It was easy to love someone in the beginnings and endings; it was all the time in between that was so hard.” The characters are messy and there is a lot of friction among the sisters, so yes, we get a lot of arguments. With the exception of perhaps one or two cases, these come across as very authentic, sometimes overwhelmingly so. Hurtful words are hurled, sometimes with the intention to hurt, sometimes not. Things escalate, but not always. Mellors’ approach to these scenes felt cinematic yet intimate, and I appreciated how she is able to convey the conflicting feelings of her characters. The sisters are often unable to escape the dynamics of their childhood, with Bonnie acting as a pacifier, Avery as the mother, and Lucky as the rebellious youngest one. Avery and Lucky are assholes a lot of the time, something the narrative knows and doesn’t shy away from. Yet that doesn’t make them any less rounded or sympathetic. While Mellors doesn’t use their loss or childhood to excuse their actions, she allows those things to inform our understanding of her characters. I found her very empathetic, and loved many of the reflections around love (be it sisterly or romantic), insecurity, loneliness, and grief. “She was home, the only one she knew, not because she always lived in it, but because it always lived in her.” Through alternating chapters, the novel follows three of the Blue sisters, Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky, a year after the death of the fourth sister, Nicky. At the beginning of the novel, the Blue sisters are in different parts of the globe, but they are all similarly not coping, if not downright freefalling. Bonnie, once a boxer, is now working as a bouncer in LA. She does find herself making her way back to NY, where she is forced to confront her grief, the shame over her last match, and the feelings she’s been long harboring for her former mentor, Pavel. Avery works as a lawyer in London where she is married to Chiti, an older woman who was once her therapist. Chiti wants a child but Avery isn’t ready, in fact, ever since Nicky’s death she has been withdrawing from her marriage. Chiti has noticed but mostly relies on therapyspeak to remind Avery that she too has lost Nicky (as if being reminded of that would help avery…). Avery finds escape in rigorously attending AA meetings. There she meets a younger man, a poet, and their attraction is mutual and has disastrous consequences for Avery’s marriage. Lucky is a model who has spent most of her adulthood in relishing a carefree partier lifestyle. But Nicky’s death has changed things, and now Lucky is not so much as partying because it’s fun, but because as a means of oblivion. After screwing up her latest gig in Paris, she travels to London. Her and Avery’s relationship is more frayed than ever and the two sisters end up driving a further wedge in their bond. Lucky sees Avery as sanctimonious, smothering, and a hypocrite, whereas Avery is exasperated by Lucky’s careless attitude to others and herself. Eventually the three sisters reunite in NY, but their reunion is far from smooth. The prologue serves as a character introduction, one that, through the use of literary devices such as alliteration, succeeded in lending this tale of the Blue sisters the rhythms of a fairy tale. Despite the novel taking place over a fairly contained period of time, the characters have a lot of history with each other and a lot of personal baggage, yet, these forays into the past never weighed down the narrative, and if anything they made the characters more rounded. We come to understand why they act the way they do, the origin of some of their insecurities and anxieties, and why some of them try to escape their grief by avoiding what they once loved, sabotaging their relationships, and opting for self-destructive ‘coping mechanisms’. Bonnie is the more grounded of the sisters, and her arc is not a downward spiral, as it is for Avery or Lucky’s. Still, Bonnie feels responsible for Nicky’s death, and is unsure whether she can box like she used to. Avery has a tendency to shut out other people, something that makes her a hard character to get into. Yet, we can see how hard she has tried to make up for her parents, to look out for her sisters in all the ways they didn’t. She also believes that she was the one to have let down Nicky, but is not fully able to admit this, so she lets her hurt and guilt fester. She misdirects her anger towards Lucky, who is also as lost as she is. I thought that the novel was very self-assured, and that for the most part, it sticks the landing. Sure, one could say that Mellors was trying to cram in too much into the novel. Take the Blue sisters jobs…they are giving ‘try out different careers with Barbie’ (lawyer, model, boxer). They are also too beautiful and not-like-other people at times (Avery and her tattoos…sure, cool aesthetics, but it didn’t seem in line with her character). Even their mother, a character whose presence is mostly relegated to the outskirts of the narrative is subjected to this beautification: “at the time, she had silky auburn hair down to her waist and a beautiful, tulip-shaped face”. While I understood Lucky being beautiful, and her having a troubled relationship with her beauty (she takes it for granted, especially when it comes to what she can get away with, for instance, her beauty glamorizes how unpleasant, rude, and selfish she can be; she is also burdened by it, with other people unwilling to truly see her, or becoming obsessed with her because of her looks, or thinking she is a dumb shallow blonde) when it came to the other characters…these descriptions weakened the novel. They were syrupy and somewhat affected. Avery was the type of lesbian character that feels that has been written by a non lesbian, as in, the writer, in their attempts to avoid clichés about lesbians, ends up writing the straightest lesbian character ever. I did not understand why Avery is made into a lesbian character, given that the person she has an ‘affair’ with is a man…one thing is someone who is still for whatever internal or external reasons unable to identify and/or live as a lesbian, but Avery has been in a relationship with a woman for a long time, she describes herself as a lesbian who is interested in being with women…so why have her cheat with a man? A man she is insanely attracted to. It was a Choice™, one that seemed to me to exist only for dramatic effect (not only she cheats, but she cheats with a man!). Their sex scene also consolidated my perception of her as a very straight character. I just wish the author could have made her bi, queer, or pan. I also find the whole image of the (outwardly) strait-laced lesbian a bit of a bore, but thankfully Mellors does manage to make Avery into a flawed yet complex character. I didn’t like how the cheating plotline is handled,(view spoiler)[ especially when it comes to her being ‘found out’, I found Chiti finding the ‘evidence’ too much of a convenience, and had a hard time believing that Lucky wouldn’t cover for Avery, despite all their issues (hide spoiler)]. Lucky also skates close to being a bit of a cliché, but thankfully the narrative doesn’t romanticize her self-destructive ways. I did found that musician subplot very cheesy—it felt like something straight out of Hollywood—and I thought it was an unnecessary add-on. Similarly, the epilogue, despite the author's heartfelt acknowledgments, felt more corny than touching. However, these aspects didn't significantly detract from my overall enjoyment of the novel. I still loved it (which just goes to show how good mellors can be). The characters and their dynamics were compelling, and I particularly admired Mellors' prose style and ability to establish atmosphere. Mellors also adeptly balanced action and introspection, ensuring that the story never felt either rushed or slow-paced. Additionally, I appreciated that certain elements remained unresolved, such as the sisters’ complex relationship with their mother, adding depth to the narrative. Mellors' portrayal of grief is heartfelt and authentic. Through the lens of the surviving sisters' memories and flashbacks, she paints a vivid picture of Nicky, allowing readers not only to empathise with her but to miss her presence. Mellors' depiction of addiction and the journey to recovery feels genuine and relatable. She captures the struggles and setbacks with honesty, which in addition to making for a candid portrayal of addiction, also made the sisters' experiences all the more compelling and real. I can definitely see myself re-reading this as I found it to be a captivating tale. It had dramatic moments and plenty of emotional beats. Evocative and thoughtful, Blue Sisters made for a compelling read, full of imperfect people and fraught relationships, all underscored by an undeniable heart. I think readers who are less averse to sentimentality than I am will likely adore it even more than I did. I look forward to Mellors' next novel, hoping that it will align more closely with the style and depth of Blue Sisters than C&F. I'm grateful for this arc and (depending on my funds) will purchase a copy of my own once it is released. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 13, 2024
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Feb 19, 2024
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Feb 13, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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163973242X
| 9781639732425
| 163973242X
| 4.02
| 18,651
| Jan 17, 2022
| Feb 20, 2024
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really liked it
| “Isn’t that what life is about? Forging forward with the answer you have – stumbling along the way and picking yourself up – only to one day realise t “Isn’t that what life is about? Forging forward with the answer you have – stumbling along the way and picking yourself up – only to one day realise that the answer you’ve held on to for a long time is not the right one . When that happens, it’s time to look for the next answer. That’s how ordinary folks, like herself, live. Over our life span, the right answer will keep changing.” A balm for the soul, Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop makes for the perfect comfort-read. Hwang Bo-reum’s storytelling was a delight, and I found myself wholly won over by how thoughtful and humane her novel is. A healing slice-of-life, Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop around the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, located in a small residential neighborhood outside Seoul. We meet the owner, Yeongju, a woman who by her late 30s feels burnt-out, both by her professional life and her personal one. After divorcing her husband and quitting her job, Yeongju decides to fulfil her dream and opens a bookshop. But setting up a successful business is no easy feat, and in the first few months, Yeongju is still feeling emotionally drained. So she spends most of her days crying, or looking gloomy, which does little in terms of attracting new customers. She does have a regular, an older woman who is quite frank in pointing out Yeongju’s flaws when it comes to managing the bookshop. Yeongju ends up hiring a barista, Minjun, who is also dealing with doubts about his future (starting a ‘real’ career, and so on). We then meet new regulars, some of whom end up working at the bookshops, while others end up participating in its reading clubs and or attending its various events. “Running an independent bookshop was like roaming a stretch of land without roads. There was no tried-and-tested business model. Bookshop owners live day by day, hesitant to plan too far ahead .” We gain insight into their lives, their everyday worries, their thoughts on happiness and love, and their differentiating values (should you pursue a respectable high-paying career? Should you stay in an environment that is detrimental to your mental health? How do you cope with parental pressure? If you choose to follow your dreams, does that make you selfish?). I loved how despite their differences in age and personality, they are all trying to heal, to be a little less lost, a little less lonely. “A curious feeling swept over her. The feeling of being accepted.” We are given almost a documentary-like insight into the behind-the-scenes of running a bookshop. Yeongju has to come up with ways to attract more customers, she has to weigh whether she wants to stock books that are bound to sell (because they are written by a well-known author or were mentioned by someone famous) or whether she should treat all books the same way, regardless of the likelihood that they will be bought. And what to do when someone asks for a recommendation? As a bibliophile, I was utterly absorbed by this verisimilitude approach to the publishing and book-selling scenes. Not only is the book full of literary references but we also get to read about the characters’ different opinions of the same books, debate what is and what isn’t good writing, and so on. “Because it’s our first life, worries are aplenty, and anxiety, too. Because it’s our first life, it’s precious. Because it’s our first life, nobody knows what’ll happen even in five minutes.” I loved seeing the way they connect and support one another, and I found the pace of their blossoming friendships to be really believable. There are also some bittersweet moments. We have characters confronting painful memories, thinking back to past disappointments, and or struggling to see a more fulfilling future. The author allows her characters to question themselves, their past behaviors, and their present-day feelings. The way these characters change and or consider things felt very organic, and I was almost lulled by the realistic rhythm of their thoughts and their conversations. Throughout the novel, I found myself growing fond of the Hyunam-dong Bookshop and its people. “All of you should find something you enjoy doing, something that makes you excited. Instead of pursuing what is recognised and valued by society, do what you like. If you can find it, you’ll not waver easily, no matter what others think. Be brave.” Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is such a charming novel. Its heartwarming slice-of-life atmosphere wholly complemented Hwang's meditative and slightly melancholic storytelling. The characters, from their everyday worries to their longstanding regrets, felt like real people, and I was completely invested in their journeys. I can’t wait to read this again as I already miss Yeongju & co! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 08, 2024
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Jan 11, 2024
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Jan 05, 2024
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Hardcover
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1662601816
| 9781662601811
| B0BTLDT9HT
| 3.85
| 633
| Sep 19, 2023
| Sep 19, 2023
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really liked it
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A freewheeling, off-beat, and relentlessly chaotic read, Candelaria is a rhizomatic novel that defies easy categorisation. To borrow, once again, Lady
A freewheeling, off-beat, and relentlessly chaotic read, Candelaria is a rhizomatic novel that defies easy categorisation. To borrow, once again, Lady Gaga’s words: “talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, shit on it, vomit on it, eat it, give birth to it”. Populated by bizarre characters (prone to huge leaps of logic, maundering, and dissociating from the fucked-up things that come their way), absurdist elements, and weird, sometimes gross, horror-like scenarios, Candelaria is the type of book that might make one feel that they can't make head or tail of what they are reading. Yet, I found myself wholly captivated by Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s playful dark humor and by her irresistibly irreverent social commentary. I was equal parts appalled and delighted by her characters’ tribulations. Their behaviors and responses to the small and large-scale catastrophes that come their way often verge on the surreal, reminding me very much of authors like Helen Oyeyemi, Kevin Wilson, and Ling Ma. The novel’s opening is hectic enough. Through a 2nd pov we follow Candelaria, “you”, whose daily routine is interrupted by a devastating earthquake. Her surprisingly violent response to this event is in many ways more alarming than the earthquake itself, yet, the use of the 2nd pov keeps her motivations at arm's lengths from us. We know only that for whatever reason Candelaria sets out across Boston, her destination the Watertown Mall Old Country Buffet. Undeterred by the progressively apocalyptic obstacles in her path, Candelaria is determined to reach the Buffet, a place that, somehow, is connected to the ongoing chaos around her. The novel switches between Candelaria’s ‘present’ journey to the events that lead to it. Here we meet her three granddaughters, as overwhelmed as they are overwhelming, each far too wrapped up by her own drama to realize that the weird shit happening to each one of them is connected. There is archaeologist Bianca, who is plenty book-smart but lacks self-awareness, her cold, brusque even, demeanour often sees her (in)voluntarily pushing others away. Having long been forced into the role of the reliable daughter/sister/granddaughter, she’s at a low point in her life and has just been duped & dumped by her advisor who kicked her off of her own dig back in Guatemala. Her life work in jeopardy, Bianca is licking her wounds back in Boston, where, mired by self-pity, she spends most of her time whining to her (far too) understanding housemate. We then have Candy, the youngest, who, despite her name, is brazen and mean. Candy is a recovering addict whose self-destructive antics have often been a concern in the family. A film aficionado, Candy now works at a cinema. She’s brash, extremely self-centred, and rarely thinks things true. Her attitude to life is seemingly blasé yet after she and Bianca fall out, we can see how bothered she is by it. She discovers that is pregnant after a one-night stand with a mysterious man, whose disappearance was as strange as his appearance. Worst still, her pregnancy seems to have worrisome, monstrous, side effects. And last we have Paola, newly returned to Boston having been missing for over a decade. This new Paola goes by Zoe, and has become a devout member of a cultish wellness center. Having reinvented herself, Zoe is not interested in reuniting with her family, whom she’d run away from so many years before. Throughout the novel, Lozada-Oliva plays around with so many tropes and genres that one might struggle to keep up. Often we seemingly lose sight of the plot, distracted by whatever latest bizarre thing is happening on the page (be it brainwashing, cannibalism, or the end of the world). A series of grotty, horrifying, and baffling events puncture the sisters’ seemingly disparate storylines, but, these scenarios are depicted in such an energetic way that one might, like the characters themselves, overlook the magnitude of what has happened/is happening. Lozada-Oliva's characters and their circumstances are entrenched in the absurd, at times verging on the hysterical. Yet, the humorous and grotesque elements don’t take away from Lozada-Oliva’s social commentary nor do they make the characters less humane. The narrative may poke fun at the characters but not their struggles or desires. The novel’s gritty commentary on contemporary American politics is balanced by an empathetic yet incisive portrayal of the interplay between diasporic identity and generational trauma. Family is at the heart of Candelaria, even if the sisters’ attempts at belonging, at achieving happiness and success, see them hurtling into and out of each other’s paths. I liked how the novel allows for these types of flawed characters and sisterhood to take the centrestage, showing the complex layers beneath each sister and allowing for nuance in their love/hate bond. The novel’s foray into the horror genre is particularly effective as it allows for an uncompromising examination of bodily autonomy, female monstrosity, thorny family histories, and the hunger to belong. Lozada-Oliva's approach to horror made me think simultaneously of two very different films, Julia Ducournau’s Titane and Jim Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die, as well as Stephen Graham Jones' adrenaline-fueled horror novels (in particular My Heart is a Chainsaw). This novel is a riot, and I was wholly wholly engrossed and invested in the ongoing chaos. There were some aspects that I wish could have been tweaked slightly (the reunion is too long delayed, several storylines are left unresolved, and i could have done without the offing of a certain character). Still, given its scope, those minor flaws hardly made a dent in my reading experience. I loved Lozada-Oliva’s punchy prose, her fucked-up sort of humor, and her messed-up characters. I can definitely see this appealing to fans of Helen Oyeyemi, Kevin Wilson, Hilary Leichter, and Ling Ma, as well as to readers who enjoyed Samanta Schweblin's bizarre short stories, An Yu's murky brand of surrealism, Sam Cohen's madcap stories in Sarahland, Candas Jane Dorsey's tongue-in-cheek postmodern murder-mystery, The Adventures of Isabel , Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier, or the realistically dysfunctional family dynamics depicted by authors like Angie Cruz and Eden Robinson. Lozada-Oliva delivers a high-octane genre-bending read that sucked me into its nonsensical, uninhibited, funny, and gross vortex. I can't wait to read it again and look forward to reading more by Lozada-Oliva. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 28, 2023
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Dec 30, 2023
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Aug 28, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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3.66
| 3,083
| Sep 2000
| Oct 14, 2021
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it was amazing
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edit re-read n3: truly a gem. review to actually come this time this was a random purchase @ the airport a few weeks ago so i was taken aback by how mu edit re-read n3: truly a gem. review to actually come this time this was a random purchase @ the airport a few weeks ago so i was taken aback by how much i enjoyed this. a precursor to the sad girls penned by ppl like rooney & moshfegh. review to come sooner rather than later. ...more |
Notes are private!
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3
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May 12, 2024
Sep 07, 2023
Jul 04, 2023
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May 15, 2024
Sep 08, 2023
Jul 09, 2023
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Jul 09, 2023
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Paperback
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1529399653
| 9781529399653
| 1529399653
| 3.93
| 2,662
| Jan 20, 2021
| Apr 06, 2023
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really liked it
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Adroit yet accessible The Scent of Flowers at Night is a short but thought-provoking read that manages to explore a wide range of topics with insight
Adroit yet accessible The Scent of Flowers at Night is a short but thought-provoking read that manages to explore a wide range of topics with insight and emotional intelligence. Leïla Slimani’s The Scent of Flowers at Night really resonated with me, in particular, when it came to the author's exploration of the intersection between creativity and solitude; while she does, like many other authors, mystify her profession and craft, I did not find her observations and conclusions far-fetched or obnoxious, especially since her view of authors and writing leads to some truly compelling discussions on belonging, aloneness, otherness, and privilege. She is particularly aware of the circumstances that led to her being able to ‘become’ a writer, and I appreciated how honest she was when reflecting on the role of her father’s death in her being able to pursue her writing. She demonstrates a perspective and critical mind, and her self-awareness allows her to consider ‘uncomfortable’ truths, about herself, her family, society, and history. I liked how Slimani's writing seemed in conversation with that of other writers, from considering the authors who shaped her to giving us glimpses into their lives. While Slimani does write about art and museums, knowledge and beauty, the Punta della Dogana Museum remains a mere backdrop to her various acts of introspection. Slimani does acknowledge that as an author she doesn’t have much to contribute when it comes to writing about Venice but I did feel this was a bit of a cop-out given that she does have very little to say about Venice. Another small quibble is the comparison between Native Americans and the dwindling population of Venice, I mean, not only was it in really really really bad taste but it made little sense. Slimani’s contemplations on solitude, creativity, identity, heritage, migration, and art, were captivating and I found myself inspired by her words. This type of reading will definitely appeal to readers who enjoy Jhumpa Lahiri, Zadie Smith, and Elena Ferrante's nonfiction. I found Slimani’s recollections of her past, her reflecting on her experiences as a Moroccan woman, first in Morocco and then in France, as a daughter to a Moroccan-French mother and a Moroccan father, and, most of all, as an author to be insightful. I will definitely be revisiting this. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 20, 2023
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Feb 22, 2023
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Feb 03, 2023
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Hardcover
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0241515076
| 9780241515075
| 0241515076
| 3.47
| 967
| Feb 02, 2023
| Feb 02, 2023
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it was amazing
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ stars (rounded up) “That this was the trade-off. The price of happiness. In order to❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ stars (rounded up) “That this was the trade-off. The price of happiness. In order to feel happy he had to feel everything.” A quietly crushing yet devastatingly tender work scintillating with insight and emotional intelligence. With acuity and empathy Hanna Jameson presents her readers with a captivating narrative chronicling four people’s attempts at happiness despite a looming health crisis: more and more people are literally sitting down and seemingly giving up on life. “He didn’t want to die, he just wanted to stop, to cease, sit down. Maybe just sleep, for a year or maybe forever.” Even more so than in her previous novel, The Last, Jameson bypasses the usual apocalyptic storylines, as she grounds her quietly dystopic concept firmly into reality. There is a minimalism to Jameson’s alternate/what if reality that brought to mind the subdued yet ominous world-building of authors such Kazuo Ishiguro, Emily St. John Mandel, Ling Ma, whose works are often characterized by a faintly ominous atmosphere. “Boy meets girl at a wedding and the world ends. The classic meetcute.” The novel opens at a wedding reception in NY, on a hot summer night. At first, we principally follow Yun, who is 29 and for years has been trying to make a living as a musician. He meets and is taken by Emory, a journalist who exudes wit and confidence. Their meet-cute comes to an abrupt halt when one of the s sits down and refuses to get back up. As the weeks go by, and Yun and Emory’s attraction blossoms solidify into something more solid, rumors of more and more cases reach Emory’s ears, and she decides to publish an article on the matter. This goes viral and she receives a lot of backlash. The lack of information on the whys and hows of “psychogenic catatonia” contribute to people’s growing panic and an avalanche of misinformation leads many to believe that psychogenic catatonia is either the beginning of the end or that it only affects ‘weak’ young people. Although Yun and Emory’s relationship eventually see them adopting the rhythms and routines of a couple, their dynamic shifts. Yun’s depression runs deep, casting everything around him with gloom. His self-doubt sees him pushing away those who care for him, such as Emory, his best-friend Andrew, and his own family. Perpetually dogged by his own sense of inadequacy, his growing self-absorption, even if of the miserable and negative variety, soon affects his empathy and well-being. “He wondered why he always seemed destined to be slightly too far ahead or too far behind his own life.” Emory on the other hand attempts to help him but as the world around her becomes more and more weighed by bad news, she also struggles to make sense of everything that is going on and the gnawing guilt she feels towards her article. For all her attempts to make things work and his longing to be happy, content even, their relationship continues to fray. “Emory couldn’t imagine what it felt like to inhabit space you truly owned. Cities were hostile to anyone who couldn’t count on the split rent and utilities of partnership. Being one person was more expensive than she had been taught to anticipate.” We later return to the wedding scene, except that this time we follow two different guests, Andrew and Fin. Both are there with their soon-to-be exes. They properly meet later on, in a gallery. Despite his best efforts, Andrew, a 31-year-old professor who has recently gone through a fairly amicable separation from his wife, finds himself falling for Fin. Not only does Andrew slowly come to terms with the desires and knowledge that he had so long suppressed, but he is wary of falling for Fin, a 20-year-old ballet student hailing from London. Fin too is filled with doubt, and seems always braced for the worst-case scenario, of Andrew’s inevitably disinterest, of failing at what he loves, of not being good enough. Yet, despite their worries, the two have fallen fast and hard for each other. As their relationship becomes more serious, Andrew and Yun’s friendship seems to come undone. “He wondered if a love not properly expressed mutated into something jagged and unwieldy like metal, something that could kill you.” As the characters contend with old and new hurts, hidden feelings, loneliness and longing, psychogenic catatonia continues to threaten their horizon. Jameson seamlessly switches points of view, often adopting a nonlinear narrative and or using foreshadowing to build and maintain tension. Her prose brought to mind Hanya Yanagihara, Donna Tartt, and Scott Spencer. Jameson’s prose effortlessly moves between registers: from presenting us with clear-cut and incisive descriptions (of the character’s feelings, thoughts, actions, and surroundings), to using her language to evoke with striking intimacy and poignancy the mood and nuances of a certain moment/scene. Jameson’s style maintains a balance between crisp yet opaque, at times eliciting in dazzling detail the state of mind of a character, at times allowing room for the ambiguous nature of her character’s fears and desires to shine. Her dialogues rang true to life, not only in their rhythms but in how they often revolved around or hinted at unspoken feelings. The setting, mostly ‘post’-covid NY, is brought to life. Jameson captures just how easy it is to feel lost and alone in such a city, while also incorporating discussions on current politics and on America’s healthcare service. Jameson presents us with a painfully realistic portrayal of depression: not only the many ways in which it manifests in the person affected but on its eventual effects on the people who love them; rather than indicting Yun, Jameson makes us feel for him. We eventually may grow saddened by his inability and unwillingness to accept other people’s help and the way he weaponizes his own hurt and disappointment. Despite the melancholic tone permeating much of this novel, there are so many moments and scenes that will fill readers’ hearts with hope and love. I was 100% invested in Andrew and Fin’s relationship, and seeing them be vulnerable with one another really pulled at my heartstrings. Andrew and Yun’s relationship also gave me all sorts of feelings, and I found myself filled with sorrow on their behalf. Jameson uses this ‘is the world ending?’ scenario as a backdrop to some profoundly poignant character studies and as a bouncing board to interrogate happiness, love, self-destruction, depression, suppressed and/or unrequited feelings and many more. I found Jameson’s examination of happiness thoroughly captivating. How some people set themselves up for failure and disappointment by never allowing themselves to be happy, always comparing what they have unfavourably with what they envisioned. Often, rather than wondering why they feel perpetual unhappy and dissatisfied, they blame others for not meeting their expectations. Or they hold others responsible for not making them ‘happy’. To cope with this constant sadness and satisfaction they make themselves believe that being with someone else or doing something else or being somewhere else is what will make them happy. Jameson captures the current zeitgeist, as she articulates her characters’ very contemporary malaises: from daily anxieties and depicts their experiences with precarious jobs and housing, the ever-present FOMO, ennui, and their growing nihilism at the world they live in. Many of the characters in this novel feel simultaneously unmoored yet stuck, overcome by their own impotence in face of psychogenic catatonia and a world that, against all odds, keeps going on. Psychogenic catatonia plays a symbolic role in the story, as those affected seem to be giving up on participating in life; no longer bound by social norms, they lash out at anyone who attempts to interfere with them, refusing to get up, talk or eat. Whether their ‘sitting down is an act of resistance or surrender, is a question that underlies much of the narrative. Throughout the novel, Jameson explores happiness, adulthood, loneliness, and connectedness. Her characters deal with failure, disappointment, and their own impotence, ‘smallness’, in the face of all that is going on in their world. I loved how many moments of vulnerability, kindness, and love we got. I also found myself relating very much with the many instances where characters are struggling to cope: with their own life, with their own unhappiness, and with taking accountability. Yun, Emory, Andrew, and Fin’s flaws and idiosyncrasies are what made them memorable and real. Although I am more of a Yun/Fin, Andrew had my heart. He was such a gem. His kindness, his alertness to other people's feelings, his selflessness…getting to know him was a delight. The narrative’s self-awareness adds to the story. Not only does Jameson touch upon the notion of ‘main character syndrome’ but she reflects on the concept of a narrative arc, examining stories' tendency to provide some sort of closure for their characters. Jameson resists doing this, which will inevitably annoy readers and I have to say that the what-ifs scenarios presented by the ending were the only thing that I did not love about this novel. Are You Happy Now makes for a deeply moving novel exploring the sadness and happiness of its main characters as they grapple with ordinary and extraordinary situations. While I was reading I felt many things: apprehension, joy, sadness, and tenderness. Are You Happy Now is a striking novel that for all the heartache it causes me, I look forward to revisiting again. PS: not a fan of the cover...it really doesn't have anything to do with the book's vibe. some quotes: And she thought, Oh shit, I really like him. Oh shit, because it was never a good time to realize you really liked someone. Realizing you really liked someone meant knowing on some level it was going to hurt. He was struck by the familiar feeling that someone else out there, or maybe several other people, were already living the life he was supposed to be living, were already living the life he was supposed to be living, because maybe he had been too slow or too unfocused, or just not good enough to attain it. I wanted you to be happy. I didn’t care what you were doing. It just got too much, watching you do the same thing over and over, and I realized you were never going to stop trying to become this imaginary version of yourself where you’re happy because you’re rich or signed to a big label or something huge like that. Even when things did go well, you were never happy because it wasn’t like this ultimate fantasy you already made up in your head. […] It was really hard to be around, to be with someone who was just never happy. He wondered if she had somehow felt it, felt him slipping away. But it wasn’t likely. She was just standing by him and searching for a way to help, like any normal person would. Like any good person. That’s my problem. Everyone feels like the right person, I can’t even tell the difference any more. I ride the subway and see someone reading a book I was just reading and think, Wow, maybe it’s you. It happens all the time. Someone looks at me and it’s just them. You know what I mean? Home is just a lie our brains tell us about permeance. He couldn’t stand to be looked at like he mattered, when mattering to someone was dangerous. Fin wanted with all the wide-eyed grasping of someone who’d never had, and no matter how viciously he polished the surface everyone could see it. Not because of age. Being in your thirties meant nothing. But by then, people tended to have acquired things that gradually cut them off from all the places […] they imagined more exciting lives were taking place. It was like he didn’t understand that relationships were all about power. They were about control, about who could endure the longest without visibly caring. Andrew was always giving his power away without a thought, like wasn’t ceding anything. As far as she could tell, what Yun wanted from his parents was impossible. He wanted them to have made him happy. Time will give you the illusion that you've put some distance between you and trauma, that you can stand up and walk away. But that time is elastic. The further you try to pull away, the harder it will snap you back. He couldn’t forgive them, for being human, for not getting parenthood right the first time, for not raising him better able to deal with this. Andrew waited at the bottom of the steps, wondering whether friendships burned out in the same way epidemics, hysterias and protestors do, then went up. You couldn’t actually tell people you just didn’t want to be with them any more. There had to be a better, more socially acceptable reason. By a force of habit, going back to childhood, he asked himself what part of the movie this was. The movie of his life. The main problem with his life-as-a-movie theory was that it wasn’t easy to apply to other people who weren’t the protagonists of his reality. What happened to everyone else? He wanted something too large and all-encompassing to articulate, and even if he had known what he wanted, he didn’t know how to ask. How do you ask someone if you can go back? Asking if you could both go back was too much to ask of anybody, certainly too much to ask of someone who was moving forward. He could ask for anything but more time, to go back and right that misstep. ...more |
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Dec 07, 2022
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1571314717
| 9781571314710
| 1571314717
| 4.22
| 11,806
| Sep 08, 2015
| Sep 15, 2015
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really liked it
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ Lighting does indeed strike twice and so does Ava Limón’s poetry. This past summer I was very ❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ Lighting does indeed strike twice and so does Ava Limón’s poetry. This past summer I was very much taken by Limón’s latest collection, The Hurting Kind, so much so that I was keen to make my way through her backlist. In Bright Dead Things Limón showcases not only her skill for language, but her ability to breathe life into words and sentences. From the gorgeously rendered , or otherwise striking, imagery underlining most of the poems in this collection to the understated yet captivating reflections on life, nature, memory and connection. One does not so much read Limón’s poems, as experiences them. There is a lushness to her description, and the rhythm created by her words feels like a breeze. The images, memories, and feelings she conveys within these poems are tinged by melancholy, which renders them all the more affecting. I admire the way within this collection, and at times within the same poem, Limón is able to shift between introspection, where what she writes feels very intimate and specific to her, to observations about nature, and questions related to life and death. A truly stunning collection that was able to simultaneously draw me away from my reality and make me reflect on all of the big and the little things that make-up every-day life. Limón is easily my favorite poet and I can’t wait to read more of her work. ...more |
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0802117694
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| 3.57
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| Jun 04, 2004
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really liked it
| “This is what exploration had opened up the door to. Not only widespread slaughter, but the necessary accompaniment of gorging.” Unapologetically solip “This is what exploration had opened up the door to. Not only widespread slaughter, but the necessary accompaniment of gorging.” Unapologetically solipsistic and deeply manipulative, Katherine, the central character of A Carnivore's Inquiry, makes for an awful human being and a deeply entertaining narrator. A predecessor to Ottessa Moshfegh and Mona Awad’s protagonists, and many of the young women from the 'She's Not Feeling Good at All' subgenre, Katherine is a ceaselessly sardonic and relentlessly remorseless narrator with a predilection for histories and representations of cannibalism. “I was one of those people who made up for what she lacked in talent with her father’s money.” Katherine is 23 and has arrived in New York after an extended trip to Italy. She is young, attractive, and from wealth. However, she has no interest in reconnecting with her father, a man she thinks rarely of, and never with any particular fondness. Her mother has been in and out of institutions all her life, and glimpses into Katherine’s childhood reveal just how unstable she was. But Katherine is not prone to melancholy, or at least, if she thinks of the past, it is not her past that she longs or feels for, rather, she is fascinated by tales and accounts of cannibals, cannibalism itself, and nurtures a troublesome, perverse even, admiration for colonialist and their violence and usurpation against native communities. She’s often awed by accounts of violence, of madness, and of death, recounting and reimagining many of these episodes, often adopting the point of view of the person who inflicted violence upon others, or went mad, or was put in a situation where cannibalism was the only means of survival. “I find it hard to feel bad for Hansel. It’s the witch I feel for.” Katherine sets her sights on an older man, a fairly well-off writer Boris. Her momentary interest in Boris seems a consequence of boredom and a monetary desire. Soon she grows tired of Boris, a rather pathetic yet nasty person, who makes the mistake of thinking himself cleverer than her. Katherine convinces him to buy a house in rural Maine, a town that happens to have a killer on a loose. Far from bothered by this, Katherine seems comforted by the idea of this killer. Eventually, she finds herself travelling to Mexico City, and later returning to New York where she comes across some unwelcome familiar faces. As her restlessness sees her hitting the road, she forms unlikely friendships with random men she meets on her travels. All the while, bodies keep piling up wherever she goes. “[I]n our culture there was a weird enthusiasm for cannibalism. Cannibalism was a big thrill as long as we weren’t doing it.” While we know from the start that something is off about Katherine, we don’t really know just how unreliable a narrator she is. She often says and does exactly what she wants when she wants, has no trouble striking up conversations with strangers and is not put off by people not liking her. Her disregard for social niceties and norms makes her a character that is always able to surprise you. Her blithe responses to the odd, occasionally disturbing, circumstances she finds herself in are pure gold. Yet, despite knowing and being confronted with her strangeness, she retains a hypotonic quality. Her ambiguous nature drew me in, as I found myself eager to learn what was truly going on. Who is responsible for these deaths? Why is Katherine obsessed with cannibalism? What is at the root of her ennui? “After a few hurdles, my life would achieve a stunning, appealing normalcy.” Adroit, dark, and wickedly funny, A Carnivore's Inquiry is a riveting tale. The plot, however meandering, reflects Katherine’s restlessness. Aloof, duplicitous, and hungry for experience Katherine uses those around her as she pleases, both for materialistic gain and to pass away time. The novel’s historical and artistic discourses brought to mind the work of María Gainza, as here too we are given in-depth insights into art pieces and historical figures. I found A Carnivore's Inquiry's exploration of taboos, cannibalism, and violence to be sharp and subversive. I appreciated how Sabina Murray upends traditional power dynamics and challenges notions of normalcy and likeability. Her commentary on consumerism, colonialism, power structures, the ‘elite’, NY’s art and literary scene, femininity, and privilege was sly and thrilling. “The needs of appetite justified everything.” A Carnivore's Inquiry makes for a unique read, a rare treat. Not only is A Carnivore's Inquiry rich thematically but stylistically. Murray constantly keeps her readers on their toes as she shifts from genres (gothic, thriller, satire) and tones (playful, grotesque, introspective). Katherine’s voice is the book’s strength, as readers are bound to find her both fascinating and abhorrent. Her interactions are always interesting, as they often veer into the realms of the absurd (more than once david lynch came to mind). “I seem to have touched a nerve,” said Ann. My only quibble really is in regards to the Italian (chingiale should be cinghiale, seiscento should be seicento, and then gittoni should have been gettoni). And yeah that Silvano was utterly ridiculous (of course, he is a fascist) but he ended up adding to the novel's vibe of surreality. I think this would definitely appeal to fans of Moshfegh, Awad, and Danzy Senna as well as readers who are on the lookout for novels exploring 'The Female Malaise' or that centre on alienated & alienating young women. Clever, enigmatic, and atmospheric, A Carnivore's Inquiry is a novel that I look forward to rereading. I liked this so much that I am even planning on revisiting The Human Zoo, also by Murray, which I read with little fanfare last year (hopefully this time around it will win me over). re-read: a truly ingenious novel, thematically rich and written with impressive confidence. within the novel colonialism and cannibalism are deeply intwined, the monstrous desire to conquer is presented as a hunger, one that our narrator and anti-heroine feels deeply. similarly to Guadagnino's Bones and All the novel questions inherited monstrosity, especially in a mother/daughter dynamic. i loved the hazy quality permeating much of this novel, which really adds to Katherine's ambivalence. ...more |
Notes are private!
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0593534565
| 9780593534564
| 0593534565
| 4.53
| 31,653
| Mar 07, 2023
| Mar 07, 2023
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it was amazing
| “Ellwood smiled, and a sudden, dry bleakness spread over Gaunt’s heart as he thought of Hercules, and Hector, and all the heroes in myth who found hap “Ellwood smiled, and a sudden, dry bleakness spread over Gaunt’s heart as he thought of Hercules, and Hector, and all the heroes in myth who found happiness briefly, only for it not to be the end of the story.” The Charioteer meets All Quiet On the Western Front in this haunting and elegiac debut novel that juxtaposes the horrors of war with a powerful love story. It’s a novel about love, survival, death, and the reality and the aftermath of witnessing and being participants in unthinkable violence. The idyllic landscapes and the trivialities of youth we encounter in the opening chapters belie the violence and pain that are to come, making those earlier moments all the more precious, all the more bittersweet. This novel broke my heart. It made me cry, it made me despair, it made me feel all of the feels. In Memoriam is a gut-wrenching novel revealing the brutality and the banality of war: time and again we are made to read of young men, boys really, dying in the most horrible and random of deaths, and we see how their bodies are merely replaceable cogs in the machine of war. But I am getting ahead of myself. “He went there in the mornings, sometimes, and gave himself to that strange country rapture, that deep, bonewarming feeling that England was his, and he was England’s. He felt it as strongly as if his ancestors had been there a thousand years. Perhaps he felt it more strongly because they hadn’t.” The opening pages transport us to 1914, to Preshute, the idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. Here we see the petty disagreements and secret entanglements between various students, most of whom have grandiose visions of the English Empire, of honor, of war. Despite their different temperaments Henry Gaunt and Sindey Ellwood are best friends. Their friendship is complicated by the unspoken feelings they harbor for one another. Each believes that their love is unrequited and that acting on it will inevitably ruin their friendship. So, they spend their days pining for each other and trying to hide, not always successfully, their true feelings. In this rarefied world, they spend their days talking about meaningless and meaningful things, yet, news of the war puts a strain on their days of idleness. Gaunt and Ellwood, alongside their friends, are particularly drawn to the ‘In Memoriam’ section of their paper, and while soon enough the names on those pages are of boys and men they know, these also seem to promise heroic tales that speak to them given that they are well-versed in the classics. Gaunt, however, who is half German, feels differently about these things from most of his peers. Yet, despite his anti-war sentiments he finds himself pressured to enlist by his mother and his sister after they reveal that it will put to rest rumours questioning where their family’s loyalties lie. “Ellwood’s England was magical, thought Gaunt, picking his way around nettles. But it wasn’t England.” Ellwood, a year younger, initially stays behind, keeping a correspondence to Gaunt that reveals the unbridgeable gap between his reality at Preshute and Gaunt’s one on in the trenches. They continue to yearn for one another, but their love is soon obscured by the horrors Gaunt experiences on the front. Class privileges continue to be felt in the army and Gaunt, a boy still, is in command of men who are twice his age and did not grow up in the sheltered walls of Preshute. Concerned for Gaunt, Ellwood eventually decides to enlist as well, and he is joined by most of his friends. Soon enough he realizes that his former visions of honor, glory, and England have little to do with the day-to-day reality of war. From the living conditions to the landscapes punctuated by bodies and gore. And always so much death all around them. Death that is not always a result of enemy fire. The men around him die because of infections, a literal misstep, or a mild malady turned deadly. They also die because they waver, and their hesitancy is deemed an act of cowardice. They are driven mad, by the violence they see, and the violence they do. “It was the Hell you’d feared in childhood, come to devour the children . It was treading over the corpses of your friends so that you might be killed yourself. It was the congealed evil of a century.” Gaunt and Ellwood’s love seems a foreign thing in a reality like this. Yet, their proximity to death is also what makes them now more than even desperate for the other. Their relationship is a fraught one given the circumstances that have led to their coming together. Gaunt in particular being Ellwood’s superior, and haunted by his own actions at the front, is committed to keeping their relationship one of convenience, something that pains him as much as Ellwood. Ellwood, who still retains at this point an easy-going insouciance, tries his best to be of comfort to Gaunt, but, eventually, their paths diverge. During the months and years following their enlistment, we watch them trying to survive but retaining one's body and one's mind in war is no easy feat. The more of his friends die, the more Ellwood begins to change, and his attempts to immure himself to pain see him turn into someone who is jaded, cruel, and angry. Gaunt, who had for so long suppressed his feelings, and rarely allowed himself to feel things fully, is reunited with some old friends and their companionship, as well as the possibility of seeing Ellwood, spur him on. Oh, my poor heart. At first, I was fooled by the beautiful prose and by the dazzling intensity of Gaunt and Ellwood’s yearning. Once we leave Preshute behind, there are only echoes of that earlier beauty. There are moments of kinship, of comradeship, between the men. Their banter is a temporary reprieve from the fear, uncertainty, and brutality of war. Against this unforgiving landscape, punctured by violence and agonizing waits, Gaunt and Ellwood’s feelings for one another, as well as their faltering relationship, appear almost as if bathed by a quietly luminous light. “I wish I could be more articulate, but the English language fails me. It sometimes feels as if the only words that still have meaning are place names: Ypres, Mons, Artois. Nothing else expresses.” Alice Winn doesn’t hold back from portraying the realities of war or from being critical of the British. Except for one character, Gaunt’s sister, the novel is populated by characters who for better or worse struck me as real. Given the period and depending on a character’s background, they would inevitably express troublesome views. Rather than indicting or condoning them, Winn allows her characters to be flawed, messy, and idiosyncratic. Notions of duty and honor, as well as cowardice, are recurring motifs, as we witness how these have shaped and continue to shape the characters. Some find themselves holding onto patriotic beliefs, others are unable to reconcile the realities of war with their lives so far. Some are driven mad, lashing out against their fellow men, or retreating inward, so inward that their physical body no longer matters. Time and again we are reminded of how young these soldiers are, and the myriad of banal ways their lives can be cut short. We see the disconnect between those on the front, and those who dispatch orders from afar, often sending hundreds or more to meet avoidable deaths. But you keep on reading, hoping against hope for a miracle, a way for Gaunt and Ellwood to be brought back together… “My dearest, darling Sidney, There was nothing else.” In Memoriam really tore me up. Yet, the majestic prose, the urgency of the story, and the bond between Gaunt and Ellwood kept me turning pages. There are so many scenes and passages that are harrowing, raw, and unsparing in their brutality. And maybe those make those moments of stillness, of quiet, all the more agonizingly tender. “Gaunt was woven into everything he read, saw, wrote, did, dreamt. Every poem had been written about him, every song composed for him, and Ellwood could not scrape his mind clean of him no matter how he tried. He thought perhaps all the pain would sour the love, but instead it drew him further in, as if he were Marc Antony, falling on his own sword. And it was a magical thing, to love someone so much; it was a feeling so strange and slippery, like a sheath of fabric cut from the sky.” And the more I read, the more worried I became, as it was clear that no one was safe and everything goes. And it was fucking heartbreaking to see just how unrecognizable some of the characters become. They may not have died but they are certainly not living. And Winn succeeds in capturing that specific terror of being confronted with the possibility that someone you know, someone you love, is there but not. Their body is, it may even look eerily unchanged. But their minds are no longer the same. You may lie to yourself into believing that they will be restored to who they were, that time will heal their wounds, but eventually, you might have no choice but to confront the reality: that they will never be who they were. The novel’s exploration of love, queerness, and of morality, definitely brought to mind works such as The Charioteer, The Absolutist, and Maurice. Winn’s writing has this pictorial quality and melancholy that really brought to mind the style of Mary Renault, so much so that even the way the characters speak, their inner turmoils, and the way they interact with one another, all made me think of Renault's work. The characters are continually faced with difficult choices, but the rhythms of war and the chaos of a battle rarely allow the time for them to question whether what they are doing is right, wrong, or another thing altogether. What do you do when you know you are being sent to your death? What do you do when the people around you are losing their minds? “Ellwood was surprised to find that he was not glad either, although his hatred grew and grew. But he could not hate soldiers. He longed to destroy, to hurt, to kill, but he wasn’t sure whom. Possibly the civilians.” My one quibble lies in Maud, Gaunt’s sister. She is the kind of female character that you can find in Natasha Pulley’s books or other historical fiction featuring a gay romance, that is a young woman who is a source of conflict for the couple, and always finds a way to excuse their callousness and selfishness (often by reminding the other person of the limitations imposed on her by her gender). Her presence annoyed me. Winn does, unlike Pulley, try to make her readers feel for Maud, but I had a hard time ignoring how uncaring and sanctimonious she was, especially towards Gaunt. And she never seemed to listen or to allow for someone else’s perspectives, presenting herself instead as the wronged party. But maybe a re-read will make her character more tolerable... “Ellwood had never been interested in ugliness, whereas Gaunt […] feared that ugliness was too important to ignore..” The main characters, Gaunt and Ellwood are compelling, and so are their differences and similarities. Not only does Winn render the patterns of their thoughts, but is able to convey their voices: the way they speak, the kind of things they would say, and so. The cadences of their speech, and the way their minds work, however exasperating, Winn captures all of this, so that they both felt like real people. This makes the way they change all the more heartbreaking. Having grown to care for them, to see them become so unlike themselves, it was truly harrowing. Their feelings for each other are beautiful. They long for each other, but they are unable to articulate their love. Yet, they do form a love language of sorts, as they borrow the words of other men, quoting poetry and the classics to one another. Even at Preshute their love is clouded by worry, by the possibility that their feelings are unrequited, and later on, it is obscured by the war. Trauma changes them, and it changes the way they can love, and I cannot stress enough how that scene, that scene you were waiting for so long, has none of the happiness and warmth you’d expected. This may seem like an exaggeration but I felt bereft. But it would have been disingenuous to have that scene go any other way. We encounter so many men within these pages. Some live, but a sentence, others live longer, but their safety is never a guarantee. “How alive it all seemed, and how gracious—to die in an era when your death bought you a brief moment at the centre of something. To be important, rather than one of millions.” Time and again Winn juxtaposes the beauty, the poetry, and the blissful freedom of their time at Preshute, with the newfound reality, which is oppressive, brutal, and bloody. In portraying Ellwood and Gaunt’s experiences on the front, Winn never takes the easy option, by making all of their actions and behaviors heroically selfless acts. Gaunt cannot wholly shake himself of his anti-war sentiments, nor can he ignore that he is fighting against the Germans, a people he still feels part of. Ellwood instead grows bitter towards that and those he’d loved, from the poets he admired to the civilians back home who easily speak of the war without even knowing its ravages first-hand. “It was a common conversation. In 1913, you might ask a new acquaintance where he had gone to school, or what he did for a living. In 1916, it was this: what part of yourself did you most fear losing?” The time period is depicted with startling realism. From showing the constraints experienced by Gaunt and Ellwood, their awareness of their difference from others, not only when it comes to their sexuality, but Gaunt is half-german and Ellwood has Jewish roots. We also see how Preshute both insulated them from the real world, but not wholly, as there they are still expected to obey certain hierarchies and traditions, and they are taught that displays of emotions are a weakness. “He did not know that it was the first thing homesick little boys in their dormitories learnt at boarding school: how to cry in silence.” In Memoriam is a novel that hits hard. It’s beautiful, theatrical, and romantic. It’s brutal, tragic, and devastating. It’s a book about war, death, trauma, and grief. It’s also a book about love: the love between friends, between brothers in arms, between allies, and, of course, between lovers. It’s by no means an easy read but it’s a gripping one. If you don’t mind sobbing, and feeling as if your heart was in your throat, In Memoriam is a soul-stirring and arresting read that has your name on it. A symphonic meditation on love, brotherhood, masculinity, death, grief, and trauma, In Memoriam is a startlingly evocative and deeply excruciating debut novel that I am planning on losing myself into again and again. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Hardcover
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1912489481
| 9781912489480
| 1912489481
| 3.87
| 262
| May 26, 2022
| May 26, 2022
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really liked it
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ 4 ¼ stars “At any given moment, I have no idea what’s true about any of us.” The Arena of the U ❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ 4 ¼ stars “At any given moment, I have no idea what’s true about any of us.” The Arena of the Unwell is a gritty and exhilarating exploration of loneliness and longing, obsession and jealousy, queerness and male intimacy. tw: self-harm & suicidal ideation Our narrator is Noah, a 22-year-old gay man who lives in London. He works in a record shop, shares a place with his best friend, and spends most of his nights exploring North London’s indie music scene, getting increasingly drunk at venues and pubs. He’s seeing a counsellor but knows that his NHS allocated hours are running out and soon enough he will be left alone to cope with his debilitating self-hatred and depression. His two closest friends are not only together romantically but they have a band together, and Noah, feeling that he’s being left behind, spirals into self-destructiveness. One night, after a venue with his favorite band, the enigmatic Smiling Politely turns awry, Noah seeks refuge outside where Dylan, a charismatic barman from Australia, comes to his aid. When he starts getting to know Dylan, who is a couple of years older than him, he sees him as a cure to the overwhelming emptiness that has become increasingly hard to keep at bay. His infatuation with Dylan is complicated by the fact that Dylan is ‘straight’ and by his living arrangements: Dylan lives with Fraser, an incredibly mercurial man who doesn’t take kindly to Noah ‘inserting’ himself into their lives. Noah becomes entangled in their very toxic relationship but soon finds his attraction to Dylan shifting to Fraser. As Noah spends more of his time with them, getting drunk and high, neglecting his mental health and physical wellbeing, he finds himself alienating the people in his life. His friends try in vain to reach out but Noah is unwilling or unable to ‘lean’ on them. Eventually, his dishevelled appearance and tardiness get him in trouble at work, and Noah finds himself crashing at Dylan and Fraser’s place. Noah becomes wholly consumed by their relationship, to the point where he compromises himself to belong with them. He becomes a participant in the unhealthy cat-and-mouse dynamic between Dyland and Fraser. Their volatile relationship and living situation do not make for a good environment, as they seem to enable each other to engage in harmful behaviours. Konemann renders with heart-wrenching lucidity Noah’s vulnerabilities, his yearning to fit in, to be loved and to belong. He also captures with brutal intensity Noah’s his anxiety, his self-hatred and his self-harming, without ever romanticising his spiralling mental health. We see how difficult it is for Noah to rid himself of the deep-seated and poisonous belief that he doesn’t matter, that he is worthless, a non-entity. We also see how this deeply affects him in his day-to-day life, and how careless he is with his own safety and wellbeing. Both Dylan and Fraser use him, ignoring all of the warning signs that point to Noah’s ‘unwellness’. They never really let Noah in, keeping him in the dark about the true nature of their relationship, nor are they honest about their intentions with him, hell, sometimes they do not even consider him at all. Once again Noah finds himself an outsider, a witness to the jealousies and manipulations running between Dylan and Fraser. His alcohol and drug consumption lends a murky quality to many portions of his narration and further adds to the gritty atmosphere of the story. His unreliable, often unintentionally so. His self-deception becomes a dangerous coping mechanism, and he can survive only by ignoring his problems and current circumstances. There is a sense of unease permeating much of the story, so I was never able to let my guard down, always worried about people’s nefarious intentions’ toward Noah or Noah’s own self-sabotaging. The author articulates with painful precision the anguish, desperation, and loneliness in Noah, and my heart really went out to him. I could really relate to him, and his conviction that he doesn't really fit in with the queer community. This story is less of a coming of age than a coming undone. The indie music scene serves as a backdrop to Konemann’s troubling character study, which really adds to the novel’s edgy atmosphere. The fraught and disconcerting relationship between Noah and these two older men brought to mind Barbara Vine’s urban tales of psychological suspense (The House of Stairs, Grasshopper). Like Vine, Konemann has given his narrative a very nostalgic vibe, one that doesn’t see the past through rose-tinted lenses, quite the contrary. I also appreciated the thorny exploration of queer desire, and how he underlines how dangerous it is to become wholly consumed by someone you love, to the point where you are cutting yourself off from everyone and everything else. While music is an undeniable component in Noah’s narrative, Smiling Politely serve a rather underwhelming function in the story. Noah’s chapters are interrupted now and again by articles or snippets of interviews with two of the band’s members, Ryan and Claire, and these were kind of unnecessary. They would have made more sense if the band, or at least their music, would have played a bigger role in the story, but they don't. I also would have liked Isaac to be given more page time, at least before Noah becomes wholly obsessed with Dylan/Fraser. The finale was slightly a bit too rushed, but I appreciated the realistic note things ended on. I would definitely read more by Konemann and when I next feel like getting emotionally sucker-punched I will be giving this a re-read for sure. I loved Noah’s compelling voice (ragazzo mio !), the vivid descriptions (of often very grotty & sweaty places), and the realistic dialogues (from the small talk, to the banter and the arguments). Throughout the course of the story, Konemann presents his readers with an uncompromising interrogation of the contradicting and often obscure nature of love and desire. The jealousies, lies, manipulations, and small acts of cruelty add complex shades to his portrayal of love, affection, intimacy, and desire. While in many ways Noah’s narration is limited by his naïveté, his social commentary is interspersed by whip-smart observations and wry assessments that often serve as sources of levity. There are also moments of euphoria that starkly contrast against the novel’s darker themes. I would definitely recommend this to fans of Caroline O'Donoghue's work, as both Promising Young Women and Scenes of a Graphic Nature feature self-destructive main characters becoming entangled in unhealthy dynamics & toxic relationships. The gritty nostalgia in The Arena of the Unwell made me think of Elizabeth Hand, specifically Wylding Hall and Generation Loss. Anyway, I inhaled this novel in less than 24 hours (it really served as a distraction to a particularly sh*tty shift). It was a gripping and heart-wrenching read, one that I won't forget anytime soon. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jun 03, 2022
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Jun 04, 2022
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May 30, 2022
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Paperback
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1639550496
| 9781639550494
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| 4.34
| 5,921
| May 10, 2022
| May 10, 2022
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really liked it
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ “How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain.” The Hurting Kind is a dazzlin ❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ “How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain.” The Hurting Kind is a dazzling collection. Ada Limón’s poems are luminous, and I was struck more than once by her ability to espouse a graceful language with such vivid imagery. Limón has proved that I am not only able to appreciate poetry but be swept away by it. Many of these poems are particularly attuned to nature: from the local fauna to the changing seasons. Limón’s sensitivity to her environments results in some really striking imagery, and more than once I felt transported to the places she described. While I found myself lulled by Limón’s lyrical language and the landscapes she was presenting us with, I was also touched by the feelings, thoughts, and experiences that are interpolated in many of her poems. There are poems where Limón includes snippets of family history and snapshots of a more personal nature, as well as reflections on connection, grief, and her heritage. Although I was struck by Limón’s language, she practices an admirable restraint over it, making those instances where she uses metaphors or ventures into the abstract, all the more wondrous. I read this collection in a particularly bad couple of days and I was uplifted and deeply affected by it. Perceptive and melodic Limón's poems are a wonder and I look forward to revisiting them. ...more |
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Jul 06, 2022
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Jul 12, 2022
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May 17, 2022
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Hardcover
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4.46
| 1,074,262
| Aug 09, 2022
| Aug 09, 2022
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really liked it
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ If you are boo-booing this book just because of its title...kindly f*ck off. It is intentional ❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ If you are boo-booing this book just because of its title...kindly f*ck off. It is intentionally provocative and I am here for it. To place ‘the mother’ figure on a pedestal is ultimately detrimental to mothers since by idealizing them we cease to see them as real flawed human beings. I'm Glad My Mom Died is a brutally honest memoir recounting Jennette McCurdy’s abusive relationship with her narcissistic mother, her disturbing experiences as a child actor and the unsettling realities of the entertainment industry, and her long battle with various eating disorders and self-destructive behaviors. I won’t lie, there were many scenes and passages that were very triggering but these never came across as gratuitous or sensationalistic. This is very much thanks to McCurdy’s clear-cut prose, which renders things with clarity and avoids sentimental and moralistic pitfalls. McCurdy’s unadorned style really reflects her younger perspective, as she details the psychological, verbal, and emotional abuse she experienced with a child’s ‘limited’ understanding of those things. As a child McCurdy was unable to identify or articulate the myriad of ways in which she was being abused by the adults around her, specifically her mother, and McCurdy remains faithful to her child’s pov. This is a tricky stylistic choice as I have come across memoirs where I found this re-identification with a younger version of yourself to be gimmicky, contrived, and not at all convincing (like when 30yr-olds actors play teens). Here instead it felt very authentic and effective as it brings home a child’s limited understanding of the abuse they are experiencing (that it wouldn’t occur to them to call it as such, that for them this is the ‘norm’, that they are somehow at fault). Growing up with a narcissist parent (although i must point out that my parent was more of the child-like-emotionally-immature variety) can truly warp your view of the world and your self-perception. Rather than looking back to the past with an adult understanding of this, McCurdy drops us right into the thick of things, so that it felt less like an act of retrospection than a reliving of her childhood. McCurdy was raised in a Mormon family and was homeschooled by her mother Debra, who is prone to fits of rage and hysteria (i use this word in a non-gender-specific way). We witness how controlling and manipulative Debra is, specifically with her daughter. From horrific violations of privacy—Debra carries out body inspections and insists on showering McCurdy well into her late teens—to food policing—instilling and later on enabling McCurdy’s eating disorder—Debra constantly infantilizes and guilt-trips her daughter (using her cancer to win arguments or other people’s sympathy). To placate Debra’s volatility McCurdy would always acquiesce, doing whatever her mother demanded of her in order to please her. We see that this was how Debra is able to push McCurdy into a child acting career, placing her in numerous objectionable situations and putting her under an undue amount of stress by making her the ‘breadwinner’ of the family. As the years go by we see just how deeply this abuse is affecting McCurdy. Her eating disorder soon dominates her life, exacerbating her self-loathing. When McCurdy eventually hits the ‘jackpot’ with i-Carly her fame doesn’t appease Debra, who always demands more of her daughter. We learn more about the entertainment industry, in particular how it exploits children. From the unsafe working environments to the relentless work schedules (interviews, promos, etc.) and the casting process…McCurdy peels the curtain and allows us an unsavory view of what goes on behind the scenes of children shows. McCurdy details the abusive behavior of ‘the Creator’, the director of i-Carly, on and off set as well as the overwhelming realities of being a public figure at such a young age. As her abusive relationship with Debra contaminates every aspect of her life, McCurdy, who has yet to reconcile herself with the f*cked up nature of her mother’s parenting, turns to her eating disorder as a source of (misplaced) ‘comfort’. As her years of disordered eating begin to take a toll on her, McCurdy eventually turns to alcohol and becomes involved in some rather toxic romantic/sexual relationships (one of whom was quite a bit older...schifo). Debra’s cancer eventually leads to her being hospitalized yet again and eventually to her death. After her latest show is shut-down due to the Creator’s behavior, a grieving and confused McCurdy distances herself from the entertainment industry. In the subsequent years, McCurdy seeks professional help, which ultimately results in her gaining a new understanding of Debra (that she wasn’t ‘merely’ overbearing). McCurdy is unsparing in detailing her various eds. Much of what she wrote about her warped relationship with food and her body (she wants to prevent her body from hitting puberty to appease her mother) was truly hard to read about. This is not only because she is brutally frank, but because I had an ed (i’m afraid that i am of the belief that eds, like most addictions really, never really ‘go away’). So yes. I had a hard time with a lot of the content of this book. Thankfully, because McCurdy’s writing is very matter-of-fact I was able to push through my discomfort but if you also have experiences with eds and you are still in a vulnerable place, I recommend you put this memoir on the back burner. Like I said earlier, I appreciated how nonjudgmental and unsentimental McCurdy is. She doesn’t vilify her mother, even if she would have every right to do so, nor does she take the opportunity to blame other family members (i did question how aware mccurdy’s dad was of Debra’s emotional incest: i know narcissistic parents can be quite covert and that they usually tend to parent their children differently but i still wanted to know more about his role in all of this). I know I am making it sound like a bleak-fest, and, well, that’s because it is in fact a depressing read. That title and the cover belie the memoir’s sobering tone. McCurdy does now and again lighten things up, by giving page-time to her friendship with Miranda Cosgrove, her i-Carly co-star, and later on, her mordant humor injects much-needed levity into her experiences. I'm Glad My Mom Died was truly a heart-wrenching read. McCurdy’s voice was as compelling as it was perceptive, and I appreciated just how candid she is. She doesn't portray herself as flawless, nor is she seeking our pity. Hopefully, the people who read this will be able to empathize with her, without focusing only on the ‘juicy’ bits involving her acting career (i have already come across several articles misrepresenting McCurdy’s words and pitying her against Grande…can we as a society move past this need to pit women against each other?). Within this memoir, McCurdy presents us with hard-hitting depictions of abuse, trauma, grief, and eating disorders. My heart really went out to her and I found her voice to be truly captivating. I won't forget about this memoir any time soon, and I look forward to reading or seeing what McCurdy will do in the future as she is a truly talented writer. If you happen to be a fans of memoirs such as Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart, T Kira Madden's Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, & Lily Allen's My Thoughts Exactly, chances are I'm Glad My Mom Died will be right up your sleeve so do check it out. ...more |
Notes are private!
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May 16, 2022
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ebook
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Ma, Ling
*
| 0374293511
| 9780374293512
| 0374293511
| 3.91
| 19,048
| Sep 13, 2022
| Sep 13, 2022
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really liked it
| An ingenious and effervescent collection of surreal stories that will definitely appeal to fans of Kevin Wilson, Helen Oyeyemi, and Hiroko Oyamada. L An ingenious and effervescent collection of surreal stories that will definitely appeal to fans of Kevin Wilson, Helen Oyeyemi, and Hiroko Oyamada. Ling Ma has a knack for blending realistic dynamics and issues with absurdist ones, and, in doing so, for subverting our expectations. Ma’s storytelling is playfully irreverent and I was captivated by the fantastical scenarios she presents us with in this collection. In the first story, 'Los Angeles', which very much reminded me of Hilary Leichter's Temporary, our protagonist shares a house with her many ex-boyfriends. Her current partner seems to accept the arrangement but when the exes start to find new places to live our protagonist struggles to adjust. The second story, 'Orange', which actually features a character from the previous story, sees a woman reflecting on a past abusive relationship and sees her determined to find where her ex, who now stands accused by many women of abuse, has gone into hiding. There is a short story that explores a friendship which includes a fantastical drug that can make you invisible. Another short story sees a professor discover a passageway to someplace else in her office’s closet. In yet another, we follow a writer who is in an MFA program and is writing about her mother’s early days as an immigrant in the US. Ma imbues real-life scenarios and issues with a dose of the surreal, making for some incredibly extraordinary and engaging stories that explore the absurdities of modern life and interrogate notions of identity, connection, and belonging. I found Ma’s style deeply engaging and the direction of her stories surprising. I look forward to re-reading this collection soon! ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 07, 2024
Sep 15, 2022
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May 07, 2022
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Hardcover
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0063021420
| 9780063021426
| 0063021420
| 4.18
| 250,603
| Aug 23, 2022
| Aug 23, 2022
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really liked it
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ “Languages aren’t just made of words. They’re modes of looking at the world. They’re the keys❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ “Languages aren’t just made of words. They’re modes of looking at the world. They’re the keys to civilization. And that’s knowledge worth killing for.” Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution is an incendiary indictment against colonialism. Within this superbly written slow-burner of a bildungsroman, R.F. Kuang presents her readers with an extensive critique of eurocentrism, scientific racism, white supremacy, elitist institutions and the hoarding of knowledge, and British imperialism that is by turns didactic and impassioned. If you are a reader who isn’t particularly into nonfiction but you are keen on familiarizing yourself with discourses on colonialism, decolonization, and postcolonialism, or are interested in linguistics (translation, interpretation, language contact), or learning more about the circumstances that led to the First Opium War, you should definitely consider picking Babel up. Babel is a rare example of how—in the right hands—telling can be just as effective a storytelling method as ‘showing’. Kuang’s storytelling is quite frankly superb. And not only is the narration immersive and encompassing, but it is also informative and thought-provoking. Undoubtedly readers will feel angry by what they will read, and the unrelenting racism, discrimination, physical and emotional violence experienced by the story’s protagonist, Robin. This is a decidedly heavy-going story. And yet, thanks to Kuang’s bravura display of storytelling, readers will find themselves persevering, despite the foreshadowing that presages worse is to come… The majority of the novel takes place in an alternate 1830s Oxford where Babel, the University's Royal Institute of Translation, is the ‘pioneering’ centre of translation and 'silver-working', an act that catches what is lost in translation and manifests it into being. After cholera decimated his family, Robin, a boy from Canton, is whisked away from China to London by the imperious Professor Lovell, who happens to be a renowned professor at Babel. Robin has no choice but to follow and obey Professor Lovell’s strict study regimens. Not only does Professor Lovell impose a punitive lifestyle on Robin, forcing him to dedicate his every waking moment to the study and learning of languages, but he devests him of his ‘former’ name and makes him relinquish any remembrances of his former life. Additionally, Professor Lovell subjects Robin to many forms of abuse: from spewing ethnocentric and white supremacist speeches, to physically ‘punishing’ Robin. Growing up in this environment Robin grows to resent his ‘mentor’, and yet, even so he is desperate to belong. Besides his tutors and Professor Lovell, Robin only really interacts with his mentor’s housekeeper, who, despite being the only person to show him any tenderness, is nevertheless complicit in Professor Lovell’s continued abuse of him. Robin’s childhood is not a happy one, in fact, it is not really a childhood at all. The setting combined with the misery of it all brought to mind the work of Charles Dickens. Unlike Dickens’ heroes, Robin is not only disadvantaged by his being an orphan but by not being white, something that ultimately makes him a very un-Dickensian character. Professor Lovell’s oppressive ‘rule’ instils in Robin a sense of fear: while he does have a lot of questions (how did the professor find him? why him? why is he 'bestowing' on him such an education? what will await him at babel?) he is weary about disobeying him. Moving to Oxford opens Robin up to a world that is both awe-inspiring and terrible. At Babel he can master languages in even more depth, he can be surrounded by hundreds of years of knowledge, and by (supposedly) like-minded individuals. “They’d been chosen for privileges they couldn’t have ever imagined, funded by powerful and wealthy men whose motives they did not fully understand, and they were acutely aware these could be lost at any moment. That precariousness made them simultaneously bold and terrified. They had the keys to the kingdom; they did not want to give them” But even Babel has its own set of hierarchies, which prioritize whiteness and European cultures and languages. While Babel, unlike other colleges at Oxford, admits a more diverse student body, compared to his white peers, Robin is treated with a mixture of fascination and disdain. The older students seem unwilling to mingle with first-years so inevitably Robin becomes close to his cohort: Ramy, Victoire, and Letty. Robin and Ramy become particularly close, and their bond is one of the novel’s strengths. It isn’t a particularly straightforward relationship but their similar experiences and circumstances intensify their kinship. There is a chapter relatively early in the novel that focuses on their early days getting to know each other which was immeasurably bittersweet. “[This] circle of people he loved so fiercely his chest hurt when he thought about them. A family. He felt a crush of guilt then for loving them, and Oxford, as much as he did. He adored it here; he really did. For all the daily slights he suffered, walking through campus delighted him.” You feel such relief for Robin to have found someone who just gets what it means to be seen as ‘other’, to be treated as ‘inferior’, 'un-English', and to have been deracinated from their homelands and to feel such contrasting emotions at being at Oxford, an institution that upholds racist ideologies. In this ‘alternate’ setting this contrition is even more felt given the role that Babel plays in silver-working and of how silver bars are enabling the British empire to amass even more power and wealth and to further ‘expand’. Robin believes that by staying at Babel, he is surviving. Ramy however is more openly critical of Britain. The duo is later joined by Letty and Victoire, who, being girls are also subjected to discrimination. Like the boys, Victoire, who is Black and was born in Haiti, has an extremely fraught relationship with Babel. Letty, who is white and was born and raised in Britain in a relatively well off family, is in some ways the odd one out. Yet, she seems intent on portraying herself as a victim, in any circumstance really, often referring to her own experience with misogyny to negate Robin, Ramy, and Victoire's experiences with racism and colonialism. Additionally, her brother died, which Lety, we are both told and shown this, uses to earn her ‘friends’ sympathy. We are meant to hate her, and hate her I did. Imagine the most annoying aspects of Hermione Granger’s character and you have Letty (stubborn, sanctimonious, a stickler for rules). She is a colonialist apologist who, despite being ‘exposed’ to the perspectives/realities of people who have been colonized or have experienced violence at the hands of the British empire, remains firm in her stance (we learn this quite early on so i don’t think it’s that much of a spoiler). I recently came across this quote by Oksana Zabuzhko, a Ukrainian writer, that very much applies to people like Letty: “This is what power really is: the privilege of ignoring anything you might find distasteful.’ Certainly, we can see why at first Robin, Victoire, and Ramy would not oppose Letty’s presence in their group. These opinions have been instilled in her by her upbringing. But, when the months and years go by and Letty's belief in the British empire remains unwavering…well…her presence in the group didn't make much sense. I couldn’t fathom why the others would keep her around. I get that she existed to make a point, and sadly I know people like her (who resort to self-victimization whenever confronted with anything resembling criticism, who believe themselves to be 'nice' and 'kind' but only have empathy for themselves) but I just found her beyond irritating and obnoxious. She has no redeeming qualities. And it annoyed me that she took the center stage in many of the group interactions and took away page-time from characters like Ramy and Victoire. I wish she could have been pushed to the sidelines more, and maybe for her then to take more of a role when sh*t starts going down. But I digress. At Babel Robin finally learns more about silver bars and dio mio, it isn’t good. He learns just how powerful language can be and has to reconcile himself with the knowledge that he is contributing to the enrichment of the British empire. Robin is approached by a member of a secret organization, Hermes Society, whose aim is to sabotage the silver-working that goes on at Babel and disrupt the status quo. Robin feels at a crossroad, damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. While he does still experience racism and discrimination at Babel, it is there that he can access knowledge that would otherwise not be accessible to him. And, of course, it is there that he was able to meet Ramy and Victoire (i should really include letty because robin does care for her but i cannot bring myself to). Babel also has shielded him away from Professor Lovell, who he now sees only on rare occasions, and given him the kind an opportunity that many others will never have...but that doesn't make him unaware of how, beneath its 'enlightened' veneer, Babel is rotten. Can he help Hermes Society if their acts of sabotage include or result in violence? Is violence inevitable in a revolution? And by choosing not to act does he become a cog that keeps the British empire running? “He hated this place. He loved it. He resented how it treated him. He still wanted to be a part of it – because it felt so good to be a part of it, to speak to its professors as an intellectual equal, to be in on the great game.” Robin is torn between his hatred for the British empire and the safety he believes he can only experience at Babel. Kuang renders his inner conflict with painful accuracy and extreme empathy. While other characters may be critical of Robin’s unwillingness to ‘choose’, readers won’t be as ready, and in fact, they will find themselves unable to judge him. He tries to help but inevitably his indecision leads the Hermes Society to decide for him. It is only when Robin is forced to confront the consequences of the opium trade—on China, on the Chinese population, and on the Indian farmers who harvested it—that he finds himself ready to act. But, things do not exactly pan out as the story takes us on a The Secret History kind of detour that will undoubtedly appeal to fans of whydunnits and dark academia. While the atmosphere prior to this event was by no means light-hearted after this happens Kuang ups the tension all the way up. The shifting dynamics within and outside of Robin’s group also change, and not necessarily for the better. And the stakes are just sky-high. Like the summary says, Babel ‘grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of translation as a tool of empire’. We witness the many forms that power takes, and one of them is in fact language. Language can be in fact a tool of oppression. Kuang’s interrogation of the act of translation is utterly compelling. My mum is a translator and I am bilingual (yet have a foreign accent in both italian & english *insert tiny violin here*) and have recently started studying two other languages. Suffice to say, whenever I see a book exploring linguistics, I am interested (be it sci-fi like Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan series, literary fiction such as Batuman's The Idiot, or nonfiction like Lahiri's In Other Words). And Kuang really presents us with so many interesting facts and insights into translation and untranslatability. Kuang pays incredible attention to words and their various meanings, which truly enriches Robin’s story and his experiences at Babel. Kuang discusses contact-induced change (which sometimes results in language death) and reading about it even feel guilty about having neglected my ‘mother-tongue’ (on a side note: i have noticed that here in england people seem less interested in learning languages as they rely on english being the most widely spoken language worldwide…). While Kuang does acknowledge Morse code, braille and sign language and other nonverbal forms of communication do not really get a mention which is a pity. Nevertheless, Kuang presents us with such nuanced discussions around language and translation, I loved the attention she pays to the etymology of words, double meanings, doublespeak, and the ambiguity of language and interpretation… “In Classical Chinese, the characters 二心 referred to disloyal or traitorous intentions; literally, they translated as ‘two hearts’. And Robin found himself in the impossible position of loving that which he betrayed, twice.” Like I said early on, the writing sometimes shifts into a telling mode, so we have swaths of time which are summarized into a few lines, or certain events or arguments are related to us indirectly. But, Kuang storytelling is such that what we are being told feels incredibly vivid and—for the better and worse—immersive. Some of the lectures Robin attends may occasionally seem a bit too long or pedantic, and I wasn’t always keen on the footnotes (more on that later), but I was never bored. Robin is such a compelling narrator and my heart went out to him. This povero ragazzo really can’t catch a break. And when he finds some solace, with Ramy and Victoire, we have Letty to stir things up or spoil the group’s rare moments of contentment. He hates Professor Lowell who is just so f*cking despicable and full of vitriol but also ‘perversely’ wants to earn his approval. He is also burdened by the realization that as the years go by he struggles to recall his mother and his early years in China. Once in England and under Professor Lowell’s ‘tutelage’ Robin feels caught in a constant state of alterity: while the story mentions that there are occasions where he can ‘pass’, he experiences overt racism, disenfranchisement, and microaggressions on the daily. And he isn’t given the tools or words to express this profound sense of injustice and alienation. Ramy and Victoire become his lifelines as he is finally given the chance to try to name the difficult thoughts and feelings he experiences living in a country that sees him and those like him as ‘barbarians’. Speaking of barbarians, I really appreciated how Kuang highlights the irony and hypocrisy of those British people who will claim that the people they are colonizing or waging war against are ‘violent’, ‘savages’, and ‘uncivilized’ and therefore deserving of being colonized, oppressed, and killed. ‘How strange,’ said Ramy. ‘To love the stuff and the language, but to hate the country.’ I found Robin to be such an endearing character. Kuang captures the disorientation of living somewhere where you are and will always be perceived as a perpetual foreigner. His longing for a place to belong to is truly heart-wrenching. He is not flawless but I genuinely believe that he always tries his hardest to do good by others. Sometimes self-preservation kicks in and he finds himself at a standstill. He feels a moral obligation to help the Hermes Society but is not quite ready to be responsible for the destruction of Babel. Yet, when he realizes that he is becoming complicit in the injustices perpetrated by Babel..well, he has to question whether his loyalties can even align with those responsible for maintaining unjust systems of power. “Yet didn’t he have a right to be happy? He had never felt such warmth in his chest until now, had never looked forward to getting up in the morning as he did now. Babel, his friends, and Oxford – they had unlocked a part of him, a place of sunshine and belonging, that he never thought he’d feel again. The world felt less dark now. He was a child starved of affection, which he now had in abundance – and was it so wrong for him to cling to what he had? He was not ready to commit fully to Hermes. But by God, he would have killed for any of his cohort.” Ramy, who is more impassioned and outspoken, balances Robin perfectly. Their shared moments together do have certain undercurrents but these remain largely unspoken. And in some ways, it is this elision that made it all the more obvious. Letty…I have said enough about her. She, similarly to Professor Lovell, remains unchanged throughout the course of the narrative. We know the kind of people they are from the very first and I am afraid that in some ways Letty is worse than Professor Lovell. Her acts of self-dramatization and victim playing drove me up the walls. Victoire was sadly underused. Her characterization sometimes relied too much on opposing Letty’s one (we will have letty responding in a sh*tty way to something and then we will get a different response from victoire who usually acts as a pacifier). I just would have liked less page-time spent on Letty—who, however believable she is, is neither an interesting nor compelling character—and more on Victoire. In the latter half of the novel, Victoire is given more room to breathe but due to the pace of the plot, the storyline can't really focus on her. I liked how many secondary characters come into play in the latter half of the novel and I was surprised by the role some of them play in the story. Reading about Britain’s ‘past exploits’ is by no means fun. Yet, somehow, Kuang is able to make Robin’s story wholly captivating and hard to put down. The anxiety I felt for him, and later on Ramy and Victoire, made me go through this nearly 500+ pages tome of a book at a relatively fast speed. There is much to be admired in Babel. [due to word count the rest of the review is in the comment section or alternatively here] ...more |
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Hardcover
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0063209748
| 9780063209749
| 0063209748
| 4.23
| 9,419
| Jun 14, 2022
| Jun 14, 2022
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really liked it
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ “Our friendships started with “What’s your name?” The answer carried with it looks that I can❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ “Our friendships started with “What’s your name?” The answer carried with it looks that I can still see clearly: Stacia’s begged me not to talk to her, and Tonya’s asked, “Is she talking to me?!” We got past those facial expressions and gave our names. Names that sound like heartbeats: Fe Fe, Precious, Stacia, Tonya.” Last Summer on State Street is a scintillating and profoundly poignant coming-of-age novel charting Fe Fe’s fraught girlhood & the tragic dissolution of her friendship group. “We were so different, but everybody loved them some double Dutch. Sometimes we made a tight-knit crew; other days we couldn’t get along for nothing.” Our narrator, Fe Fe, looks back to the summer of 1999, her last summer in the housing projects of Chicago. She used to spend her days with her closest friends playing Double Dutch, blissfully unaware of the events to come. The introduction of a fourth girl into her group upsets certain dynamics, and Fe Fe finds herself torn between developing a new friendship and holding onto her old ones. But friend-drama is not all that occupies her mind, as Fe Fe soon grows apprehensive at how her community is being upended from their neighbourhood, with high-rises being torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority. In addition, Fe Fe has to reckon with the gang-related activities and their hold on two of her friends. After a police ‘raid’ results in Fe Fe’s older brother being detained, he too spins further away from her, as he finds security and purpose in joining the local gang. Fe Fe not only has to cope without her beloved brother and two of her friends (one who has gone missing, the other seems out to get her) but her mother’s depression and heartbreak at her son’s ‘chosen’ path. Fe Fe wants to help those she loves, her friends, her brother, and her community, but she is soon forced to recognise that you can’t always save others, especially if they think that they do not need saving, to begin with. The narrative grapples with questions of right and wrong, but in a way that feels anything but simplistic or moralistic. There is a certain open-endedness and ambiguity to Fe Fe’s story that made her experiences seem all the more real. I found her struggles all the more affecting as I am myself experiencing a situation where I want to help someone who is very self-destructive and unwilling/unable to accept that they need help to begin with (to be less vague: the person in question is my father who is an alcoholic & drug addict). “That summer, one by one, they dropped out of sight as if we were in a game of All in Together.” A sense of apprehension permeates much of the narrative, and the possibility of danger is always around the corner. From the brutal taking of Fe Fe’s brother to the disappearance of Fe Fe’s new friend. While the narrator does render the fear and anxiety created by living in such proximity to gangs, her ‘adult’ knowledge allows her to view their actions with more nuance. That is not to say that she condones their violence and criminal activities but we see how racial institutions promote the formation of such gangs as well as interrogating the trauma and alienation that would lead someone to join them. For instance, in the case of Fe Fe’s brother, we see how disempowered and afraid he feels after he is the victim of discrimination & racial profiling at the hands of the police. Or how difficult it is to untangle yourself from a gang if your entire family is part of that gang. In addition to presenting us with a bittersweet portrait of female friendships & Black girlhood, the author explores the hyper-sexualisation & adultification of young Black girls, the criminalization of young Black men, and the bleak realities of living with neglectful and/or dysfunctional parents. Over the course of this summer, Fe Fe is forced into growing up, and we are forced to witness her trying to navigate dangerous and otherwise untenable circumstances. As those she loves to seem to spin further and further away from her, Fe Fe desperately struggles to hold onto them. As she watches her world irrevocably change, Fe Fe begins to identify & recognize the unjust systems that enable such damage to occur. Despite the novel’s subject matter, Fe Fe’s voice retains a lightness and hope that made even the most upsetting scenes ‘bearable’ (that is to say that of course they were still distressing but i was able to keep on reading). While there are a lot of heartbreaking moments, resilience & hope underline Fe Fe’s recollection of her past. We also see her friendship with Precious Brown and the affectionate bond she shares with an older woman in the neighbourhood ground her and provide her with a sense of self-worth & inner strength. Her faith also plays a role in her ‘coming of age’, and even if I am not religious, I found her relationship to her faith touching and depicted with subtelty. My one ‘but’ has to do with the letter and those diary entries we get towards the end. They struck me as out of place, vaguely ‘off’ in that the voices there sounded not from the ppl they were meant to be by but by Fe Fe herself (or someone who was not in their position but was trying, not so successfully, to put themselves in their shoes). I think they were a tad contrived. Overall I really loved this. The writing is (deceptively) breezy & lyrical, the topics are hard-hitting, and the characters are complex, their imperfections & flaws making them all the more realistic. I can definitely see this appealing to fans of authors such as Jacqueline Woodson, Danielle Evans, and Patricia Engel, not only because they also tend to explore 'girlhood', but their styles share a certain shining quality that makes for very captivating reads. ...more |
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Feb 02, 2022
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Hardcover
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0525557598
| 9780525557593
| 0525557598
| 4.01
| 22,961
| 2022
| May 24, 2022
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it was amazing
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ This sequel needs a sequel. “Was this the decisive moment of my life? It felt as if the gap th❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ This sequel needs a sequel. “Was this the decisive moment of my life? It felt as if the gap that had dogged me all my days was knitting together before my eyes—so that, from this point on, my life would be as coherent and meaningful as my favorite books. At the same time, I had a powerful sense of having escaped something: of having finally stepped outside the script.” In Either/Or we are reunited with Selin as she continues to navigate the trials and tribulations of adulthood. Now a sophomore student at Harvard, Selin has plenty to keep her occupied: her studies inspire her to question the choices she and others have made, the direction of her life, the meaning of love, sex, and connection, the limitations of language, and, of course, her relationship with Ivan, the Hungarian student whose mind remains to Selin, and by extension us, as unreadable as ever. Did she care for her at all? There was something abstract and gentle about the experience of being ignored—a feeling of being spared, a known impossibility of anything happening—that was consonant with my understanding of love. Selin’s propensity for long asides is as present as ever and I loved losing myself in her inner monologue. Her long acts of introspections do often come across as navel-gazing (curiously enough the narrative itself mentions navel-gazing), but I never felt bored or annoyed by it. If anything, Selin’s solipsistic inclination for self-interrogation made her all the more realistic. That she refers to books, music, films, and authors to make sense of herself and others results in a deeply intratextual narrative that will definitely appeal to literary students. While Selin isn’t wholly enamoured by academia, we can see how her studies and the books she reads inform the way she understands her world and those who populate it. She often draws parallels between her own life and those of historical and fictional figures. Some of the authors/artists/etc. she mentions include: Kazuo Ishiguro, Fiona Apple, Charles Baudelaire, Pushkin, Shakespeare, André Breton, and of course, Soren Kierkegaard’s Either/Or. “There was something about crying so much, the way it made my body so limp and hot and shuddering, that made me feel closer to sex. Maybe there was a line where sex and total sadness touched—one of those surprising borders that turned out to exist, like the one between Italy and Slovenia. Music, too, was adjacent. It was like Trieste, which was Italian and Slovenian and also somehow Austrian.” Of course, at times these books and figures only add further confusion, so Selin is unsure whether she’s idealizing herself and others so that her life can resemble those she encounters in fiction. More often than not knowledge fails her, so she’s unable to decipher not only the motivations of others but her own true feelings. Her writerly aspirations too preoccupy her and so do the changes that come about in her life. Selin’s intense friendship and rivalry with Svetlana is threatened when the latter finds a boyfriend. Her roommates too have plenty of things that keep them occupied so Selin finds herself going to parties where she meets less than ideal men. Yet even as Selin forms sexual relationships with them, she longs for Ivan and obsesses over what his infrequent emails leave unsaid. “It seemed to me that the elements whirling around me in my own life were also somehow held in place by Ivan’s absence, or were there because of him—to counterbalance a void.” Either/Or shares the same structure with The Idiot so we follow Selin month by month during her academic year before tagging alongside her as she once again goes abroad for the summer. In Turkey she finds herself forming unexpected connections but remains somewhat remote to them. Sardonic and adroit Either/Or makes for a fantastic read. While Selin does change over the course of her sophomore year, she also remains very much herself. She can be reserved and slightly baffling at times, and yet she’s also capable of making some very insightful or relatable comments. She’s intelligent, somewhat naive, and has a penchant for overthinking and obsessing over minor things. Her deadpan sense of humor and little idiosyncrasies make her character really pop out of the page. I could definitely relate to her many many uncertainties, as well as her fixation with understanding the person who never seemed to reciprocate her feelings. The one that started “Days like this, I don’t know what to do with myself” made me feel certain that I had spent my whole life not knowing what to do with myself—all day, and all night. “I wander the halls . . .” That was exactly it: not the streets, like a flâneur, but the halls. Oh, I knew just which halls. As I mentioned already over the course of her second year at Harvard Selin grows into a more self-assured person while also remaining strangely static. Her mental meanderings often included reflections on things such as desirability, belonging, love, heartbreak, self-fulfilment, choice & chance, and I found her perspective on these things deeply compelling. At times her mind is preoccupied with mundane thoughts, at times she loses herself in philosophical and existentialist questions about human nature. Batuman’s inclusion of the minutiae of her protagonist’s life (such as inserting a tampon: “I tried again to put in a tampon. ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING WAY.”) made Selin’s reality at Harvard all the more vivid. I could easily envision the different environments she occupies, as well as the people who inhabit those places. This combined with the mumblecore dialogues and Selin’s recursive inner monologue, which borders on being a stream of consciousness, give Either/Or quality of hyperrealism. That is, even when confronted with moments of surreality or scenes of a comedic nature, I believed completely in what I was reading. A sense of 90s nostalgia permeates her story which adds to the narrative’s overall atmosphere and aesthetic. “It was the golden time of year. Every day the leaves grew brighter, the air sharper, the grass more brilliant. The sunsets seemed to expand and melt and stretch for hours, and the brick façades glowed pink, and everything blue got bluer. How many perfect autumns did a person get? Why did I seem always to be in the wrong place, listening to the wrong music?” I loved this novel so thoroughly that I was sad to reach its inevitable conclusion. I hope with all my heart that Batuman will write a third instalment where we will follow Selin during her third year at Harvard. If you enjoyed The Idiot chances us you will, like me, love this even more (perhaps because batuman is expanding on the 'universe' she already established). If you are a fan of the young-alienated-women subgenre you should definitely consider picking these series up. My eternal gratitude to the publisher for providing me with an arc. ...more |
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Dec 20, 2021
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Hardcover
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1509898263
| 9781509898268
| 1509898263
| 3.72
| 30,275
| Oct 13, 2011
| May 12, 2022
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really liked it
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ “All the lovers in the night .” The phrase had appeared out of nowhere. Through the faint lig❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ “All the lovers in the night .” The phrase had appeared out of nowhere. Through the faint light of the room, I looked over the words, which came together in the strangest way. On the one hand, they felt new to me, like something I’d never heard or seen before, though I also felt like maybe I had read them somewhere, in the title of a movie or a song; Previously to reading All the Lovers in the Night, I’d read Breasts and Eggs, Heaven, and Ms. Ice Sandwich, by Mieko Kawakami. While I was not ‘fond’ of Breasts and Eggs, I did find her other books to be compelling. As the premise for All the Lovers in the Night did bring to mind Breasts and Eggs, I was worried that I would have a similarly ‘negative’ reading experience. Thankfully, I found All the Lovers in the Night to be insightful and moving. Even more so than Kawakami’s other works, All the Lovers in the Night adheres to a slice-of-life narrative. Yet, in spite of this, the story is by no means light-hearted or superficial. Kawakami approaches difficult topics with this deceptively simple storytelling. She renders the loneliness and anxiety of her central character with clarity and even empathy. “I couldn’t think of a single thing about me that would be worth sharing. My name is Fuyuko Irie, a freelance proofreader, thirty-four years old. I’ll be turning thirty-five in the winter. I live alone. I’ve been living in the same apartment forever. I was born in Nagano. Out in the country. One of the valleys. I like to go out on a walk once a year on my birthday, Christmas Eve, in the middle of the night.” Thirty-something Fuyuko Irie leads a solitary life working from home as a freelance copy editor. Her inward nature led her former colleagues to single her out, and she was made to feel increasingly uncomfortable at her workplace. Working from home Fuyuko is able to avoid interacting with others, and seems content with her quiet existence. Fuyuko receives much of her work from Hijiri, an editor who is the same age as her but is very extroverted and possesses a forceful personality. Hijiri, for reasons unknown to Fuyuko, regularly keeps in touch with her and seems to consider her a friend. Perhaps their differences cause Fuyuko to begin questioning her lifestyle. Compared to her glamorous friend, Fuyuko sees herself, to borrow Jane Eyre’s words, as “obscure, plain and little”. But venturing outside the comfort of her home has become difficult for Fuyuko. To work up the courage she begins drinking alcohol, even if her body doesn’t respond well to it. She eventually begins going to a cafe with an older man. While the two speak of nothing much, they seem happy to exchange tentative words with one another. I can see that this is not the type of novel that will appeal to those readers who are keen on plot-driven stories. However, if you are looking for an affecting character study, look no further. Through Fuyuko’s story, the author addresses how Japanese society sees and treats women who are deemed no longer ‘young’. Marriage, motherhood, and a career seem to be the requirements for many Japanese women. Those like Fuyuko are considered outside of the norm and because of this, they find themselves alienated from others. Fuyuko’s self-esteem is badly affected by this to the point where she feels that she has to go outside her comfort zone, even if the only way to do so is through inebriation. At a certain point, I was worried that Kawakami would make Hijiri into the classic fake/mean female character who is portrayed as aggressive, promiscuous, and a woman-hater to boot. Thankfully that was not the case. While Hijiri is not necessarily a likeable person Kawakami doesn’t paint her as a one-dimensional bitch and her relationship with Fuyuko isn’t sidetracked in favour of the romantic subplot. And yes, on the ‘romance’...I will say that this man wasn’t as nuanced as Fuyuko. I found him slightly boring and generic. I did like that the relationship between the two forms has a very slow build-up to it and the ending will certainly subvert many readers' expectations. Anyway, overall I rather enjoyed this. I liked the melancholic mood permeating Fuyuko’s story, the descriptions of Tokyo, the mumblecore dialogues, the way Kawakami articulates Fuyuko’s discomfort, anxiety, etc. Now and again there were even moments of humour and absurdity that alleviated Fuyuko’s more depressing experiences. I also appreciated the novel’s open-ended nature, which added an extra layer of realism to Fuyuko’s story. While some of Fuyuko’s actions aren’t given a ‘why’ or closely inspected, as we read on we begin to understand more fully her various state of mind and how these affect her behaviour. “I was so scared of being hurt that I’d done nothing. I was so scared of failing, of being hurt, that I chose nothing. I did nothing.” While the dialogues did have a realistic rhythm, the secondary characters (who usually did most of the talking given that our main character isn't a talker) did tend to go on very long and weirdly specific monologues that seemed at times incredibly random or oddly revealing. This is something I noticed in other works by Kawakami. Secondary characters go on endless rants or whatnot while our main character gives little to no input. It seems a bit unusual that Fuyuko would come across so many people who are willing to go on these very long monologues that reveal personal stuff. Even so, I did find the majority of the dialogues to be effective. “If I thought about things long enough, I would always lose track of my own feelings, which left me with no choice but to proceed as usual, without taking any action.” All the Lovers in the Night is a work of subtle beauty and I look forward to revisiting it again in the future. re-read: the narrative possess a quality of impermanence that is truly rare in literature. i love the attention that the author gives to Fuyuko's various environments and the incredibly tactile descriptions. the way the author writes about light reminded me of Yūko Tsushima. i loved re-reading this and i really appreciated how the author prioritises female relationships in this narrative. the relationships and interactions between the various women within this narrative are by no means positive or easy but they speak of the kind of images and norms that their families, communities, and society have inculcated into them. additionally, the author shows how women can perpetuate misogynistic views and attitudes (casting judgement on how other women dress, their sex lives, their marital status) as well how all-consuming and toxic female friendships can be. Fuyuko's unwillingness to conform to widely accepted ideals of womanhood and her (partly) self-imposed isolation brought to mind Charlotte Brontë's Lucy Snowe. additionally, the way kawakami navigates her loneliness and creativity reminded me of Lily King's Writers & Lovers. despite the issues addressed within the narrative—sexual assault, alcoholism, misogyny, alienation—Fuyuko's voice has this lulling rhythm that made it easy for me to become immersed by what i was reading. while in my original review i criticised the novel for its 'monologues' this second time around i actually found these far more credible as it was easy to see why people would open up to Fuyuko. sad and wistful, All the Lovers in the Night ultimately struck me as luminous character analysis that captures with bittersweet accuracy the realities of leading a lonely existence, missed connections, and the long-lasting repercussions of traumatic experiences. ...more |
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Paperback
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1608197573
| B00CIR97T8
| 4.30
| 24,220
| Sep 17, 2013
| Sep 17, 2013
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really liked it
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ “How could I know then that this would be my life: yearning to leave the South and doing so ag❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ “How could I know then that this would be my life: yearning to leave the South and doing so again and again, but perpetually called back to home by a love so thick it choked me?” Devastating, heart-wrenching, and full of love and sorrow, Men We Reaped is an unforgettable memoir. Jesmyn Ward recounts her experiences growing up poor, female, and Black in the rural South during the late 80s and 90s. Ward interweaves her personal account with a brutal social commentary that highlights what it means to be poor and Black, and of how racism, specifically in the South, remains an insidious and widespread phenomenon with tragic consequences. Interrupting those chapters in which Ward recounts her childhood and teenage years are chapters focusing on the lives of five Black men, all of whom died young as a result of addictions, suicide, and accidents. Some of these men, we learn, were her friends growing up. We see how the school system either pegged them as problem students or ignored them, which inevitably would make them feel ‘less than’ and worthless. Ward’s younger brother, Joshua, is one of these young men, which makes these chapters all the more hard-hitting. Ward shows how deep-rooted institutionalised racism is and how it results in social and economic disparities. In looking back to the past, Ward tries to understand the motivations behind the actions and behaviours of the adults around her, in particular, her mother and her father, a serial cheater who would eventually leave them behind. In discussing the lives of these men she cared for, Ward considered the high mortality rate among young Black men, and of the way in which their community is affected by generational trauma, drug addiction, etc. Ward ultimately feels conflicted about the South, a place that has played a fatal role in the deaths of the people she loved. Yet, even after moving away to pursue higher education, she finds herself longing to return to it. Ward, in some ways, appears to be haunted by it and by the role it played in the deaths of so many men she knew and loved. With heartbreaking clarity and piercing insight, Ward writes of her childhood, of the lives of those young men who died such violent and sudden deaths, of her own family and her relationship to her parents, of her community, and of social inequality. More impressive still than Ward’s talent for vividly portraying a specific time and place is her ability to articulate her grief over the death of her brother and her friends. While this memoir is by no means an easy read, it did in fact distress me, ultimately, I think it’s a necessary read. Ward’s lyrical prose reads like an elegy, both to the men that died at such a young age and to the South. Men We Reaped is a powerful, poignant, and thought-provoking read. While this memoir is mired in pain and grief, Ward's elegiac prose and empathy balanced out its bleaker aspects. With admirable lucidity Ward attempts to reconcile herself with the confusion and anger brought about by the inequalities experienced by her community and by her loved one deaths. Some quotes that will haunt me: “[T]he message was always the same: You’re Black. You’re less than White. And then, at the heart of it: You’re less than human.” “We inherit these things that breed despair and self-hatred, and tragedy multiplies. For years I carried the weight of that despair with me;” “But this grief, for all its awful weight, insists that he matters. What we carry of Roger and Demond and C. J. and Ronald says that they matter. I have written only the nuggets of my friends’ lives. This story is only a hint of what my brother’s life was worth, more than the nineteen years he lived, more than the thirteen years he’s been dead. It is worth more than I can say. And there’s my dilemma, because all I can do in the end is say.” “We who still live do what we must. Life is a hurricane, and we board up to save what we can and bow low to the earth to crouch in that small space above the dirt where the wind will not reach. We honor anniversaries of deaths by cleaning graves and sitting next to them before fires, sharing food with those who will not eat again. We raise children and tell them other things about who they can be and what they are worth: to us, everything. We love each other fiercely, while we live and after we die. We survive; we are savages.” “I thought being unwanted and abandoned and persecuted was the legacy of the poor southern Black woman. But as an adult, I see my mother’s legacy anew. I see how all the burdens she bore, the burdens of her history and identity and of our country’s history and identity, enabled her to manifest her greatest gifts.”...more |
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Dec 18, 2021
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Kindle Edition
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0888997531
| 9780888997531
| 0888997531
| 3.77
| 16,662
| Feb 28, 2008
| Feb 28, 2008
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really liked it
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ Who knew that I would come across something that would make me feel nostalgia for the mid-2000 ❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ Who knew that I would come across something that would make me feel nostalgia for the mid-2000s? Skim is a compelling coming-of-age story that is bound to make you feel nostalgic for the mid-2000s (even if you, like me, didn’t strictly ‘come of age’ in that time). Skim captures the angst, confusion, heartache, and loneliness experienced by its titular character with empathy and insight. Kimberly Keiko Cameron, who goes by the nickname of ‘Skim’, is an aspiring Wiccan goth enrolled at a private girls school. She has a best friend who is very much vocal about her dislike and contempt for the ‘popular’ girls or anything she deems mainstream. When Katie Matthews, one of said popular girls, is dumped by her boyfriend who then goes on to commit suicide, well, the school is thrown into chaos. Some students are very much into performing their grief, exaggerating their connection to the boy and the impact that his death has had on them. Others cluster around Katie, their attempts at comforting her bordering on the oppressive. The staff is made newly aware of the importance of their students’ mental health and identify Skim, a quiet Goth, as someone to keep their eye on. Skim herself sinks further into depression as her only friend becomes increasingly toxic. When Skim develops an infatuation with one of her teachers, well, things get even more complicated for her. I liked how this graphic novel avoids the usual teen coming-of-age tropes. Skim may be a bit of an outsider but, as we see, the social hierarchies within her school aren’t wholly inflexible (not all of the popular girls hate her or are portrayed as boy-crazed & vapid). Additionally, just because you aren't part of the popular clique, does not mean you are necessarily a nice person (take Skim’s BFF for example). At times you can grow apart from a friend without any real ‘reason’. Much of the story reads like a slice-of-live dealing with suicide, depression, alternative culture, sexuality, and first love. The narrative never felt moralistic or contrived and I loved the pacing of the story. Skim was a likeable and relatable character who is dealing with a lot of different emotions and can’t quite make sense of what she wants or who she wants to be. In addition to loving Mariko Tamaki’s storytelling, I adored Jillian Tamaki’s illustrations. Her style has a sketchy edge to it that goes hand in hand with Mariko’s narrative. I loved how at the ending two characters come together and it is left open to interpretation whether their relationship is platonic or romantic. I did wish for a slightly longer conclusion, but then again, that just may be because I did not want to leave Skim and her world behind. The teacher-student relationship could also have been addressed a bit more. Still, these are minor things and I would happily read this graphic novel again & again. ...more |
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039958904X
| 9780399589041
| 039958904X
| 4.46
| 24,766
| Mar 26, 2019
| Mar 26, 2019
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really liked it
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❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ Mira Jacob's Good Talk is a small gem of a memoir. Jacob combines different media to discuss a ❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ Mira Jacob's Good Talk is a small gem of a memoir. Jacob combines different media to discuss a number of issues and topics. Jacob transports to the page the difficult conversations she’s had with her son about race, while also recounting her own experiences growing up as a first-generation Indian-American. Much of Good Talk takes place against the 2016 election, which doesn’t necessarily make for easy or enjoyable reading material, especially when we discover that her white in-laws are Trump supporters. Jacob struggles to ‘gloss’ over their political stance, especially when her son begins asking difficult questions about Trump and racism. While her husband, who is white, also struggles to make sense of his parents’ behaviour he does at times minimise Jacob’s experiences with discrimination and racism (chalking these episodes to misunderstandings or claiming that supporting someone who is openly racist and misogynistic doesn’t mean you are those things too). While many of the conversations that are depicted in Good Talk have to do with America (or at least view these topics through an American lens) certain, Jacob does also touch upon colorism in India. In addition to discussing Trump and 9/11, Jacob also gives us insight into her private life, from talking about her family to her experiences moving in predominantly white spaces and to the everyday microaggression that results from that. The dialogues populating this memoir always rang true to life, so much so, that I felt as if I was truly listening to people talking. While Jacob does discuss serious topics, such as racism, sexism, islamophobia, discrimination, colorism, she often injects humor in these discussions. I especially loved her talks with her son and her parents. I’d happily revisit this and I’m looking forward to reading more from Jacob. Candid, thought-provoking, and ultimately moving Good Talk is a quick read that is a must-read. ...more |
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1
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Oct 06, 2021
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luce (cry baby)
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