During my time with this novel, I experienced a few mornings where I woke up with a feeling of purposelessness1, like there was no point in the work that I do day in, day out. While I’m not saying that I’m immune to negative feelings, darkness is not my default mode, and I’m usually able to motivate myself just fine. That is to say, I do believe that the despondent mood of The Bell Jar rubbed off on me.
I mean this as a compliment to Plath’s vivid description of her protagonist’s spiral into depression. It’s a harrowing journey which is accentuated by the fact that it sneaks up on you. When Esther’s story begins, the narrative reads like a fish-out-of-water story, of a suburban girl who’s slightly overwhelmed by the big city, but who has enough wit and intelligence to float above and see through the bullshit. Over time, it becomes more and more clear that her detachment is a sign of her struggle to belong in the world. Mental illness can’t always be explained, and the book doesn’t try to do it: it simply lets us experience it through Esther’s eyes.
I can’t believe I used this word. It’s a joke from an old Rowan Atkinson bit. I’m sorry to make light while discussing a serious topic, but that’s what footnotes are for! ↩
I was quite impressed with this short story by Tomas Hachard that appears in the Summer Reading issue of The Walrus. As the title indicates, it takes place in the future, and features a young girl named Clarissa who dives into an online historical archive, where she finds a journal of a girl living in our present day.
The future society that Clarissa lives in is rebuilding after a climate catastrophe called “the Deluge,” and the journal gives her a glimpse of life before the disaster: the people of that time didn’t know what would soon befall them, and they existed in a mentality split between fear and denial. Sound familiar?
But all is not well in Clarissa’s future either; as the story progresses, she starts to see the same signs of impending doom that she’s reading in the journal, and the two narratives kind of blend together in a way that I started to be confused about which was which, in a good way.
This story really triggered my climate anxiety, especially as I was reading it at around the same time as some horrendous flooding in Toronto.
The cyclical nature of the story is really effective in creating an ambivalent sense of the future. On the one hand, humanity has persisted, after the Deluge, and life seems to be relatively normal. But on the other hand, they don’t seem to have learned enough lessons from the disaster to prevent it from happening again.
It’s hard to review this book without mentioning its structure, including what happens in the story. I don’t think it’s the kind of book that hinges on plot points, but I’ll still put a spoiler warning here.
The prose is structured in short fragments, usually no longer than a few sentences each. It’s reminiscent of Dept. of Speculation and Weather by Jenny Offill, both of which I enjoyed. There are no real “scenes,” just glimpses into the mind of the main character, an unnamed woman who spends a lot of time on the Internet, and becomes famous for a single tweet. Ultimately, I think I prefer Lockwood’s novel to Offill’s, because of how the style changes meaning over the course of the book.
For the first half of this book, the style obviously evokes the flood of unrelated content that you experience when scrolling through social media. It’s filled with references to memes and jokes, and would probably not even make sense for the first dozen or so pages if you hadn’t read the jacket copy.
But then, in the second half, the book shifts focus to a medical emergency involving the protagonist’s infant niece. The protagonist is no longer constantly online, but the style remains fragmentary, taking on a lyrical quality. I came to appreciate that even without the distraction of the Internet, the mind still works this way: when you’re supposedly only thinking about one thing—in this case, love towards an ailing child—you still jump from idea to idea, emotion to emotion. I found it very powerful, and I was brought close to tears by many passages.
Recently, by sheer coincidence, I read a couple of books whose titles both started with the words how to. What’s more, the reading of one informed and influenced my reading of the other.
(My only regret is that I was unable to complete the trifecta by also watching How To with John Wilson at the same time.)
The setup of this novel reminded me of Past Lives: the life of a married couple is disrupted by a visitor from one of the partners’ past.
From the start, I found the couple’s behaviour to be not entirely believable: why was one partner so secretive about her past, and why was her wife so jealous about it? I kept thinking that an honest, open conversation would have diffused all of the tension between them. But, through a somewhat repetitive and long-winded exploration of their thoughts and memories, I came to a reluctant understanding: this book is a portrait of a failing relationship.
I commend the novel for presenting a perspective that I don’t see often: that of a queer person living openly in a same-sex relationship, while at the same time staying closeted about her bisexuality.
However, there were enough flaws in the story that I can’t say I recommend it. In particular, there are a couple of “plot twists” near the end that seem to serve no purpose other than to underscore a point that was already clear, and then to punish the main character. There’s also an extended exposition about the plight of Ugandan Indians under Idi Amin, and how it compares with the Syrian refugee crisis. It’s a bit discomfiting to measure traumas against each other, and I wasn’t sure what the author was getting at.
I swear, whenever I readthisseries, I alternate between being thrilled and wanting to throw my copy against the wall. They are undoubtedly page-turners, but that may be a more back-handed compliment than it seems: I always want to find out what happens next, but often don’t care about what’s happening on the pages right in front of me.
This fourth entry has a compelling setup, wherein a settlement on a newly discovered planet comes into conflict with a scientific and mining expedition. As a reader, you root for a peaceful resolution, rather than one side winning over the other, but inevitably, there are aggressors that escalate the conflict. The dynamic reminds me of the brilliant Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
However, there are some really ridiculous character developments, like the scientist who finds herself attracted to the hero Captain Holden, and becomes so mad with lust that she can no longer do science, but then when her scientist friend makes a move and they have sex, she immediately solves the big science problem and no longer cares one bit for Holden for the rest of the book.
When I finished, I seriously considered giving up on the series, but I read some positive reviews of the next one, which appears to break the mold. Time will tell if I come back to it.
As the title suggests, this book is an examination of a tragic character who’s only capable of relating to others by obeying them unquestioningly. She grew up in an oppressive family, and doesn’t seem to know how to exist as her own person.
The pastoral setting and reflective style reminded me of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. Like that book, it’s a challenging read; my experience of it could be described as spending long stretches not really understanding what was going on, but then being knocked over every few pages by a deeply profound sentence or passage. Unlike Dillard’s work, though, Bernstein has the benefit of fiction, so that she can introduce surreal and dark elements, like the image of the protagonist as a baby, taking care of her older siblings before she could even speak; or the Ari Aster-esque cult-like imagery in the finale.
All in all, a bizarre and melancholy read. You really pity the protagonist’s constant negative self-talk. I think there’s more to it than that, though; this book would reward a closer reading than I was able to give it.
I can’t express much about my opinion without describing the overall structure of this book. This may be a spoiler for some, so proceed with caution.
Trust is divided into four parts:
A novel about a wealthy New York couple who made their fortune on stocks, and weathered the 1929 crash so well that it’s suspected that the man manipulated the markets.
A memoir written by the man on whom the novel in part one is based. He defends his wealth on the grounds that his personal gain benefits society as a whole. Growing the pie and all that.
Another memoir written by the ghostwriter of part two. Through her eyes, we see just how much part two was an exercise in self-aggrandizing myth-making.
The unearthed private diaries of the wealthy man’s wife, who was more involved in the business than she was given credit for.
My enjoyment of this book was driven mostly by the structure and the way each section reveals a new layer of truth. It does a less extreme version of what Cloud Atlas does.
But on the other hand, I didn’t really like the writing style. The first two parts are especially dry, observing the characters from a cold distance. And ultimately, the truths that the book reveal feel obvious. The wealthy can get away with anything, and women are neglected by history? Tell me something I don’t know.
This is a short story collection centred around a single character. Therefore, I wouldn’t hesitate to accept this as a novel if it had been published as such.
Soma is a character who’s been scarred in many ways by the hardships in her life: an abusive and eventually absent mother, the loss of a close friend to suicide, a break-up with someone who seemed not to respect her Jewish heritage. I appreciated the layers of character detail in this book, like Soma’s proficiency at cooking. It’s a skill she’s proud of, but at the same time, it’s a constant reminder that she had to learn how to feed herself because her mother was gone, and she had to take on the responsibility at a younger age than the average person.
The centrepiece of the book for me is the story titled “Who You Start With Is Who You Finish With,” which threads together Soma’s life and her grandmother Charna’s youth in wartime. The grandmother suffered the horror of watching the Holocaust unfold over the Atlantic, as well as the pain of being shunned by the Jewish community for marrying outside of her religion. Her cultural identity was under attack in two ways, and so when we see Soma’s efforts to celebrate her grandmother with traditional prayer, it feels like a happy ending for Charna, in a way.
There are a couple of stories in the collection which are more experimental and surreal, almost like poetry. It’s not really my thing, but your mileage may vary.
