Yeah I just finished and my brain is full of tiny twinky stars. The only thing I’m likely to write next in this review space is going to sound like blYeah I just finished and my brain is full of tiny twinky stars. The only thing I’m likely to write next in this review space is going to sound like blurb garbage, you know, like: “STUNNINGLY ORIGINAL.” Here is a coherent thought I’m thinking, though: this is one of those rare books where there are at least two conversations going on in every sentence. I know what I mean....more
I was enjoying this novel at a medium-high level as I read along, and then I came to this sentence, on p. 260, and fell in love with this novel:
She I was enjoying this novel at a medium-high level as I read along, and then I came to this sentence, on p. 260, and fell in love with this novel:
She drew back she looked into his eyes she saw Frank there in fragments
The sentence laid out this way on the page, with 'fragments' on its own line. Probably a happy accident, but it felt as compressed as a kōan, where the baggy-monsterishness of all the rest of the novel became entirely necessary for me as a reader to arrive at this point.
So that's one way of reading this novel.
Honestly, there were a lot of things to be irritated about re: this book, but any time something was irritating me (i.e. being forced to read text messages of a preteen for pages on end; violent shifts in style; an entire section written sans punctuation) I just let it go, and let it go, and let it go, and ended up feeling that everything that had irritated me along the way had turned out to be necessary to the whole.
This novel felt deeper and stranger than many (any?) other books I'd read that have a family in crisis at their center. It's hard not to think of the Corrections as I read this, it has the same heft, the same preoccupations, but I loved this one so much more. The craft is twisty and unexpected. The red squirrel kept coming back like an omen. The ending is epic-like, reminding me more of the extraordinary ending to Tess of the D'Urbervilles where the lovers end up in a completely fantastical scene of a showdown at Stonehenge--the novel itself leaping out of the real and into the fantastical and legendary without warning--so it was with this novel where the ending leaps completely out of the social-realist-suburban genre I thought I'd been reading, and lands in some other register altogether.
I'm being stingy about that last star because I'm still a little off-put by the way the style of writing veers so violently from section to section. I loved them all for what they were, but I would have been perfectly happy for them to have been written more homogeneously. All like Imeda's section. Or Cass's section. Or any section would have been fine....more
An entirely new voice and new perspective on the Holocaust. This memoir is shocking, elegant, sardonic, humane, and meticulously told. The details of An entirely new voice and new perspective on the Holocaust. This memoir is shocking, elegant, sardonic, humane, and meticulously told. The details of daily life. The pettiness. The competing like animals for a scrap of horse fat, the scrabbling to be the first to steal the underwear from a man who has just died. The occasional bright dazzle of kindness. The uselessness of kindness. The necessity of kindness. The many ways a man can face death. The many ways a man's physical body can fail. It's an upending experience to read this memoir and to realize there is so much more to be said about the death camps. Debreczeni is bearing witness to the same lived experience as Levi and Wiesel, who between them wrote the first, great, defining works about the Holocaust to be translated into English, published many decades ago. What Debreczeni noticed, who he was as a person and what he chose to record, is so different. I read this as audiobook: Laurence Dobiesz's narration is masterful....more
I will share a personal take, one that seems quite out of line with the majority of readers of this novel. I consistently felt the narrative voice of I will share a personal take, one that seems quite out of line with the majority of readers of this novel. I consistently felt the narrative voice of the novel was weighed down with so much unnecessary roundaboutness that I had trouble caring, even though I know I should care very much, because of the urgency of these times, and because of the urgency of this author's story. And yet I felt the voice was so hesitant and circumspect that even scenes that should have been riveting hit me more like I was stuck on a long bus ride. I don't need flash-bang action verbs in every sentence. But I do need to feel I'm not being told the same thing eleven times in slightly different ways, where one good declarative sentence would do. It also seems to me that the novel would have been stronger if it had begun at ch. 16, and been half as long....more
Have you ever read a book where you know almost nothing about what's actually going on as you read and you just don't care because something is happenHave you ever read a book where you know almost nothing about what's actually going on as you read and you just don't care because something is happening in your brain that's all zingy and energized and so you keep reading? And then it's over and you think, "wow that was some read but I have no idea what it was about or why I like it?" And you actively resist trying to explain it to yourself or to anyone else because you know if you try to explain it then you'll end up killing it like a beautiful dead butterfly you've just added to your collection? This is that book for me....more
yves. has a wonderful way of telling an intensely gripping and emotional story that is not, actually, the overt story you're reading on the page, but yves. has a wonderful way of telling an intensely gripping and emotional story that is not, actually, the overt story you're reading on the page, but instead lies in the between-spaces of the story on the page, hiding behind the literal words, until the full meaning bursts out in the end, and you say: aha! and what I'm trying to say is: this is wonderful writing, about new territories of being, and you should read it....more
I was so charmed by this story. I felt I was in the hands of a master storyteller, one who know how to take her time, how to entrance me, how to make I was so charmed by this story. I felt I was in the hands of a master storyteller, one who know how to take her time, how to entrance me, how to make me see the story in my mind's eye, how to delight me and keep me turning the pages. It took its beautiful elegant time to tell me a beautiful, elegant story, one that captivated me. In some places I felt--and this is a good thing--that I knew what was going to happen next--and the anticipation what I knew was coming was such a pleasure, like hearing a wonderful old tale told once more by a master storyteller, or hearing a song you know by heart performed by someone who has been practicing that song her whole life. Wonderful. I read the book while simultaneously listening to Choo's narration which was such a treat....more
It's such a pleasure to read a book where the author pays exquisite attention to every word. This is a book I'll be reading again, many times. It's such a pleasure to read a book where the author pays exquisite attention to every word. This is a book I'll be reading again, many times. ...more
Maybe after reading this book I might not starve or die of exposure if lost in the woods one day. Grubs. Plants. Fish traps. How to stay warm. How to Maybe after reading this book I might not starve or die of exposure if lost in the woods one day. Grubs. Plants. Fish traps. How to stay warm. How to avoid poisoning yourself. Why it's ok to eat a dead person but maybe not ok to kill them yourself. When it's better to sit tight and wait, and when it's better to walk out (and how to decide which direction to go, if you do decide to rescue yourself). I kept wanting to quote stuff from the book here on goodreads in the off chance I would give you, Gentle Reader, a handy tip that might save your life one day. But I suggest you go ahead and buy yourself a copy. It's not about long-term survival--it doesn't tell me how to make my own soap or sew clothes by hand, or build a permanent shelter, etc., on the off chance that the world's distribution chain collapses one day. I'm still looking for that book. But it does explain how to build temporary shelter and how to keep your feet dry, and that's something....more
Wow. Here is proof that when a writer follows a voice, and trusts that voice, and allows that voice to tell its story, something uniquely beautiful (aWow. Here is proof that when a writer follows a voice, and trusts that voice, and allows that voice to tell its story, something uniquely beautiful (and incomprehensibly true) can happen. How does this novel work? I don't care. It does....more
On page 210 I read the words "I feel a tremendous sense of relief" and experienced the same feeling in my own self to see that I'd come nearly to the On page 210 I read the words "I feel a tremendous sense of relief" and experienced the same feeling in my own self to see that I'd come nearly to the end of this novel, which exhausted me. It's not the book's fault. It's me, it's me, it's me. As I read along I could always tell something lovely was happening in these passing pages but I had no idea how to access it. Whether it's my mood, or the frenzied tumble of a year that's coming to a close, or for some other reason I'm not sure. I began to detach on page 8 after I came to the sentence: "And I will see, for the first time in twenty-two years, the man who forced himself upon me in the unbearable summer heat." I found the diction here to be inexplicably formal, where I wasn't sure how seriously to take this character. As I read on I kept feeling the disconnect growing. I have no excuse or justification. It just wasn't for me....more
What a fascinating read. The audiobook was absorbing. I loved the choice made by the narrator to read the characters' names with proper Chinese inflecWhat a fascinating read. The audiobook was absorbing. I loved the choice made by the narrator to read the characters' names with proper Chinese inflections. The book made historic figures come alive and put 20th century China history into a vivid human framework, where I felt enlightened in a different way from straight history/nonfiction, which is committed to being accurate and doesn't allow for speculation. The novel also felt different from fictional representations I've read about this swath of history, too, in that it rendered familiar historic figures with plausible humanity and believable quirks. I'd never imagined, for example, Mao being a 'skirt-chaser,' or Zhou Enlai being a dapper ballroom dancer--but now have no trouble imagining these things. Ha Jin is such a careful writer and his approach was exactly what was needed to breathe life into human beings who have long since become static iconographic statues of themselves in our idea of their place in history....more
I kept see-sawing between being utterly delighted by its absurdity, and being a little irritated by the same. Either way, it was a wonderful read, oneI kept see-sawing between being utterly delighted by its absurdity, and being a little irritated by the same. Either way, it was a wonderful read, one that opened my mind up to the ridiculous, and that gave me an appreciation for the nonsensical, and above all, that left me with an understanding of just how far a writer can go in the direction of complete nonsense before a given reader, as in 'me,' had the slightest objection to it....more
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