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A review by kris_mccracken
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
1.0
Sarah Bernstein's "Study for Obedience" is the kind of book that tests a reader's patience in the most excruciating ways. If there's a story lurking somewhere between these pages, it must be hiding behind the endless, droning prose and evasive metaphors. This novella unravels into a sprawling exercise in self-indulgence, with more pretension than purpose.
The book opens with the narrator providing glimpses of her background, but nothing is ever made remotely clear. Her apparent alienation is hinted at, but always through a fog of vagueness that borders on the absurd. We're left grappling with fragments and suppositions, all while the narrator's defensive, circuitous musings lead us absolutely nowhere.
As for the question "What is it all about?"—well, I'd be lying if I said I ever figured that one out. It's one thing to embrace ambiguity or thematic subtlety, but there's a point where it just becomes tedious. There are pages filled with musings that sound like they might be meaningful if you squint hard enough, but even then, they fail to coalesce into anything resembling a coherent story.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then "Study for Obedience" has managed to perform the opposite trick—stretching a slim premise over so many pages that the novella's greatest accomplishment is making something so short feel interminably long. Every paragraph seems to drag on, dripping with philosophical self-analysis that would give an undergrad creative writing club a run for its money.
When all's said and done, it's a study in evasiveness more than obedience, a narrative so elusive that it ultimately eludes having any real impact, less like a novel and more like a drawn-out monologue that's trying very hard to sound profound.
There's a world of difference between being ambiguous and being pointless, and Bernstein's attempt to blur that line only ends up underscoring the latter. When the most pressing question in your mind is, "Why am I still reading this?" something has gone terribly awry.
In the end, I'd say this is the kind of manuscript that would have been sent back to the writer with a big red pen if it weren't for Bernstein's established reputation. This book is a bewildering case of a writer clearly capable of elegance but opting instead for opacity, offering up the atmosphere at the expense of anything resembling a plot. By the end, the only thing I felt was a profound sense of relief that it was finally over.
If I could give it zero stars, I'd do that as payback for the placings that this book will occupy on end-of-year lists instead of books actually worth reading.
0️ stars
The book opens with the narrator providing glimpses of her background, but nothing is ever made remotely clear. Her apparent alienation is hinted at, but always through a fog of vagueness that borders on the absurd. We're left grappling with fragments and suppositions, all while the narrator's defensive, circuitous musings lead us absolutely nowhere.
As for the question "What is it all about?"—well, I'd be lying if I said I ever figured that one out. It's one thing to embrace ambiguity or thematic subtlety, but there's a point where it just becomes tedious. There are pages filled with musings that sound like they might be meaningful if you squint hard enough, but even then, they fail to coalesce into anything resembling a coherent story.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then "Study for Obedience" has managed to perform the opposite trick—stretching a slim premise over so many pages that the novella's greatest accomplishment is making something so short feel interminably long. Every paragraph seems to drag on, dripping with philosophical self-analysis that would give an undergrad creative writing club a run for its money.
When all's said and done, it's a study in evasiveness more than obedience, a narrative so elusive that it ultimately eludes having any real impact, less like a novel and more like a drawn-out monologue that's trying very hard to sound profound.
There's a world of difference between being ambiguous and being pointless, and Bernstein's attempt to blur that line only ends up underscoring the latter. When the most pressing question in your mind is, "Why am I still reading this?" something has gone terribly awry.
In the end, I'd say this is the kind of manuscript that would have been sent back to the writer with a big red pen if it weren't for Bernstein's established reputation. This book is a bewildering case of a writer clearly capable of elegance but opting instead for opacity, offering up the atmosphere at the expense of anything resembling a plot. By the end, the only thing I felt was a profound sense of relief that it was finally over.
If I could give it zero stars, I'd do that as payback for the placings that this book will occupy on end-of-year lists instead of books actually worth reading.
0️ stars