luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus)
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Books:
i-dont-think-happiness-is-for-me
(32)
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my rating |
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| 8834919017
| 9788834919019
| 8834919017
| 4.36
| 64
| Oct 13, 2004
| Apr 21, 2023
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it was amazing
| emotional damage all the way down |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 2024
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Jul 2024
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Jul 08, 2024
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Paperback
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| 8834920686
| 9788834920688
| 8834920686
| 4.37
| 49
| Nov 13, 2004
| Jun 16, 2023
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it was amazing
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 02, 2024
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Jul 02, 2024
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Jul 08, 2024
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Paperback
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| 8834911229
| 9788834911228
| 8834911229
| 4.38
| 220
| Oct 13, 2004
| Mar 03, 2023
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it was amazing
| Moto Hagio was truly ahead of her time. Her artwork is stunning, and its beauty both complements and contrasts the dark themes she explores in this st Moto Hagio was truly ahead of her time. Her artwork is stunning, and its beauty both complements and contrasts the dark themes she explores in this story. Describing the story as heavy would be an understatement—it's intense and disturbing. What happens to Jeremy is horrific, but Hagio never sensationalizes his trauma. Instead, she shows the insidious nature of his abuser's psychological and emotional warfare, convincing Jeremy that he is somehow to blame and should be ashamed of being sexually assaulted. In contrast to the story's disturbing content, Hagio's imagined Boston feels almost picturesque. Her vision of England also feels fairy-talesque, drawing inspiration from various eras and images associated with the UK. I found it amusing that no one remarks on Jeremy's American accent, or that we are repeatedly told the UK is colder than Boston. I first read this when I was but a sad sprog, and it left a lasting impression on me (i even created a playlist that i could listen to while reading this). Hagio shows profound empathy in exploring Jeremy's psyche, alleviating the story's relentless darkness through beautiful imagery—often of landscapes—and touching interactions that serve as reprieves in a story centred on abuse. A word that would adequately capture this series is haunting, so read at your own discretion. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 26, 2024
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May 26, 2024
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Jun 01, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0571365469
| 9780571365463
| 0571365469
| 3.89
| 215,500
| Sep 24, 2024
| Sep 24, 2024
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really liked it
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Manifesting that this book will finally make me a Rooney believer� And it did! This is the third book I’ve picked up by Rooney, and I guess it’s true w Manifesting that this book will finally make me a Rooney believer� And it did! This is the third book I’ve picked up by Rooney, and I guess it’s true what they say: third time’s the charm. Despite my ranty reviews of Normal People and Beautiful World, Where Are You, I always stressed that (in my view) Rooney can write and has real talent—it’s just that the stories and people she was writing about... pissed me off. Intermezzo took me completely by surprise. It’s one of those rare reads that made me feel very seen (almost uncomfortably so) and pulled me in from the very first page. Intermezzo revolves around two quasi-estranged brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek, in the wake of their father’s death. Though they both live in Dublin, they couldn’t be further apart. Part of this distance seems like a natural consequence of their age gap—Peter is in his early thirties, while Ivan is only 22. But it quickly becomes clear that it’s more than just that: their contrasting personalities, lifestyles, interests, and circumstances have only deepened the gulf between them, leaving them closer to strangers than brothers. Peter is a successful lawyer who, on the surface, seems to have it all: a thriving career, a nice flat, and an active social life. But beneath this seemingly put-together persona, he’s a mess. He’s entangled in what can’t quite be called a love triangle, but rather two complicated relationships that, depending on the moment, oscillate between angsty and straightforward. He sees his ex, Sylvia, as the love of his life, their relationship cut short after an accident left her grappling with chronic pain; but he also has a soft spot for Naomi, a college student who wears her generational insouciance like armor. Sylvia tries to draw a line in her relationship with Peter, as their love has long been tangled in guilt and dependence. Peter and Naomi’s understanding, by contrast, seems simpler—certainly not burdened by years of shared history. But beneath Naomi’s witty retorts and carefree exterior, there’s an undercurrent of vulnerability and loneliness. She’s younger than Peter, and when she moves in with him after an eviction, he’s often troubled by their power dynamics and the unspoken promises he’s making her (showing he cares, having her rely on him). In true Stiva Oblonsky fashion, Peter spends much of the novel wrestling with a moral and emotional dilemma, torn between what he owes to himself, to these two women, and questioning his own ideas of love and responsibility. All the while, he bottles up his grief over his father’s death, his guilt and regret over his fractured relationship with Ivan, and the sadness that has haunted him for most of his adult life. Peter isn’t doing too well. The more time we spend with him, the clearer it becomes. He’s lonely, full of self-loathing, and perpetually frustrated by what he perceives as his own failures, his thoughts often spiraling into suicidal ideation. Ivan has always been the ‘awkward� Koubek—introverted, a bit of a loner, and someone who has spent most of his life immersed in studying and playing chess. During his father’s illness, Ivan’s career as a competitive chess player stalled, and after his father’s death, he feels utterly lost. His father was the person he was closest to and the only one who truly understood him (unlike his older brother or his mother and her new family). Then Ivan meets Margaret, a woman in her late thirties who has recently separated from her husband. Despite their age difference and their starkly different lives and experiences, their connection is tentative yet genuine—a refuge for both. They open up to each other, and for the first time in a long while, they feel truly seen. The moments between them are brimming with hope, and Rooney does an extraordinary job of capturing the quiet yet profound intimacy of their relationship. There’s an ease and naturalness to their connection that feels strikingly realistic and unexpectedly poignant. Margaret, in particular, was such a wonderful, layered character. Her concerns and worries felt deeply relatable—whether about her relationship with Ivan or the guilt and pressure she carried from her marriage. Early on in the novel, a catch-up between the two brothers leads to a more serious fallout, with Ivan shutting Peter out of his life. The possibility of reconciliation or even mutual understanding seems unlikely, if not impossible. Yet, despite not having much to do with each other, their presence—or absence—from each other’s lives is undeniably felt. The novel alternates between the two brothers, tracing their attempts to navigate new and old relationships while grappling with loss, loneliness, and all the messiness that comes with being human. Rooney writes about love, sex, and affection as each Koubek tries, however imperfectly, to keep on living. This book carries plenty of what I’ll call Rooney-isms—but for once, they worked for me. I loved how her prose can be strikingly pared-down, adopting a staccato style that hones in on a particular mood or feeling with sharp precision. At other times, her writing feels freer, almost stream-of-consciousness, especially in Peter’s chapters. She conveys the anxiety and overthinking that consumes her characters, really making us feel as if we are caught in their restless minds. Not only is she adept at rendering her characters� inner monologues—whether fleeting or introspective—but her ear for dialogue is impeccable. She captures the rhythms and flow of real conversations, from awkward small talk to stilted silences, from breezy banter to those rare, meaningful exchanges. She allows for ambiguity and unease, both in her characters� thoughts and actions, and I appreciated how she managed to make her characters feel very relatable even when they behave or say things that are incredibly frustrating. Even in those moments when I didn’t fully understand why they said or did what they did, I still found them to be realistic and nuanced. Both her prose and the way she writes about certain things brought to mind classics like Henry James and Edith Wharton, especially when it came to articulating and delving into the feelings, desires, and worries of her characters. This classical feel is echoed through quotes and references to several classics, an intertextuality that made reading Intermezzo feel like reconnecting with an old friend There was something cinematic about this book’s ambiance, whether due to its minimalist plot or slow pacing, that was reminiscent of certain indie films. Rooney’s descriptions feel moody and atmospheric, which really added a sense of intimacy and immediacy to the situations her characters find themselves in. I recently saw A Real Pain, and it reminded me of how both there and Intermezzo manage to present two flawed individuals who are struggling or have struggled, and, at some point, enter into conflict. Yet, you can't quite pick a side, as you understand and feel for both. As an introverted younger sibling, I obviously felt a deep connection to Ivan—his awkwardness, his isolation, his quiet yearning. He often doesn't want or can't explain himself to others, which often leads others to misunderstand him. There were plenty of moments when I also understood (even if i often did not approve of) Peter, especially as his loneliness and despair began to surface. We have two flawed characters, who are hurting and who hurt others. I wanted things to work out for them, and I also wanted them to realize that they could be the problem. The female characters, in comparison, felt more put-together, even if they are all also experiencing turbulence in their lives: Naomi is trying to manage after her eviction, but she's falling for an older guy who is still in love with his ex; Sylvia has to live every day with pain, so the guilt and resentment she feels for Peter are an added burden (I will say that her condition was rendered in such a vague yet strangely specific way that it reminded me of ye old heroines with their poor constitutions or Banana Yoshimoto's quirky gals and their quizzical malaises...i guess i wished Rooney could have been less polished in her portrayal of Sylvia's condition, as it seemed to be there as a conflict in a potential relationship with Peter but without any symptoms or descriptions that are ‘off-putting�); while Margaret is still making sense of who she is after leaving her alcoholic husband. Even so, they often make perfect sense and are quite reasonable, whereas the Koubek brothers are more vulnerable and lost in their emotions. Or maybe it appears so because the novel is centered on them. Regardless, I found each character to be fully realized, and I cared for them all. Beautiful, reflective, aching, and deeply human, Intermezzo is a bittersweet and atmospheric read. Rooney’s portrayal and insight into grief, desire, guilt, love, and loneliness brought to mind Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, Coco Mellor's Blue Sisters, and Hanna Jameson's Are You Happy Now. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 09, 2025
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Jan 12, 2025
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Mar 01, 2024
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0593535227
| 9780593535226
| B09T9D8QY7
| 3.58
| 34,862
| Oct 25, 2022
| Oct 25, 2022
|
really liked it
|
❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ “I think a lot of people would elect to be dead if they didnt have to die.� By turns, ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ “I think a lot of people would elect to be dead if they didnt have to die.� By turns, blunt and meandering The Passenger presents its readers with an unsparing tale permeated by existential angst. Cormac McCarthy’s prose is uncompromising: much of the narrative consists of dialogues: rambling conversations, mystifying backwards and forwards, sharp repartees, and unremitting monologues that could easily rival Dostoyevsky’s ones. The characters are preoccupied with their past, the meaning of life, human nature, war, history, particularly America’s, morality, death, with madness. Many of them are pessimistic and bitter, jaded by age and/or experience, weighted by guilt, and haunted by past choices and loves. They recount anecdotes, confess their fears and desires, and lose themselves in speculations and diatribes of a philosophical nature. Much of the book focuses on the encounters and conversations that our aptly named protagonist, Western, a shadow of a man working as a salvage diver, makes as he traverses the Southern States and later on as he drives toward the Northwest. These talks he has, be it with strangers or old friends, are presented as if from a transcript. We are made to feel as if we were actually there, witnessing these people talk. McCarthy certainly succeeds in conveying the cadences of their speech and the kind of vocabulary they would use. Western, a good listener, often lets the other person initiate and dictate the direction of their conversation. His motives and thoughts remain somewhat of a mystery, but we can often tell what is important to him or what he feels about something by the questions or statements he chooses to dodge or elide. During his various exchanges with people he meets in bars and restaurants in New Orleans and later when he has hit the road, we learn that he was in love with his sister and that his father collaborated with Oppenheimer and contributed to the atomic bomb. Haunted by his guilt, his sister’s death, and his father’s legacy, Western exists dimly. Interested with Western’s story, are short italicized chapters in which his sister, a promising mathematician, is being belittled by her hallucinations, in particular by the one referred to as ‘the Kid�. His rambling yet frenzied voice dominates these sections, and much of what he says and does is of an absurd, nonsensical nature, on the lines of Alice in Wonderland. The sister’s voice remains absent, but whereas we ultimately come to know Western, as someone who is lonely and bereft, yet willing to let people open up about their thoughts & feelings, the sister remains an impression of a beautiful yet ‘broken� young woman. We know she wants to die, that she is tired, that her hallucinations are a source of torment and exhaustion…but I couldn’t get a grasp on her the way I did Western. Had her chapters allowed us to hear more of her, for instance, in regards to her feelings towards her self, her family and Western, maybe then she would have come across as a more believable character. Although there are women here and there, the novel mostly consists of the voices of men: men who feel forgotten, who are spiralling into addiction, and who view the world through grimey lenses. They share a preoccupation with questions of a philosophical nature, history, and science. They speak of war, of death, of politics. Yet, despite the depressing and often dismal mood permeating Western’s physical and metaphysical meanderings, there were many moments of wit, some really good banter, and a lot of cleverly delivered lines. There are only echoes of Western and his sister’s relationship, as we are given brief glimpses and fragments into the forbidden feelings they felt for one another. Because of Western’s avoidance of his past, his sister is more of a quietly haunting presence. I would be lying if I said that I understood the novel, as many passages and exchanges flew over my head. Yet, I found the writing compelling, especially McCarthy’s ear for language. The novel is certainly very atmospheric, even if the landscape we are being presented with feels desolate, an America from a bygone era. This is very much of a slow-burn of a novel, with subtle moments of introspection. Despite Western being followed by these men for unclear reasons, The Passengeris not a thriller, but rather an analytical psychodrama, where characters dispense historical, mathematical, and scientific facts left and right, all the while our central character is struck in a limbo of sorts. However, there is an obliqueness, an ambivalence, to the events that have and are transpiring that does add tension to Western's story and his past. The narrative is quite self-aware: from a reference to Joyce, to Western's nicknames, to the idea of playing the role of the tragic hero in the story of your life. Despite the story's gritty ambience there were many moments that I found moving, endearing even. The story's exploration of grief and alienation were certainly thought-provoking and evocative. This was my first foray into McCarthy's ouevre and I am definitely planning on making my way through his backlist. some quotes: “You believe that the loss of those you loved has absolved you of all else.� “Grief is the stuff of life. A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can no longer find and never forget.� “They’re sad. The dead are not loved long, you said. You may have noticed it in your travels, you said.� “Good guys, bad guys. You’re all the same guys.� “How come you never got another cat? I just didnt want to lose anything else. I’m all lost out.� “He was wet and chilled. Finally he stopped. What do you know of grief? he called. You know nothing. There is no other loss. Do you understand? The world is ashes. Ashes. For her to be in pain? The least insult? The least humiliation? Do you understand? For her to die alone? Her? There is no other loss. Do you understand? No other loss. None� “In the spring of the year birds began to arrive on the beach from across the gulf. Weary passerines. Vireos. Kingbirds and grosbeaks. Too exhausted to move. You could pick them up out of the sand and hold them trembling in your palm. Their small hearts beating and their eyes shuttering. He walked the beach with his flashlight the whole of the night to fend away predators and toward the dawn he slept with them in the sand. That none disturb these passengers.� “People want to be reimbursed for their pain. They seldom are.� “You see yourself as a tragic figure. No I dont. Not even close. A tragic figure is a person of consequence. Which you are not. A person of ill consequence.� “she was right. People will go to strange lengths to avoid the suffering they have coming. The world is full of people who should have been more willing to weep.� “A recluse in an old house. Growing stranger by the day.� “Much has changed and yet everything is the same. I am the same. I always will be. I’m writing because there are things that I think you would like to know. I am writing because there are things I dont want to forget. Everything is gone from my life except you. I dont even know what that means. There are times when I cant stop crying. I’m sorry. I’ll try again tomorrow. All my love.� “What was it she wanted? Come on. No. I dont know. She wanted to disappear. Well, that’s not quite right. She wanted not to have ever been here in the first place. She wanted to not have been. Period.� “I think a lot of people would elect to be dead if they didnt have to die.� “History is a collection of paper. A few fading recollections. After a while what is not written never happened.� “Okay. Are you all right? No. Are you? No. But we’re on reduced expectations. That helps.� “I have a feeling that the shape of your interior life is something you believe somehow exempts you from other considerations. � “evil has no alternate plan. It is simply incapable of assuming failure.� “A frail candle tottering in the darkness. All of history a rehearsal for its own extinction.� � Fathers are always forgiven. In the end they are forgiven. Had it been women who dragged the world through these horrors there would be a bounty on them.� Merged review: ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ “I think a lot of people would elect to be dead if they didnt have to die.� By turns, blunt and meandering The Passenger presents its readers with an unsparing tale permeated by existential angst. Cormac McCarthy’s prose is uncompromising: much of the narrative consists of dialogues: rambling conversations, mystifying backwards and forwards, sharp repartees, and unremitting monologues that could easily rival Dostoyevsky’s ones. The characters are preoccupied with their past, the meaning of life, human nature, war, history, particularly America’s, morality, death, with madness. Many of them are pessimistic and bitter, jaded by age and/or experience, weighted by guilt, and haunted by past choices and loves. They recount anecdotes, confess their fears and desires, and lose themselves in speculations and diatribes of a philosophical nature. Much of the book focuses on the encounters and conversations that our aptly named protagonist, Western, a shadow of a man working as a salvage diver, makes as he traverses the Southern States and later on as he drives toward the Northwest. These talks he has, be it with strangers or old friends, are presented as if from a transcript. We are made to feel as if we were actually there, witnessing these people talk. McCarthy certainly succeeds in conveying the cadences of their speech and the kind of vocabulary they would use. Western, a good listener, often lets the other person initiate and dictate the direction of their conversation. His motives and thoughts remain somewhat of a mystery, but we can often tell what is important to him or what he feels about something by the questions or statements he chooses to dodge or elide. During his various exchanges with people he meets in bars and restaurants in New Orleans and later when he has hit the road, we learn that he was in love with his sister and that his father collaborated with Oppenheimer and contributed to the atomic bomb. Haunted by his guilt, his sister’s death, and his father’s legacy, Western exists dimly. Interested with Western’s story, are short italicized chapters in which his sister, a promising mathematician, is being belittled by her hallucinations, in particular by the one referred to as ‘the Kid�. His rambling yet frenzied voice dominates these sections, and much of what he says and does is of an absurd, nonsensical nature, on the lines of Alice in Wonderland. The sister’s voice remains absent, but whereas we ultimately come to know Western, as someone who is lonely and bereft, yet willing to let people open up about their thoughts & feelings, the sister remains an impression of a beautiful yet ‘broken� young woman. We know she wants to die, that she is tired, that her hallucinations are a source of torment and exhaustion…but I couldn’t get a grasp on her the way I did Western. Had her chapters allowed us to hear more of her, for instance, in regards to her feelings towards her self, her family and Western, maybe then she would have come across as a more believable character. Although there are women here and there, the novel mostly consists of the voices of men: men who feel forgotten, who are spiralling into addiction, and who view the world through grimey lenses. They share a preoccupation with questions of a philosophical nature, history, and science. They speak of war, of death, of politics. Yet, despite the depressing and often dismal mood permeating Western’s physical and metaphysical meanderings, there were many moments of wit, some really good banter, and a lot of cleverly delivered lines. There are only echoes of Western and his sister’s relationship, as we are given brief glimpses and fragments into the forbidden feelings they felt for one another. Because of Western’s avoidance of his past, his sister is more of a quietly haunting presence. I would be lying if I said that I understood the novel, as many passages and exchanges flew over my head. Yet, I found the writing compelling, especially McCarthy’s ear for language. The novel is certainly very atmospheric, even if the landscape we are being presented with feels desolate, an America from a bygone era. This is very much of a slow-burn of a novel, with subtle moments of introspection. Despite Western being followed by these men for unclear reasons, The Passengeris not a thriller, but rather an analytical psychodrama, where characters dispense historical, mathematical, and scientific facts left and right, all the while our central character is struck in a limbo of sorts. However, there is an obliqueness, an ambivalence, to the events that have and are transpiring that does add tension to Western's story and his past. The narrative is quite self-aware: from a reference to Joyce, to Western's nicknames, to the idea of playing the role of the tragic hero in the story of your life. Despite the story's gritty ambience there were many moments that I found moving, endearing even. The story's exploration of grief and alienation were certainly thought-provoking and evocative. This was my first foray into McCarthy's ouevre and I am definitely planning on making my way through his backlist. some quotes: “You believe that the loss of those you loved has absolved you of all else.� “Grief is the stuff of life. A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can no longer find and never forget.� “They’re sad. The dead are not loved long, you said. You may have noticed it in your travels, you said.� “Good guys, bad guys. You’re all the same guys.� “How come you never got another cat? I just didnt want to lose anything else. I’m all lost out.� “He was wet and chilled. Finally he stopped. What do you know of grief? he called. You know nothing. There is no other loss. Do you understand? The world is ashes. Ashes. For her to be in pain? The least insult? The least humiliation? Do you understand? For her to die alone? Her? There is no other loss. Do you understand? No other loss. None� “In the spring of the year birds began to arrive on the beach from across the gulf. Weary passerines. Vireos. Kingbirds and grosbeaks. Too exhausted to move. You could pick them up out of the sand and hold them trembling in your palm. Their small hearts beating and their eyes shuttering. He walked the beach with his flashlight the whole of the night to fend away predators and toward the dawn he slept with them in the sand. That none disturb these passengers.� “People want to be reimbursed for their pain. They seldom are.� “You see yourself as a tragic figure. No I dont. Not even close. A tragic figure is a person of consequence. Which you are not. A person of ill consequence.� “she was right. People will go to strange lengths to avoid the suffering they have coming. The world is full of people who should have been more willing to weep.� “A recluse in an old house. Growing stranger by the day.� “Much has changed and yet everything is the same. I am the same. I always will be. I’m writing because there are things that I think you would like to know. I am writing because there are things I dont want to forget. Everything is gone from my life except you. I dont even know what that means. There are times when I cant stop crying. I’m sorry. I’ll try again tomorrow. All my love.� “What was it she wanted? Come on. No. I dont know. She wanted to disappear. Well, that’s not quite right. She wanted not to have ever been here in the first place. She wanted to not have been. Period.� “I think a lot of people would elect to be dead if they didnt have to die.� “History is a collection of paper. A few fading recollections. After a while what is not written never happened.� “Okay. Are you all right? No. Are you? No. But we’re on reduced expectations. That helps.� “I have a feeling that the shape of your interior life is something you believe somehow exempts you from other considerations. � “evil has no alternate plan. It is simply incapable of assuming failure.� “A frail candle tottering in the darkness. All of history a rehearsal for its own extinction.� � Fathers are always forgiven. In the end they are forgiven. Had it been women who dragged the world through these horrors there would be a bounty on them.� Merged review: ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ “I think a lot of people would elect to be dead if they didnt have to die.� By turns, blunt and meandering The Passenger presents its readers with an unsparing tale permeated by existential angst. Cormac McCarthy’s prose is uncompromising: much of the narrative consists of dialogues: rambling conversations, mystifying backwards and forwards, sharp repartees, and unremitting monologues that could easily rival Dostoyevsky’s ones. The characters are preoccupied with their past, the meaning of life, human nature, war, history, particularly America’s, morality, death, with madness. Many of them are pessimistic and bitter, jaded by age and/or experience, weighted by guilt, and haunted by past choices and loves. They recount anecdotes, confess their fears and desires, and lose themselves in speculations and diatribes of a philosophical nature. Much of the book focuses on the encounters and conversations that our aptly named protagonist, Western, a shadow of a man working as a salvage diver, makes as he traverses the Southern States and later on as he drives toward the Northwest. These talks he has, be it with strangers or old friends, are presented as if from a transcript. We are made to feel as if we were actually there, witnessing these people talk. McCarthy certainly succeeds in conveying the cadences of their speech and the kind of vocabulary they would use. Western, a good listener, often lets the other person initiate and dictate the direction of their conversation. His motives and thoughts remain somewhat of a mystery, but we can often tell what is important to him or what he feels about something by the questions or statements he chooses to dodge or elide. During his various exchanges with people he meets in bars and restaurants in New Orleans and later when he has hit the road, we learn that he was in love with his sister and that his father collaborated with Oppenheimer and contributed to the atomic bomb. Haunted by his guilt, his sister’s death, and his father’s legacy, Western exists dimly. Interested with West ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Dec 26, 2022
not set
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Dec 28, 2022
not set
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Feb 09, 2024
|
Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||
| 0593595270
| 9780593595275
| 0593595270
| 3.61
| 28,273
| Nov 10, 2011
| Apr 18, 2023
|
liked it
|
❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ 3 ½ stars “The lit fuse of the chilly explosive primed in her heart is no more. The int❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ 3 ½ stars “The lit fuse of the chilly explosive primed in her heart is no more. The interior of her mouth is as empty as the veins through which the blood no longer flows, it is as empty as a lift shaft where the lift has ceased to operate.� In a clinically detached prose Han Kang examines in exacting detail the experiences of two individuals whose ability to perceive the world and be able to express themselves, to interact with others, are impaired. Preoccupied with the notion and the reality of communication, perception, language, and sight these characters feel increasingly alienated from their everyday reality, unsure of themselves, their senses, and their bodies, and attempting to find a new way to occupy space, of navigating their world, by, in the case of the woman, distancing herself from that which was familiar, and, in the case of the man, retreating inward to recollect the past and to understand the origins and effects of his linguistic and cultural disconnect. Unsparing and analytical, Greek Lessons is permeated by ambivalence. This atmosphere of unease and the characters� aloofness succeed in making us feel a sense of estrangement from the text, which is compounded by the prose’s impersonal way of addressing the characters and how events that should carry some emotional impact are delivered and/or recounted in a distinctly dispassionate way. Kang places her characters under a microscope, zeroing in on momentary discomforts and sensations, be it a character’s dry lips or quivering eyelids. These close-ups are often uncomfortable, but they do succeed in conveying with precision the characters� experiences. These coldly anatomical descriptions interrupt the characters� introspections, which often amount to a lot of navel-gazing. Their preoccupation with the function and reality of a language, of linguistic barriers, of bilingualism, of ‘dead� languages, of the way language and communication are necessary to navigate many spaces, and without it, one can find themselves on the margins, a passive spectator. The woman’s difficulties in conveying and articulating her thoughts and feelings definitely resonated with me. She is unwilling or avoids explaining her ‘loss� of language, and there was something like resilience in her silence, in her choice to remain opaque. I was reminded of a Georgian film I watched a while back, My Happy Family, which revolves around a middle-aged woman who decides to leave her husband and family to live by herself and throughout the film refuses to explain her choice or back down from it. Here of course the circumstances of the woman are quite different, soon after the death of her mother the woman loses a drawn-out custody battle over her eight-year-old son. Severed from her son, grieving the loss of her mother, the woman, a professor, falls once again victim to a ‘malady� that results in a loss of speech. “Before she lost words—when she was still able to use them to write—she sometimes wished that her own expressions would more closely resemble inarticulacy: a moan or low cry. The sound of suffering through bated breath. Snarling. Humming in one’s half-sleep to pacify a child. Stifled laughter. The sound of two people’s lips pressing together, pulling apart.� Yet, her loss of language cannot be easily ascribed to these losses. Feeling disconnected from Korean, the woman attempts to approach the language anew. To do so, she distances herself from her mother tongue and chooses to study a dead language, ancient Greek. These classes are taught by a man who grew up between Korea and Germany, and because of this has long felt not only a linguistic divide but a self-divide, perpetually longing to belong, to feel at ease. For years he has been gradually losing his sight, and so he finds himself questioning how he can retain independence, observing the world around him with regret and yearning. He writes letters to his sister, recounting his childhood experiences, from the shock of moving from Korea to Germany to the pressure to ‘assimilate�, and he also reflects on past friendships and loves. “Even the occasional memorable event is soon erased without a trace under time’s huge, opaque mass.� By switching between these two individuals Kang draws a parallel between their experiences and realities, as they both find themselves having to reevaluate new ways of perceiving and communicating with the world around them. There is, towards the end, a moment of kinship between the two, that felt startlingly poignant. “Sunspots explode, without a sound, in the distance. Hearts and lips touch across a fault line, at once joined and eternally sundered.� The narrative expounds on these two individuals' theoretical and personal ruminations, mirroring and juxtaposing their experiences and perspectives. Their reflections on languages, spoken and unspoken ways of communication, expression and perception, memory, grief, and the body (the way they fail and change us), are rendered all the more lucid by the author’s unsparing style. Yet, despite how clinical and ascetic her style was, there are moments where Kang’s prose is elevated by an elegiac, lyrical even, use of language. “If only she’d made a map of the route her tears used to take.� Greek Lessons makes for a fascinating read. The two central characters remain slightly outside of our reach, despite the time we spend alongside them. The subject matter and language itself are the core of this novel, making it sure, intellectually and stylistically arresting but, except for a few moments, I felt not only at a remove but as if I was reading a textbook. I couldn't help but compare this unfavourably to two favorites of mine, Whereabouts and All the Lovers in the Night (both novels also explore loneliness in women who assume the role of observer). Nevertheless, I do admire what Kang achieves in Greek Lessons and I found the ending to be quite rewarding. Some quotes: My love for you wasn’t foolish, but I was; had my own innate foolishness made love itself foolish? Or is that I myself wasn’t at all that foolish, but love’s inherent foolishness awakened any foolishness latent in me and eventually smashed everything to pieces? [T]here had once been a word that encapsulated both beauty and the sacred, without their having yet fallen away from each other, just as colour and clarity had formed one body within another word—the truth of this had never before been brought home to me with such vibrant intensity. Whatever their motivation, those who study Greek share certain tendencies. They walk and talk slowly, for the most part, and don’t show much emotion (I guess this applies to me too). Perhaps because this language is a long-dead one and doesn’t allow for oral communication. Silence, shy hesitation and reactions of muted laughter slowly heat the air inside the classroom, and slowly cool it. What a strange thing one's flesh and blood is. How strange are the ways that it brings us sorrow. Ink overlays ink, memory overlays memory, bloodstain overlays bloodstain. Serenity over serenity, smile over smile, bears down. Do you ever wonder at the strangeness of it? That our bodies have eyelids and lips, That they can at times be made to close from the outside, and at other times to lock fast from within. She knows that no single specific experience led to her loss of language. Language worn ragged over thousands of years, from wear and tear by countless tongues and pens. Language worn ragged over the course of her life, by her own tongue and pen. Each time she tried to begin a sentence, she could feel her aged heart. Her patched and repatched, dried-up, expressionless heart. The more keenly she felt it, the more fiercely she clasped the words. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 09, 2023
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Jan 10, 2023
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Dec 22, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 0241515076
| 9780241515075
| 0241515076
| 3.45
| 1,217
| Feb 02, 2023
| Feb 02, 2023
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it was amazing
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❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ � � � � ½ stars (rounded up) “That this was the trade-off. The price of happiness. In order to❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ � � � � 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 |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 15, 2022
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Dec 17, 2022
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Dec 07, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 0593534565
| 9780593534564
| 0593534565
| 4.51
| 58,156
| 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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1
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Jan 28, 2023
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Jan 30, 2023
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Sep 03, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 1912489481
| 9781912489480
| 1912489481
| 3.86
| 299
| May 26, 2022
| May 26, 2022
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really liked it
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❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ 4 ¼ stars “At any given moment, I have no idea what’s true about any of us.� The Arena of the U ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ 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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1
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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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| 1509898263
| 9781509898268
| 1509898263
| 3.70
| 42,070
| Oct 13, 2011
| May 12, 2022
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really liked it
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❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ “All the lovers in the night .� The phrase had appeared out of nowhere. Through the faint lig❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ “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 |
Notes are private!
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3
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Jul 2023
May 08, 2022
Dec 13, 2021
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Jul 2023
May 11, 2022
Dec 17, 2021
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Dec 13, 2021
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Paperback
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| 0385539258
| 9780385539258
| 0385539258
| 4.30
| 822,005
| Mar 10, 2015
| Mar 10, 2015
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it was amazing
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❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ “Fear and hatred, fear and hatred: often, it seemed that those were the only two qualities he❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ “Fear and hatred, fear and hatred: often, it seemed that those were the only two qualities he possessed. Fear of everyone else; hatred of himself.� A Little Life is a heart-wrenching tour de force. Dark, all-consuming, devastating, moving, stunning, brutal, dazzling, beautiful, disturbing, A Little Life is all of these and so much more. This is the kind of novel that haunts. “Fairness is for happy people, for people who have been lucky enough to have lived a life defined more by certainties than by ambiguities.� The first fifty pages or so may give one the illusion that the story they are about to read is the usual tale of a group of friends trying to make it in the big city. Which in some ways, it is. Friendship is one of the novel’s underlying motifs. But, A Little Life is first and foremost a novel about pain, suffering, and trauma. And as highly as I think of this novel I could not in good conscience bring myself to recommend it to anyone else. Large portions of this 800-page novel are dedicated to depicting, in minute detail, a man's past and present physical, emotional, and psychological suffering. We also have to read paragraph after paragraph in which adults inflict all kinds of horrific abuse on a child. What saves this novel from being yet another sensationalistic or gratuitous take on sexual abuse are Hanya Yanagihara's clear and realist style and the many moments of beauty, kindness, love, empathy that are interjected throughout the narrative. Still, even so, I can see why some may find A Little Life to be too much. Hell, there were many instances where I found myself thinking 'I can't it, this is too much'. But who was I kidding? Once I started this novel I knew that I had to finish it and in fact I devoured it over the course of three days. “Friendship was witnessing another’s slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person’s most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.� The novel recounts, decade-by-decade, the lives of four friends in New York City from their early 20s to their 50s. There is JB, a gay painter, Malcolm, who still lives at home and dreams of becoming an architect, Willem, an orphan who is pursuing an acting career, and Jude, also an orphan, who is a lawyer. Jude's is reticent about his past and his friends know to leave it well alone. He has a limp and suffers from many health-related issues, which were caused by a car injury. As the story progresses the narrative shifts its focus on Jude and his many ongoing struggles. Jude's horrific childhood and teenage years are revealed to us slowly over the course of the story. To cope with his traumatic experiences Jude self-harms, something that definitely hit close to home so I appreciate the authenticity with which Yanagihara portrays Jude's self-harming. Similarly, his self-hatred and self-blaming are rendered with painful realism, without any judgment on the author's part. While there were many—and I mean many—horrifying and painful scenes, there are moments of beauty, lightness, and tenderness. As an adult Jude is surrounded by people who love him, there are his friends, colleagues, neighbours, mentors, and it is here that the novel is at its most moving. This is a novel about sexual abuse, pain, grief, friendship, love, intimacy, hope, and silences. The characters (it feels wrong to even call them that) are fully-formed individuals, imperfect, at times incongruent, yet nonetheless lovable. Oh, how my heart ached for them. Yanagihara foreshadows certain events but even so, I found myself hoping against hope that the story would not be a tragic one. Yet, this unwillingness on Yanagihara's part to provide a happy ending or to give her characters sort of closure that makes her novel simultaneously subversive and all the more realistic. Things don't always get better, people can't always overcome or reconcile themselves with their trauma, love doesn't 'fix' people, you can't magic away someone else's pain. I have never sobbed while reading a book but I was sobbing intermittently throughout my reading of A Little Life. At times reading about Jude's pain was brought me to tears, at times it was when coming across a scene that is brimming with kindness and love (basically anything with jude and harold or jude and willem). “I want to be alone,� he told him. This novel made me feel exposed, naked, vulnerable, seen in a way I wasn't ready to be seen. It broke my fucking heart. It disturbed me, it made me ugly-cry, it made me want to find Yanagihara so I could shout at her. To describe A Little Life as a piece of fiction seems sacrilegious. I experienced A Little Life. From the first pages, I found myself immersed in Jude, Willem, JB, and Malcolm's lives. When I reached the end I felt bereft, exhausted, numb so much so that even now I'm finding it difficult to to articulate why I loved this so much (then again my favourite band is Radiohead so i clearly like things that depress me). I doubt I will ever be brave enough to read it again but I also know that I will be thinking about A Little Life for years to come. Adroit, superbly written, and populated by a richly drawn A Little Life is a novel unlike any other, one that you should read at your own risk. ps: the bond between Jude and Willem brought to mind a certain exchange from Anne Carson's translation of Orestes: PYLADES: I'll take care of you. ORESTES: It's rotten work. PYLADES: Not to me. Not if it's you. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 16, 2021
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Apr 18, 2021
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Apr 14, 2021
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Hardcover
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| 1783786736
| 9781783786732
| 1783786736
| 4.26
| 50,800
| Nov 27, 2019
| Oct 13, 2022
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really liked it
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❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ “You have something of mine, I passed on something of me to you, and hopefully it isn’t cursed❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ ❶ “You have something of mine, I passed on something of me to you, and hopefully it isn’t cursed, I don’t know if I can leave you something that isn’t dirty, that isn’t dark, our share of night� Although I have previously quoted Lady Gaga’s iconic "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." to describe my feelings for another book, I can’t help but use them again in this review as they really capture my sentiments & thoughts towards Our Share of Night. “He also remembered his father’s words, nothing can hurt you now, how long was now, how long did the present last?� This is an elaborate genre-bending work that defies easy categorisations. Even a summary or a rundown of the story would not do it justice. It is dark, grotesque, obscure, and frankly mind-boggling. Yet, the way Mariana Enríquez manages to combine together tropes, themes, and aesthetics associated with the fantasy, gothic, and horror genres is utterly mesmerizing. Much of the narrative is animated by a fraught father-son relationship, one that is complicated by monstrous inheritances and destinies, sickness, and a history of violence, abuse and destruction. Over the course of the novel, Enríquez weaves together an unsettling tapestry, one that I was unable to look away from. As Enríquez navigates haunted people and places, the price of power and privilege, and the dark side of faith, she incorporates motifs of the uncanny and the Other while also presenting us with striking, and frankly horrifying, images of the abject and the sublime. While there is much brutality and cruelty within the pages of Our Share of Night, those almost work towards making those rare moments of lightness and tenderness all the more precious. The writing has this cinematic quality to it, one that results in some visually arresting & often disturbing scenes. The characters populating the story defy easy categorisation, with the exception perhaps of the older members of the Order (who are all f*cking evil). Ambivalence permeates the story and its characters, whose motives and desires more often than not elude and alienate us, allowing plenty of room for interpretation. “There is no greater disappointment than to believe oneself the chosen one and not to be chosen.� The narrative begins in January 1981 with a road trip. Juan, recently widowed, is in his late 20s and making his way from Buenos Aires with his son to visit his in-laws' estate, in northeast Argentina. His choice to drive there seems rather injudicious given the country’s climate of terror, and that his in-laws had bought him airplane tickets. But Juan needs to spend time alone with his son, Gaspar, as he is desperately trying to protect him from his own faith. His in-laws are prominent members of the Order, a cult formed by nauseatingly wealthy people who have powerful connections all over the world. The Order, we learn, has exploited Juan not only for his ability to see and commune with the dead but because his body can host the Darkness. To summon it they are willing to commit atrocities that defy human comprehension, be it enslaving and torturing children or driving their own members insane in ways that are too repulsive to mention here. Juan knows that the Order has its sights on Gaspar, and is painfully aware that he won’t be alive long enough to watch over him so he hatches a desperate plan to keep his son safe, even if it requires him to commit his own cruelties and even if it will inevitably push his son away from him. “I’m going to miss him, he thought, I’ll be glad when he’s gone because without him it’ll be easier to stop being sad, but I’m going to miss him…� We are later reunited with Gaspar in 1985 where we read of his bond with three other children, and of his fraying relationship with his father Juan, whose mercurial behaviour he can never predict or comprehend. The dictatorship’s aftermath, 80s popular culture and memorable events, make for a vivid backdrop against which Gaspar and his friends grow up. A sense of growing unease obfuscates much of his childhood, as his father begins to act in an increasingly incomprehensible and ‘deranged� way. But Juan refuses to let Gaspar in, and in doing so their relationship begins to fray. Resentment and confusion lead Gaspar to find solace in his group of friends…but after one of their daring exploits takes a devastating turn, nothing is ever the same for them. “It had the look of a spot where something bad had happened: an expectant air. Evil places wait for evil things to reoccur, or else they seek it out.� We then learn more about Gaspar’s mother, a woman who was complicit in the horrors and agenda of the Order, but someone who nonetheless was trying to steer the power away from the evilest people in the cult, her mother included. Her devotion to the Darkness and her inability to understand its true repercussion and ramifications (most of all on Juan) did not endear her to me. But her youth and upbringing do play a part in the way she understands this force and even if I could not bring myself to like her I appreciated that she wasn't made into a saint-like figure (the typical dead mother of the 'chosen one'). “There is no arguing with faith, though. And it’s impossible to disbelieve when the Darkness comes. So, we trust, and we go on. At least, that’s what many of us do.� The novel concludes with a traumatized Gaspar trying to live with and make sense of his father’s dark inheritance. Here Enríquez interrogates the realities of living with the kind of baggage Gaspar is carrying around, and of the way, his exposure to some Dark Shit� has irrevocably changed him. As I said, this story is Dark. The type of dark that requires every trigger warning under the sun. While there are certain scenes and some elements within the story they do toe the line with being gratuitous and sensationalistic, what ultimately comes through is the empathy Enríquez demonstrates towards her core characters. There is a lot of politically incorrect language (particularly when talking about disabilities, amputees, poc & lgbtq+ ppl) but given the story’s setting, it seemed ‘realistic� enough. Sure I did question the choice to have the only really explicit sex scenes be between men, and how we had to have a scene of a young teen questioning his sexuality just happen to ‘spy� on two men having sex or his having to be enamoured with his straight best friend (i am kind of done with this trope tbh) but these are minor criticisms. I did mostly like the way Enríquez challenges the gay/straight dichotomy and the story’s esoteric take on the ‘androgyne�. Additionally I also liked that she incorporated the Guaraní language (as well as some beliefs) in her story. My heart went out to Gaspar, even when he acted in a way that made me (or his loved ones) despair. True, the boy could be a bit basic (on his first crush: Belén “wanted too study engineering: she was different from other girls�; and: “the woman, though older, was beautiful; she wore no make-up—Gaspar didn’t like how make-up looked, especially lipstick�) but Enríquez really manages to make us feel and understand his struggle. From a child living in a solitary house with his inscrutable & volatile father, whose capacity and propensity to hurt him often leaves him feeling confused and afraid, to a teenager and young adult wracked by guilt and haunted by a force he cannot begin to comprehend, Gaspar is subjected to so much sorrow, sadness, and abuse throughout this story that it is impossible not to feel for him, especially when we witness how the years have eaten away at him. Enríquez also allows us to understand, never quite condone, Juan and his ways, and it was heartbreaking to see how much his experiences with the Order change him. “Even wih all the hatred, contempt, ambivalence, and repulsion he felt towards the Order, that power was still his, and he didn’t posses many things. Renunciations is easy when you have a lot, he thought. He had never had anything.� While the Order’s ideology and the way it operates are ultimately as horrifying as they are mystifying, we witness (first-hand or not) the terrifying lengths that they will go to achieve their goal. Their willingness and eagerness to exploit vulnerable people is reprehensible, and yet their wealth and ancestry (most are of white european heritage) endow them with the belief that they are more deserving than others, that their lives are more valuable. In addition to crafting a brutal yet gripping tale about the lengths a father will go to to protect his son, Enríquez gives Gaspar’s own coming-of-age storyline a horror spin, making Our Share of Night into a difficult to pigeonhole novel. There were also so many details related to the time period the story unfolds in that made the setting seem hyper-real (making those places of horror all the more unsettling). Yet, while Enríquez’s nuanced portrayal of 80s Argentina grounds the characters in reality, their experiences with otherworldly forces ultimately transport them (and us) into more fantastical and macabre places. While Our Share of Night is a distinctly unique book, I was reminded of several authors & books, the most obvious being Stephen King (a hotel room? a child seeing dead ppl? a group of kids who are dealing with some-thing-place that is truly evil?), Neil Gaiman, Scott Hawkins, the Dyachenko's Vita Nostra, T. Kingfisher’s The Hollow Places, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand, Helen Oyeyemi, Cadwell Turnbull’s No Gods, No Monsters (which i didn’t get but i might revisit it having loved this), Alex Landragin’s Crossings and quite a lot of horror collection of short stories, written by authors such as Amparo Dávila, Octavia E. Butler, and Sayaka Murata. I was even reminded of Stranger Things & Baccano!. So if you happen to like any of the names I just mentioned you should definitely consider picking up Our Share of Night. I much preferred it to Enríquez’s short stories, so even if you like me, were not particularly taken by her storytelling there, I recommend you give this a chance. I am definitely planning on re-reading this (perhaps opting for the italian translation instead or hey ho since i am moving to spain soon i might even one day be able to read the original). ...more |
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| 9781526609144
| 1526609142
| 4.12
| 5,373
| Oct 16, 2001
| Nov 15, 2018
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it was amazing
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Haunting, heart-wrenching, luminous, and lyrical, Edinburgh is as beautiful as it is harrowing. It certainly my made my heart ache. Rarely have I read
Haunting, heart-wrenching, luminous, and lyrical, Edinburgh is as beautiful as it is harrowing. It certainly my made my heart ache. Rarely have I read a novel that is able to capture with such precision and intensity the ways in which trauma affects one's memory and one's perception, of one's own self, of the spaces one inhabit, and of the people around them. There is a fragmented quality to Fee’s recollection of childhood and adolescence, that makes us all the more aware of what is being elided. Alexander Chee is a wordsmith, whose prose expresses the duality between beauty and ugliness, between pain and joy, between self-restraint and vulnerability, between loneliness and connection, between intimacy and unknowability. There is something quietly devastating about Chee’s portrayal and interrogation of trauma, shame, guilt, and grief. His prose echoes the way Fee’s psyche has been irrevocably altered by the abuse he was subjected to and by his belief that he is complicit in the abuse of the other victims. Fee’s narration at times is strikingly evocative, as he hones in on a sensation, an image, a feeling or a thought, bringing that moment to life with startling intensity. Yet this razor-sharp clarity sometimes gives way to moments that are more ambiguous, and opaque, where we are given fleeting impressions or a single snapshot, but not the whole picture. Fee looks back to his childhood, when aged 12, he joined his local boys' choir. Despite becoming close to several of the other boys, Fee is keenly aware of his difference. Not only he is the only Korean-American kid in the choir, and often subjected to peoples� prying about ‘what he is�, but for the way he feels about his best friend, Peter. We soon become aware that the director of the choir, Big Eric, acts strangely with his students and his predatory behavior only escalates when he takes them to a summer camp. Although Big Eric mainly targets boys who are blue-eyed and blond, Fee doesn’t escape his ‘notice�. The abuse Fee experiences muddy his feelings for Peter, who is also being abused by Big Eric. Big Eric seems to ‘know� that Fee is gay, something that he uses to his advantage, as he tries to make Fee believe that paedophilia is ‘natural�, that it was ‘normal� in the ancient world, and is not frowned upon is more ‘progressive� countries. Big Eric also seems jealous of Fee's closeness to Peter and Zach, another boy in the choir. Although Fee remains distrustful and repelled by Big Eric, he begins to view his own desire as something ugly, something he has to be ashamed of, and something that he has to keep a secret. Believing that if the rest of the world knew Big Eric, they would know about Fee himself, he dissuades Peter from telling the adults about their ongoing abuse. The boys don’t talk about the abuse, as if dissociating themselves from it and Big Eric, but despite their not talking about it they grapple with the pain, shame, and fear abuse leaves in its wake. Chee counterpoints the anxiety, confusion, and misery they experience because of Big Eric, with scenes and moments that are almost idyllic: Fee swimming with the other boys, playing with them, or spending time with his grandparents who recount to him a family legend that comes to resonate deeply with him. Yet, these moments of lightness, of contentment, are often tinged with unease, and no matter how hard Fee tries to separate himself from his abuse, he cannot escape the reality of it. Eventually, Big Eric is arrested. Fee’s family is horrified to learn the truth and struggles to make sense of something that is beyond ‘sense�. Fee continues to feel weighed down by his feeling of guilt, and more and more he finds himself thinking of death, his own one in particular. And when the two people who were closest to him, the two people who knew what it was like to go through what they went through, are no longer there, Fee is unmoored. When Fee becomes the researcher for a history scholar he reads a letter by a Norman in 14th-century Edinburgh who, following the outbreak of the plague, is sealed off, in what should have become a cathedral. The only survivor, buried alive, the writer envisions being able to return to the world outside, where he will “Disguise myself from those who know me to be dead�. This idea, of a burial and of a reemergence, of death and rebirth, sparks something in Fee, and he feels compelled to create a series of tunnels on a nearby hilltop. Yet, the past is unrelenting and Fee finds himself haunted by it as he heads off to university. There Fee finds himself projecting his feelings for Peter onto his roommate, even if doing so will just cause him more sorrow. Self-destructive, lonely, and unable to reconcile himself with his own existence, Fee seeks numbness, nothingness, and unknowability. But it is there that he begins to test and explore his own creativity, in particular with ceramics, and begins to envision not quite a life of happiness but a way out. Years later Fee has a boyfriend and works as a teacher at a high school not far from where he grew up. One of his students, Warden, bears a striking resemblance to Peter, and despite his desire and efforts to leave his past behind and to break away from destructive patterns, Fee struggles to distance himself from Warden. His efforts are made all the more difficult by the fact Warden has grown deeply infatuated with him. When Big Eric is released, the situation becomes all the more precarious. Edinburgh is one of those novels I find hard to talk/write about as it is one of those books I didn’t read as much as I experienced. Chee exerts enormous restraint throughout the narrative so that not one word feels wasted or inconsequential. The depth and intensity of Fee’s feelings are often rendered indirectly, sometimes through their absence, or they appear faraway as if submerged by water. Fee’s connection to the tale of Lady Tammano, a fox who transforms into a girl after falling in love with a man, gives his narrative a dreamlike quality, as this myth becomes a lens through which he views his experiences. Fee’s voice is captivating, even if we are not always privy to his motivations or his innermost feelings and thoughts. Rather we are given after-images of what he feels and thinks, in a way that feels far more evocative than having them laid out on the page. For all the beauty of Chee’s language, this novel is permeated by unease. From the opening pages to the very last ones, I was filled with apprehension, yet, unable to do anything but read on. Chee is unsparing in his depiction of trauma, guilt, grief, and, trickier still, the absence of feeling. Yet, he displays such emotional intelligence and empathy that his narrative never feels gratuitous or shallow. There was a lot in here that resonated with me, especially when it comes to Fee’s longing for someone who is no longer there or unable to reciprocate his feelings, as well as his bone-deep yearning to be gone. There are so many motifs, like those of fire, water, silence, and singing, that makes the narrative all the more evocative. Despite the story’s heavy themes, Edinburgh is a work of scintillating beauty. Chee is able to present his readers with a gripping coming of age, an acute character study, and a heart-wrenching exploration of abuse and its aftermath. ...more |
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| 1573227161
| 9781573227162
| 1573227161
| 4.08
| 9,849
| Feb 02, 1998
| Feb 01, 1999
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it was amazing
| “It’s funny. When you leave your home and wander really far, you always think, ‘I want to go home.� But then you come home, and of course it’s not the “It’s funny. When you leave your home and wander really far, you always think, ‘I want to go home.� But then you come home, and of course it’s not the same. You can’t live with it, you can’t live away from it. And it seems like from then on there’s always this yearning for some place that doesn’t exist. I felt that. Still do. I’m never completely at home anywhere. But it’s a good place to be, I think. It’s like floating. From up above, you can see everything at once. It’s the only way how.� re-read: This is my favorite coming of age novel of all time. It makes for such an immersive reading experience. The characters, Birdie’s voice, the events that take place and come to shape her childhood and adolescence, they are all rendered in incredible, if painful, realism. Yet, despite the mood of ambivalence permeating Birdie’s coming of age, I have come to consider Caucasia a comfort read. Senna's descriptions have a cinematic quality to them and so many scenes & moments are imbued with a sense of nostalgia. My heart ached for Birdie, for the way she is made to feel both hypervisible and invisible, someone who is made to feel perpetually on the outside looking in. Her longing to belong, and most of all, her desire to be reunited with her sister, are portrayed with great empathy and nuance. Enthralling and haunting, Caucasia makes for a dazzling coming-of-age story. With piercing and heart-wrenching clarity, Danzy Senna captures on the page the psychological and emotional turmoils experienced by her young protagonist. Similarly to her later novels, Symptomatic and New People, Caucasia is a work that is heavily concerned with race, racial passing, and identity. But whereas Symptomatic and New People present their readers with short and deeply unnerving narratives that blur the lines between reality and the fantastical, Caucasia is a work that is deeply grounded in realism. Its structure takes a far more traditional route, something in the realms of a bildungsroman novel. This larger scope allows for more depth, both in terms of character and themes. Birdie’s world and the people who populate it are brought to life in striking detail. Senna’s prose, which is by turns scintillating and stark, makes Birdie’s story truly riveting and impossible to put down. Caucasia is divided in three sections, each one narrated by Birdie. The novel opens in Boston during the 1970s Civil Rights and Black Power movements when the city’s efforts to desegregate schools was met with white resistance and exacerbated existing racial tensions. Enter Birdie: her father Deck is a Black scholar who is deeply preoccupied with theories about race; her mother, Sandy, is from a blue-blood white woman who has come to reject her Mayflower ancestry and is quite active in the ‘fight� for Civil Rights. Birdie is incredibly close to her older sister Cole, so much so that the two have created and often communicate in their own invented language. Before their parents� rather messy break-up the two have been homeschooled, something that has sheltered them somewhat from the realities of the world. Even so, they both have been made aware of their ‘differences�. Whereas Cole resembles her dad, Birdie is paler and has straight hair, something that leads people to assume that she is white or perhaps Hispanic. During their rare visits to their maternal grandmother, Cole is completely ignored while Birdie receives all of her (unwanted quite frankly) attention. Later on, Deck’s new girlfriend is shown to be openly intolerant of Birdie for not being Black enough. When the girls begin attending a Black Power School, Birdie is teased and bullied. While Birdie is in awe of Cole and dreams that she could look like her, she's also peripherally aware of the privileges afforded to her by her appearance. We also see how Sandy, their mother, for all her talk, treats Birdie and Cole differently (there is a scene in which she implies that unlike Birdie Cole should not be worried about paedophiles/serial killers). Sandy also struggles to help Cole with her hair, and soon their mutual frustration with each other morphs into something more difficult to bridge. When Sandy gets involved in some 'shady' activities her relationship with Cole sours further. Birdie’s life is upended when Sandy, convinced the FBI is after her, flees Boston. In pursuit of racial equality Deck and his girlfriend go to Brazil, taking Cole with them, while Birdie is forced to leave Boston with Sandie. Sandie believes that the only way to escape the feds is to use Birdie’s ‘ambiguous� body to their advantage. Not only does Birdie have no choice but to pass but it is her mother who chooses her ‘white� identity, that of Jesse Goldman. The two settle in New Hampshire where Birdie struggles to adjust to new life. While the two spend some time in a women’s commune, they eventually move out and into a predominantly white town. Sandy’s paranoia leads her to distrust others, and secretiveness and suspicion become fixtures in their lives. Being forced to pass and being forced to pretend that her sister and father never existed alienate Birdie (from her own self, from Sandy, and from other people). She cannot truly connect to those around her given that she has to pretend that she is a white Jewish girl. She eventually makes friends and in her attempts to fit in emulates the way they speak and act. Because the people around her believe she is white they are quite openly racist, and time and again Birdie finds herself confronted with racist individuals. other people’s racism. Senna captures with painful clarity the discomfort that many girls experience in their pre and early teens. For a lot of the novel, Birdie doesn’t really know who she is and who she wants to be, and because of this, she looks at the girls and women around her. But by doing this, she is merely imitating them, and not really figuring out her identity. In addition to having to perform whiteness, Birdie denies her own queerness. As with Symptomatic and New People, Senna provides a razor-sharp commentary on race and identity. While Caucasia is easily the author's least disquieting work, it still invokes a sense of unease in the reader. On the one hand, we are worried for Birdie, who is clearly unhappy and lost. On the other hand, we encounter quite a few people who are horrible and there are many disquieting scenes. Yet, Senna doesn’t condemn her characters, and in fact, there are quite a few instances where I was touched by the empathy she shows towards them (I’m thinking of Sandy in particular). It provides a narrative in which its main character is made to feel time and again 'Other', which aggravates the disconnect she experiences between her physical appearance and self. The people around her often express a binary view of race, where you are either/or but not both. Because of this Birdie struggles to define herself, especially when she has to pass as white. Senna subverts the usual passing narrative: unlike other authors, she doesn’t indict her passer by employing the ‘tragic mulatta� trope. Throughout the narrative, Senna underscores how racial identity is a social construct and not a biological fact. However, she also shows the legacies of slavery and segregation in this supposedly ‘post-racial� America as well as the concrete realities that race have in everyday life (Deck being questioned by the police, the disparities between the way Cole and Birdie are treated, the racism and prejudice expressed by so many characters, the way Samantha is treated at school). Throughout the narrative Senna raises many thought-provoking points, opening the space for in-depth and nuanced discussions on identity, performativity, peer pressure, and sexuality. The realism of Birdie’s experiences was such that I felt that I was reading a memoir (and there are some definite parallels between Birdie and Senna). If you found Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls and Dog Flowers: A Memoir to be compelling reads I thoroughly recommend you check out Caucasia. I can also see this coming of age appealing to fans of Elena Ferrante's The Lying Life of Adults. While they do not touch upon the same issues, they both hone in on the alienation experienced by young girls whose fraught path from childhood to adolescence make them aware of painful truths and realizations (that they are not necessarily good or beautiful, that the people around them aren’t either, that adults and parents can be selfish and liars, that not all parents love their children). I would also compare Caucasia to Monkey Beach which is also an emotionally intelligent and thoughtful coming-of-age. And, of course, if you are interested in passing narratives such as Passing and The Vanishing Half you should really check out all of Senna's books. The novel's closing act is extremely rewarding and heart-rendering. Curiously enough the first time I read this I appreciated it but did not love it. This second time around…it won me over. Completely. Birdie is such a realistic character, and I loved, in spite or maybe because, of her flaws. Her story arc is utterly absorbing and I struggled to tear my eyes away from the page (even if I had already read this and therefore knew what would happen next). Senna’s dialogues ring true to life and so do the scenarios she explores. Birdie’s voice is unforgettable and I can’t wait to re-read this again. edit: I will say that although Birdie yearns to be seen as Black and is generally dismissive of whiteness and western beauty standards, she inevitably, given to all the racism and colourism she is exposed to in New Hampshire and by her grandmother, struggles with internalised racism. The way she views and describes the girls and women around her might also come across as dated, especially when it comes to her mother's weight. Additionally, at school Birdie is also thrown into a microcosm where ableism, fatphobia, and slut-shaming are the norm. Given that this was published in the late 90s and that the story is set in the 70s and 80s, I saw it as reflecting a particular voice (that of a teen) and time period...so I guess if you do not vibe with books with content like that you might want to put this on the back-burner. ...more |
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| 1529043395
| 9781529043396
| 1529043395
| 3.85
| 86,101
| Jul 20, 2021
| Jul 22, 2021
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it was amazing
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| 0062963635
| 9780062963635
| 0062963635
| 3.96
| 23,917
| Sep 15, 2020
| Sep 15, 2020
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it was amazing
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| | | | | | Heavenly Creatures by way of Patricia Highsmith, plus a sprinkle of Like Minds, and with the kind of teenage morb | | | | | | Heavenly Creatures by way of Patricia Highsmith, plus a sprinkle of Like Minds, and with the kind of teenage morbidity one could find in Hangsaman or Stoker. Adroit and gripping, These Violent Delights is a superlative debut novel. Being the self-proclaimed connoisseur of academia fiction that I am, I was drawn by the comparisons to The Secret History and I was amazed to discover that unlike other releases (not naming any names) These Violent Delights definitely had some TSH vibes. But whereas most academia books focus on a ‘clique�, Micah Nemerever’s novel is very much centred on the obsessive relationship between two seventeen-year-olds. If you’ve read or watched anything that revolves around a toxic relationship, you know what to expect from These Violent Delights. The prologue itself reveals to us that all will not be well for these two boys and that at some point will embark on a path of no return. “He couldn’t remember ever being the person he’d decided to become.� The narrative takes us back to their first meeting. Paul, our protagonist, is a university freshman in Pittsburgh during the early 1970s. His father has recently committed suicide and his mother has yet to recover. Paul suffers from an almost debilitating insecurity and shows a propensity for virulent self-recriminations. His inward-looking nature brings him no joy, as his mind is often consumed by his many ‘shortcomings�, and those of others. He feels misunderstood by his working-class family, and without his father, his grandfather, a man whose good-natured attempts to connect with Paul inevitably miss the mark, has become his closest male figure. His family fails to accept that Paul isn’t the type to ‘loosen� up with his peers or have ‘fun� with some girl. When a discussion on experimental ethics in class gets Paul hot under the collar, Julian Fromme comes to his defence. On the surface Julian is the antithesis of Paul: he comes from wealth, he’s self-assured, easy-going, and charismatic. Yet, Paul is enthralled by him, especially when he realises that Julian carries within him a darkness not unlike his own. Their mutual understanding and their interest in one another result in an instantaneous connection. They can have erudite talks, challenging each other's stance on subjects related to ethics and morals, and revel in the superiority they feel towards their classmates. Within hours of their meeting, their bond has solidified, becoming something impenetrable to outsiders. It soon becomes apparent that neither of them is in control in their relationship, and things are further complicated when their platonic friendship gives way to a more sexual one. Their symbiotic bond is of concern to others (to be queer—in both senses—is no walk in the park, especially in the 70s), and attempts are made to separate the two. But Paul and Julian are determined to stay together, and more than once they tell each other that the idea of life without the other would be unbearable. “[H]e wasn’t afraid anymore. After a lifetime of yearning and trying not to yearn, he imagined the relief of surrendering.� Even if we suspect that Paul and Julian’s intoxicating liaison will have internecine consequences, we are desperate for a moment of reprieve. But Nemerever’s narrative does not let up, not once. Readers will read with increasing anxiety as Paul and Julian embark on an ‘irreversible� path, alienating those around them. Dread and anguish became my constant companions while I was reading this novel and I’m glad that I choose to read this when I was off work (I devoured this novel in less than 24h) since These Violent Delights is a riveting edge-of-your-seat kind of read. A sense of unease pervades this story as even the early stages of Paul and Julian’s relationship are fraught. Julian is almost secretive when it comes to his family, and disapproves of the contempt Paul harbours towards his own mother. Their love for each other often veers into dislike, if not hatred, and they are quite capable of being extremely cruel to each other. Even so, we can see why they have become so entangled together, and why they oppose anyone who threatens to separate them. But as they enable one other, their teenage angst morphs into a more perturbing sort of behaviour. Time and again we are left wondering who, if anyone, is in control. “All they were—all they had ever been—was a pair of sunflowers who each believed the other was the sun.� My summary of this novel won’t do it justice as I fear I’m making it sound like any other ‘dark� tale of obsessive friendships (in this case a romantic one but still). It is Nemerever’s writing that elevates his story from ‘interesting� to exhilarating (and downright distressing). He evokes the claustrophobic and oppressive nature of Paul and Julian’s bond, making us feel as if we too are caught in their all-consuming relationship. Nemerever also acutely renders Paul’s discomforts, the intensity of his love for Julian, his self-loathing, and of his conflicting desires (to be known, to be unknowable). He wants his family to understand him, but in those instances when they prove that they may understand him more than he thinks, he does not hear them out. “All I want to do is make you happy, and you’re the unhappiest person I’ve ever met.� Similarly to The Secret History, the narrative is very much examining the way we can fail to truly see the people closest to us. Paul’s low self-esteem makes him constantly doubt everyone around, Julian included. He perceives slights where there are none and even seems to find a sort of twisted pleasure (or as Lacan would have it, jouissance) in second-guessing Julian’s feelings towards him or in assuming the worst of others. He projects a preconceived image of Julian onto him (someone who is cruel and deceitful, someone who, unlike Paul himself, can easily adapt or pretend to be normal), and this prevents him from seeing him as he truly is. The love Paul feels for Julian is almost fanatical, doomed to be destructive. This is the type of relationship that would not be out of place in the work of Magda Szabó (The Door), Joyce Carol Oates (Solstice) or a Barbara Vine novel (The House of Stairs, No Night is Too Long, A Fatal Inversion) or as the subject of a song by Placebo (I’m thinking of ‘Without You I’m Nothing�). “They were wild and delirious and invincible, and it was strange that no one else could see it.� Nemerever’s writing style is exquisite and mature. I was struck by the confidence of his prose (it does not read like a debut novel). Not one word is wasted, every sentence demands your attention (which is difficult when the story has you flipping pages like no tomorrow). Nemerever brings to life every scene and character he writes of, capturing, for example, with painful precision the crushing disquiet Paul feels (24/7), his loneliness (exacerbated by his queerness and intelligence) and his deep-seated insecurity. Nemerever doesn’t always explicitly states what Paul is feeling, or thinking, and the ambiguity this creates reminded me very much of Shirley Jackson, in particular of Hangsaman (a scene towards the end was particularly reminiscent of that novel). Readers will have to fill the gaps or try to read the subtext of certain scenes or exchanges between P and J. Not only did this book leave me with a huge book hangover but it also left me emotionally exhausted (when I tried picking up other books my mind kept going back to Paul and Julian). Paul is one of the most miserable characters I’ve ever read of. And while he is no angel, I found myself, alongside his family, wanting to help him. But I could also understand him as he strongly reminded me of my own teenage experiences, and of how ‘wretched� and angsty and alone I felt (woe is me), as well as the fierce, and at times destructive, friendships I formed during those vulnerable years. In spite of what Paul and Julian do, I cared deeply for them. I wanted to 'shake' them, but I also desperately wanted them to be happy. I’m sure I could blather on some more, but I will try and stop myself here. Reading These Violent Delights is akin to watching a slow-motion video of a car accident or some other disaster. You know what will happen but you cannot tear your eyes away. Read this at your own peril! re-read: yes, I am indeed a masochist. I knew that reading this again would hurt but even so, I am once again left devastated by this. The act of reading this book is not dissimilar to riding some diabolical, guts-twisting, puke-inducing rollercoaster where you are anticipating/dreading/exhilarated by the prospect of the encroaching and inevitable drop. Paul and Julian are very damaged individuals and seeing how they hurt themselves, each other, and the people around them, well it was incredibly upsetting (even more so knowing that their behaviour will just get worse over the course of the narrative). Their relationship is simultaneously impenetrable to us and rendered in painful clarity. Time and again we are left wondering who needs who, who wants who, and the differences between these two desires. Rereading this also allowed me to pay attention to Nemerever's skilful use of foreshadowing. Anyway in the interim years since first reading this I have come across books/other media that has similar vibes. Nemerever's ability to capture with unsparing and clear-cut precision Paul's discomfort, self-hatred, and alienation brought to mind Brandon Taylor's Real Life and Filthy Animals. The ambiguous nature of his characters and his razor-sharp examination of privilege reminded me of Susie Yang's psychological thriller, White Ivy. The codependent relationship between Paul and Julian instead reminded me of manga like Let Dai, Volume 01 (the angst in that series is wow) or j-dramas like Utsukushii Kare, or books such If We Were Villains, Summer Sons, Belladonna, or Apartment. Will I ever be brave or foolish enough to read this novel a third time? (spoilers: she was an idiot so...) ...more |
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| 9780062851628
| 0062851624
| 3.75
| 570
| Jun 16, 2020
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it was amazing
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| | | | | | “I have learned one of the lessons of loneliness, one of its shocking side effects: when you are in a state of longing,| | | | | | “I have learned one of the lessons of loneliness, one of its shocking side effects: when you are in a state of longing, desire goes on and on, like an ocean without a shore.� An Ocean Without a Shore surprised me. In the very first page our narrator, Kip Woods, informs us that he's awaiting his 'sentence'. Occasionally addressing his listeners/readers directly ('Your Honor' and 'the Court') he recounts the events that led to his present circumstances. Set in late nineties, An Ocean Without a Shore follows Kip, a gay man in his forties who works at a small investment firm and has been in love with his best friend since their college days. Thaddeus Kaufman, married with children, owns a property he can't afford and as a persona non grata in Hollywood is struggling to succeed as a scriptwriter. When Thaddeus' latest writing effort bear no fruit, he finds himself in need of a bailout, so he gives Kip a call. Lucky for him, Kip is always read, and more than willing, to help. “I realize this all sounds rather abject. But it's not really love unless there is something abject in it. Don't you think?� There is much to be admired in the novel. Scott Spencer high-register prose is striking. I was dazzled by Kip's vocabulary, his expressive descriptions, and his long moments of introspections. Spencer beautifully renders Kip's many feelings and thoughts, hinting at his underlining loneliness, vibrantly rendering his desire for Thaddeus. There is yearning, resentment, and sorrow. Kip is a private and remote person who has never fully reconciled himself with sexuality. What weighs on him the most are his unspoken feelings for Thaddeus. While some, such as Thaddeus' wonderful uncle Morris, know just how deeply Kip feels for Thaddeus, Kip fears exposure. Ignoring his friends warnings, and and going against his own better judgement, Kip time and again comes to Thaddeus' aid. Over the years, and in spite of their geographical locations, Kip thinks only of Thaddeus. Even when he realises that Thaddeus has grown into a deeply flawed man, he's unable to 'start living' his own life. Throughout the course of the novel there are many scenes featuring characters who make only small appearances. Yet, even if they appear for only a scene, readers are giving a clear impression of who they are. The people in this novel have their history, one that has clearly shaped who they are. The people surrounding Thaddeus are particularly toxic, they have fraught relationships with each other, and Kip almost seems at the periphery of this drama. A sense of unease pervades Kip's narration. We know that something is bound to happen, we can see how skewed his relationship with Thaddeus is, and of course, as Kip remind us, we know that he stands accused of a crime. The setting and atmosphere within the novel have a deeply nostalgic quality. Spencer further enriches his narrative by adding a plethora of literary references and by having characters discuss politics and social issues relevant at the time. Kip's philosophical meanderings are engrossing. While the questions he poses himself do not have easy answers, they do give us a glimpse into the most vulnerable parts of himself. In spite of his self-awareness her pursues a path of unhappiness, landing himself in a prison of his own making. An Ocean Without a Shore is not a happy novel nor is it populated by happy people. There are few moments of respite for Kip, as he has, by the time the book has started, dedicated his life to a person that is not available (nor is he deserving of Kip). Yet, even if readers will despair at Kip for his undying devotion to Thaddeus, and for his inability to move on with his life, we will often feel as he does (unreciprocated love is a painful and all too common thing. Kip's reticent and slightly ambivalent narration brought to mind Charlotte Brontë's Lucy Snowe (from Villette), while the complex relationship between him and Thaddeus reminded me of the Teddy Wayne's Apartment. Certain scenes wouldn't have been out of place in an Ann Patchett novel (although Spencer's novel is far more cynical, e.g. “You could almost despise them, but really in the larger scheme of things they were just irrelevant. As most of us are.�). Readers who prefer fast paced narratives may want to steer clear of this novel. But if you are looking for a heartbreaking character study, look no further. Spencer charges seemingly ordinary moments and exchanges with tension, forcing us to question his characters' intentions and the outcome of their relationships. Kip's vibrantly humorous descriptions and his sardonic asides provide a welcome reprieve. An Ocean Without a Shore is a spellbinding and elegantly written novel that touches upon many themes, such as loneliness, love, family, memory, and money. Kip's narration, which could be subtle and oblique one moment before becoming openly emotional or heartbreakingly poignant, spoke to me (perhaps because I share some of his weakness). However saddening Kip's story was An Ocean Without a Shore remains a thing of beauty. Some of my favourite quotes/passages (I more or less underlined the entire novel so I struggled to pick only a few): “Lives are shaped by words and deeds, but what we don't say might be just as powerful as what we do. Our silence works like a lathe, giving us our final form.� “The walls of my room were painted white and I kept them bare, not wanting any images or posters or sayings or symbols to somehow define me in the eyes of others. The floors were bare, too. At one point I'd had a five-by-seven Persian carpet I'd bought from a thrift shop, but soon after brining it home I rolled it up and stored it. I thought it said something about me, thought I wasn't sure what.� “I have revisited and redone and reimagined that night countless times in my solitude. I have behaved in these imagined encounters in ways that my inexperience and shyness and fear would not permit at the time. In my imagination, I have ravished him. In my altered memories, I have made promises even a saint could not keep.� “Just because something you desire might not be easy, or convenient, or even possible, that doesn't stop you from wanting it.� “Sometimes all that niceness is a way of making sure nobody quite sees you.� “You don't add up a person's qualities like something on a balance sheet. We don't know why we love the people we love, not if we really love them. That's the whole purpose of love, to take us out of the rational, binary, up or down, in or out, black or white, good or bad, profit or loss, to take us out of all those everyday things into something sacred.� “My privacy was paramount, thought it made me unheroic. Not everyone can be a hero; if everyone was heroic, then heroism would be nothing but doing what was expected and we would have no actual heroes. You understand?� “Here's something else about us torchbearers. We are possessive of the one we love and we are determined to maintain our hold on the idea of them. Our idea of them is really all we have. When you think about someone more or less constantly, you begin to believe—though you would never say so, not even to yourself—that they belong to you.� “One moment my brain was full of chatter, hyperbole, justifications, and theories of human behavior, a few of them road tested, others shaky to say the least, and the next moment I just went dark, a plunge so precipitous it was like a dress rehearsal for sudden death.� “I felt desire as a kind of wretchedness.� “I feel overwhelmed, weirdly diminished. Somewhere along the way, Thaddeus had learned to turn his outgoing nature into a form of aggression, weaponizing the sweetness. Do we all of us become steadily shittier as we grow older?� “Ah, there it was! As if I haven't had enough. The Magna Carta of self-pity.� “Hey, heterosexuals, seriously: Get a fucking grip!� “He was standing three feet away from me. Thirty-six inches. I was unraveling. Passion—untapped, untried, untested, and above all unsullied by compromise or even reality—surged through me.� “E. M. Forster wrote that given the choice of betraying a friend or betraying his country, he hoped he'd have the guts to betray his country. Understandably, he left out the part about betraying yourself.� “I was loosing track of who I was, and with the next breath the whole concept of knowing who you are seemed dubious.� “For this I had thrown away half of my life? For this? For him? For Thaddeus Kaufman? Short answer: yes, if it pleases the Court. Further elucidation, Your Honor: I'd do it all again. � “You'd think obsession would simply wither and die, but you'd be wrong. Hopeless love thrives in silence and darkness.� “I was used to calling myself names. Self-loathing barely fazed; I had self-loathing for breakfast.� “Yet here came a sharp stinging moment of remembrance, a gasp of memory, crushing and quotidian, devastating in its apparent lack of significance and demanding attention by its mere presence.� “The heart, malnourished, fearful of dying of starvation, seizes whatever it can, knowing how to live on coincidence and trivialities, gathering and gobbling all the little morsels of meaning, and making a meal of them.� “I glanced at my watch, feeling that horribly familiar panic—all the time that was being wasted, utterly wasted, the hours, the months, and finally the years.� ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 10, 2020
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May 12, 2020
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Mar 10, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 1635574013
| 9781635574012
| B07V5PQFWC
| 3.78
| 2,747
| Feb 25, 2020
| Feb 25, 2020
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really liked it
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| | | | | | “I'd been happy before just to be his classmate, to learn from him osmotically, but now I grew excited at what this mig| | | | | | “I'd been happy before just to be his classmate, to learn from him osmotically, but now I grew excited at what this might blossom into, the sort of close, symbiotic relationship I'd hoped grad school would offer and the Hemingway-Fitzgerald complementary pairing I'd always thought necessary to one's artistic development.� Set in New York between 1996 and 1997 Apartment portrays the making and dissolution of a friendship. Our unnamed narrator, who is attending the MFA writing program at Columbia, is a rather introverted young man. His father is paying for his tuition and his other expenses while he is staying in his aunt’s apartment (in what amounts to an illegal sublet). His loner existence is shaken up when he begins to hang out with Billy, a talented classmate of his. Billy, who hails from the Midwest, has only recently gotten into writing and reading. Unlike our narrator, Billy struggles to make ends meet and works as a bartender. Out of a combination of guilt and genuine admiration for Billy and his writing, our narrator offers him his spare bedroom. “A first sleepover, whether it was sexual or platonic, had a way of making you both more and less comfortable around the other person; you'd jumped a fence of intimacy, but now you saw each other in the blunt morning light.� Living in such close quarters however is not easy. The power imbalance between the two of them (which sees the protagonist becoming Billy's benefactor), their opposite financial situations, as well as Billy’s writing capabilities, put a strain on their bond. Soon it becomes apparent that they also have differing interests and political outlooks. The unspooling of their relationship is uncomfortable to read. As their awkward chats give way to tense silences, we read with a mounting sense of dread. The narrator’s discomfort becomes our own. Yet, his caginess puts us at arm’s length. Early on he confesses to Billy that his biggest fear is that no one will truly know him. While this hints at a certain level of self-awareness, our protagonist remains unknowable. His writing too, according to his classmates� feedback, reflects his reticence to let others see him. His self-imposed isolation gives way to a perpetual cycle of loneliness and alienation. As he realises that his friendship with Billy is irrevocably damaged, the narrator does the unthinkable. In spite of the narrator's unwillingness to articulate his true feelings, I came to care for him. His observations were rendered in a shrinkingly genuine manner, and even if he does not reveal himself to us, or others, we do become familiar with his solitude and with his feelings of not belonging. “I would never relate to these people after all, they wouldn't come to know me and no one ever would, and it wasn't because I was a misunderstood rebel or suffered from some diagnosable pathology; I was an oddball—but not even a 'classic' oddball, no, I was an oddball among self-selecting oddballs who had found community with other oddballs, and to be on the outside of mainstream society i one thing, and admirably heroic struggle, but to be on the fringes of an already marginalized subculture is simply lonely.� With a narrative that is rife with literary allusions and academic terms, Teddy Wayne’s conveys the sheltered yet claustrophobic atmosphere of an MFA program. The narrator and his classmates seem aware that they are active participants in what they define as ‘real life�. Billy’s less than privileged background is what differentiates him from the rest. Yet, the more time he spends at this program, the more self-assured he becomes. There are some great discussions around talent and ambition. The narrator's internal monologue also provides some moments of humour. For example, in contemplating a romantic relationship with another writer he makes the following observation: “Writers were either histrionic or reserved or oscillated wildly between the two poles, all we'd have to talk about would be what we'd composed that day or how we were depressed that we hadn't produced anything, the whole thing would be insular and incestuous.� The novel also delves into themes of masculinity, identity, friendship, creativity, and sexuality. Wayne’s depiction of the mid-90s is simultaneously piercing and nostalgic. New York too is rendered in an evocative way. Written in a propelling style and possessing all the trappings of a psychological thriller without actually being one, Apartment tells a profoundly poignant tale in which the narrator's namelessness reflects his withdrawn nature. / / / View all my reviews on ŷ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 29, 2020
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Mar 2020
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Feb 28, 2020
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Kindle Edition
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| 0452266777
| 9780452266773
| 0452266777
| 3.83
| 13,657
| 1990
| Jan 01, 1991
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it was amazing
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| | | | | | “Everything I could see looked unreal to me; everything I could see made me feel I would never be part of it, never pe| | | | | | “Everything I could see looked unreal to me; everything I could see made me feel I would never be part of it, never penetrate to the inside, never be taken in.� From the very first page, I was enthralled by Lucy’s deceptively simple narration. To begin with, I was struck by the clarity of her observations and the directness of her statements. As I kept reading, however, I came to realise just how enigmatic a character she was. “Oh, I had imagined that with my one swift act—leaving home and coming to this new place—I could leave behind me, as if it were an old garment never to be worn again, my sad thoughts, my sad feelings, and my discontent with life in general as it presented itself to me.� After leaving her homeland, an unnamed island in the West Indies, Lucy becomes an au pair for a white and wealthy couple in North America. Although Lucy wants to leave her past behind, her alienating new surroundings make her homesick. Lucy tries to acclimatise to the colder climate, to American’s strange customs, to her new role. As she tries to adjust to her new home, she becomes closer to her employer, Mariah. Her obliviousness, however, frustrates Lucy as Mariah seems incapable or unwilling to acknowledge her privilege or their cultural differences, seeming content to live in a bubble. Lucy strikes a friendship with Peggy, a young woman from Ireland. While the two share a sense of otherness (“From the moment we met we had recognized in each other the same restlessness, the same dissatisfaction with our surroundings, the same skin-doesn’t-fit-ness.�), Peggy is far more of a bohemian. Lucy’s relationship with Mariah begins to fray, partly because of Peggy’s influence, partly due to Lucy’s growing disillusionment towards her employers and their after all not-so-perfect marriage. As Lucy recounts her time as an au pair, her mind often drifts towards her childhood. We know that her strained relationship with her mother had an enormous impact on her, but we are only given glimpses of their time together. As Lucy attempts to navigate her new life, we come to learn why she has become so unwilling to be truly known by others. Through what we learn of her past, and through the things she leaves unspoken, we begin to understand Lucy’s obliqueness, her remoteness, her alienation, her self-division (which she describes as a “two-facedness: that is, outside I seemed one way, inside I was another; outside false, inside true�), her attitude towards others and her sexuality. Lucy is an unremittingly ambiguous and fascinating character-study. Գ’s polished prose is deeply alluring: from the evocative descriptions of the weather to Lucy’s penetrating deliberations. I was also drawn by the parallels Kincaid makes between Lucy and Villette (which happens to be one of my favourite novels of all time). Գ’s Lucy leaves her homeland to become an au pair, while Brontë’s Lucy leaves England to become a teacher in a small town in Belgium. Both women are ambivalent towards their past and disinclined to let others know who they are or what they ‘feel�. They both experience a sense of displacement and have to adapt to another culture. They also both become ‘involved� with men who are called Paul (Brontë’s Paul owns a slave plantation). In many ways, Lucy functions as a reworking of Villette, as it subverts its colonial narrative (more than once Lucy's informs us of the inadequacy of her British colonial education) and provides a more modern exploration of gender roles, sexuality, and sexual repression. “I had begun to see the past like this: there is a line; you can draw it yourself, or sometimes it gets drawn for you; either way, there it is, your past, a collection of people you used to be and things you used to do. Your past is the person you no longer are, the situations you are no longer in.� Throughout the course of Lucy’s tale Kincaid examines the way in which one’s family can affect an individual’s self-perception and the damage that parental favouritism has on a child’s self-worth. Գ’s Lucy is an incessantly intriguing novel. I was mesmerised by her prose, by her inscrutable main character, and by the opaqueness and lucidity of her narrative. Kincaid beautifully articulates Lucy’s feelings—her desire, contempt, guilt, despair—without ever revealing too much. Lucy retains an air of unknowability. Similarly, the mother-daughter bond that is at the heart of the novel remains shrouded in mystery. / / / View all my reviews on ŷ ...more |
Notes are private!
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4
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Jul 2023
Apr 23, 2022
May 30, 2021
Jul 06, 2020
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Jul 2023
Apr 25, 2022
Jun 2021
Jul 07, 2020
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Feb 16, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0525538887
| 9780525538882
| 0525538887
| 3.79
| 35,916
| Feb 18, 2020
| Feb 18, 2020
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really liked it
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| | | | | | 4.25 stars “Is it into this culture that he is to emerge? Into the narrow, dark water of real life?� It had been awhile s | | | | | | 4.25 stars “Is it into this culture that he is to emerge? Into the narrow, dark water of real life?� It had been awhile since I finished a book in one day or since I read a book that made me cry...but once I started Real Life I simply couldn't stop, even if what I was reading made me mad, then sad, then mad again, and then sad all over again. This is one heart-wrenching novel. Reading it was an immersive and all-consuming experience. I felt both secondhand anxiety, embarrassment, and anger, and the more I read the more frustrated I became by my own impotence...still, I kept on reading, desperate to catch a glimpse of hope or happiness... “People can be unpredictable in their cruelty.� Taylor's riveting debut novel chronicles a graduate student’s turbulent weekend. At its heart, this is the Wallace's story. Wallace is gay, black, painfully aware of his almost debilitating anxiety and of what he perceives as his physical and internal flaws. As one the few black men in this unnamed Midwestern city, and the only black man in his course, Wallace knows that he is in a ‘different� position from his white friends. After a childhood disrupted by poverty and many traumatic experiences, he withdraws into studies, dedicating most of his waking hours to lab tests and projects. Yet, even if he works twice as hard as other students, many still imply—directly and non—that he was accepted into this program only because of his skin colour. “Perhaps friendship is really nothing but controlled cruelty. Maybe that’s all they’re doing, lacerating each other and expecting kindness back.� Real Life has all the trappings of a campus novel. From its confined setting of a university city—in which we follow Wallace as he goes to a popular student hangout by the lake, to his uni's labs, to his or his friends' apartments—to its focus on the shifting alliances and power dynamics between a group of friends. Yet, Taylor's novel also subverts some of this genre's characteristic. The academic world is not as sheltering as one might first imagine. Questioning 'real life vs. student life' becomes a leitmotif in the characters' conversations. Taylor's novel offers a much more less idyllic and romantic vision of the academic world than most other campus novels. If anything we became aware of the way in which 'real life' problems make their way into a student's realm. “Affection always feels this way for him, like an undue burden, like putting weight and expectation onto someone else. As if affection were a kind of cruelty too.� From the very first pages we see Wallace’s environment and ‘friends� through his alienated lenses. While most of his friends are queer—gay, bisexual, or an unspecified sexuality—they are white and from far more privileged backgrounds. At the beginning of the novel Wallace ‘gives in� and agrees to meet them by the lake, after having avoided them for a long period of time. What unfolds is deeply uncomfortable to read. In spite of their laughter and smiles, these people do not strike as friends. Their banter is cutting, their off-handed comments have sharp edges, and they are all incredibly and irresolutely selfish. Taylor’s quickly establishes the toxic dynamics between these 'friends'. While they might not be directly aggressive or hostile, they repeatedly hurt, belittle, betray, and undermine one other. The distance Wallace feels from them is overwhelming. Yet, even if he tries to be on the outskirts of their discussions, he finds himself having to deal with their racist or otherwise hurtful remarks. Worst still, he is confronted with his 'friends' cowardice when they feign that they do not say racist or demeaning things. If anything they usually imply that he is the one who is oversensitive. Over this weekend we see time and again just how horribly solipsistic and cowardly Wallace’s friends are. They mask their racism and elitism under a pretence of wokeness. Similarly, one of Wallace’s fellow students, believes that as a feminist she can be openly homophobic and racist, throwing around words such as misogynistic without thought or consequence in order to masquerade her own bigotry. Wallace’s friends� racism is far more surreptitious. For the most part they pretend that race doesn’t matter, and that is Wallace who makes a ‘big deal� out of nothing. Yet, when someone say something discriminatory out loud, they do nothing. As he hangs out with his friends he finds himself noticing just how far from perfect they are. A perfect or happy life seems unattainable. Even moments of lightheartedness or contentment give way to arguments and disagreements within this group. Even if what plagues Wallace's mind is far more disturbing than what his friends' rather mundane worries (regarding their future careers, current relationship etc) he often chooses to comfort or simply listen to them, rather than pouring his own heart out. Wallace knows that they couldn't possibly understand his relationship to his family and past. “He misses, maybe, also, other things, the weight of unnamed feelings moving through him. And those feelings were transmuted into something cruel and mean. While he may not voice his troubles while he is hanging out with his 'friends', Wallace's mind is often occupied with his own past and future. Taylor does a terrific job in giving us an impression of Wallace's discordant psyche. Moments of dissociation make him further retread within himself, escaping his uncomfortable surroundings. Like Wallace we begin to see his surroundings as unpleasant and claustrophobic. At times the people around him blur together, blending into a sea of white faces, making him feel all the more isolated. Wallace's own insecurities colour most of his thoughts, feelings, and actions. Even when I could not understand him or in his moments of selfishness, I found myself caring for him and deeply affected by his circumstances. What he experiences...is brutal. When his coping mechanism (work/studying) is threatened his mental health spirals out of control. The halting and recursive dialogue is incredibly realistic. Even when discussing seemingly ordinary things there is an underlying tension. And there is almost a stop-start quality to the characters' conversations that struck me for its realism. The way in which their arguments spiral into awkward silences, the tentative words that follow more heated ones, the impact of tone and interpretation. A sense of physicality, of eroticism, pervades Taylor's narrative. Characters are often compared to animals, close attention is paid to their bodies—from their skin to their limbs—and to the way the move and look by themselves and together as a group. This attentiveness towards the body emphasises Wallace's own insecurity about the way he looks. In one of his more brooding moments he finds himself questioning whether he wants to be or be with an attractive guy. His contemplations about same-sex attraction definitely resonated with me. Envy and desire are not mutually exclusive. “This is perhaps why people get together in the first place. The sharing of time. The sharing of the responsibility of anchoring oneself in the world. Life is less terrible when you can just rest for a moment, put everything down and wait without having to worry about being washed away.� Taylor often contrasts seemingly opposing feelings. For example, sensual moments are underpinned by a current of danger. Wallace seems to find both force and vulnerability erotic. Taylor’s narrative repeatedly examines the tense boundaries between pleasure and pain, attraction and repulsion, tenderness and violence. Taylor projects Wallace’s anxiety, depression, and discomfort onto his narrative so that a feeling of unease underlines our reading experience. “He had considered himself a Midwesterner at heart, that being in the South and being gay were incompatible, that no two parts of a person could be more incompatible. But standing there, among the boats, shyly waiting to discover the people to whom he felt he would belong, he sensed the foolishness in that.� Taylor's prose could be in turns thoughtful and jarring. There are disturbingly detailed descriptions about Wallace's lab-work, unflinching forays into past traumas, and thrilling evocations of sexual desire. A seemingly ordinary weekend shows us just how inescapable social hierarchies are. The secular world of academia does not entirely succeed in keeping the real world at bay. Depression, anxiety, dysphoria, the lingering effects of abuse all make their way into Wallace's story. We read of his confusing desires, of his 'friends' hypocrisy, of his own appetite for self-destruction...Real Life is not an easy read. There were many horrible moments in which I wanted to jump into the narrative to shake Wallace's friends. Wallace too, pained me. In spite of his observant nature, he remains detached. He picks up on his friends' horrible behaviour but with one or two exceptions he does not oppose them. Yet, I could also see why he remained passive. Being in his position is exhausting. “It is a life spent swimming against the gradient, struggling up the channel of other people’s cruelty. It grates him to consider this, the shutting away of the part of him that now throbs and writhes like a new organ that senses so keenly the limitations of his life.� Even if I craved for a more reassuring ending I still think that this is an impressive debut novel one that strikingly renders what it feels to inhabit a black body in a white-dominated environment. Real Life tackles racism, privilege, cruelty, cultural and power dynamics, and the complexities of sexual desire head on. Wallace's friends are aggravating if not downright despicable. Which is perhaps why when alongside Wallace we glimpse some kindness in them, it makes us all the more upset. Reading Real Life made me uncomfortable, angry, sad. Lines like these, “He typically brings crackers or another form of fiber because his friends are all full of shit and need cleaning out from time to time�, even made me laugh out loud. What I'm trying to say, or write is this: this is a brilliant novel, one you should definitely read (with some caution, of course). Anyhow, I can't wait to read more by Taylor. / / / View all my reviews on ŷ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 18, 2020
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Feb 19, 2020
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Aug 13, 2019
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Hardcover
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