elfs29's reviews
194 reviews

I half loved this book. The themes it covers and the way Roy displayed generational trauma and the way parents’ behaviour affects their children was deft and revealing, but there was something about this book I just didn’t really like. I think it was a bit because of the prose, which whilst lovely is very bitty and repetitive, lots of short sentences that seem to be aiming for a profound effect that wore off after the first time, and a bit of it was the way the story was constructed. I didn’t love how much The Terror was used for suspense, only to be told in a matter of paragraphs. I kept wishing she had gone for the Toni Morrison approach, of laying out all the facts right from the start, so you’re not waiting to see what happened but why and how, making the character work the focus of the story (which it was in a way, something just felt off). I still found it extremely interesting, I liked the wordplay and the perspective of the children, and the criticism of the political construction of India and the rigidity of their societal system, as well as the way colonialism has severely damaged it. It was interesting, just not a favourite.

The way Lispector uses the character of the narrator and his character Macabéa to contemplate the meaning of life and how happiness is created is incredibly clever, with a multitude of layers and interpretations. Macabéa's character made me very sad, with her desires for knowledge and love that remained unfounded and the immense suffering she experienced, yet Lispector asks whether we can feel sad for her if she is not sad herself. The narrator does not, he looks down on her rather a lot and pities her 'pathetic' life, nor do those around her who accuse her of idiocy, yet she does not live in misery. Her suffering helps her to understand herself, the self that exists. She was told she must be grateful to be alive and so she is. The contrasting discussions of existentialism between Rodrigo and Macabéa's lives, Rodrigo who has faced the absurd and who has learned to live from a girl who hasn't, is deeply interesting, and Lispector's poignant writing has evoked many contemplations of where happiness can be derived from, and what contingencies exist upon it.

'Una furva lacrima' had been the only really beautiful thing in her life. Wiping away her own tears she tried to sing what she heard. But her voice was as crude and out of tune as she was. When she heard it she started to cry. It was the first time she'd ever cried, she didn't know she had so much water in her eyes. She wasn't crying because of the life she led: because, having never lived any other, she accepted that with her that was just the way things were. But I think she was also crying because, through the music, she might have guessed there were other ways of feeling, there were more delicate existences and a certain luxury of the soul.

Toni Morrison's ability to craft stories, to introduce so many characters and make each as interesting and whole as the last, is a rare and wonderful talent. Yet again she has written of wide, intertwining family histories and connected communities that are full of fascinating characters, and yet again her women characters are so revealing and so incredibly sympathetic that I could cry just to think of them. The really quite lovely close to this story full of so much sadness was so moving, and Violet and Joe's relationship was so delicately written and carefully crafted, and all those who surrounded them just the same. I really appreciated the themes of male and female relationships in this novel, and whilst the play a large role in much of her writing, the focus here being on the way women change themselves for men and what men really want from women was so interesting, and it seems that Morrison's thoughts on any and everything are deeply intelligent and wholly complex. I love the way she trusts her readers to understand her, to unpick her narrator's words and divulge reality from how it is perceived. I am so obsessed with her writing, I cannot believe someone could be so consistently and so supremely excellent.

Now it's clear. Through the doorway I see a table. On it is a brown wooden bowl, flat, low like a tray, full to spilling with oranges. I want to sleep, but it is clear now. So clear the dark bowl the pile of oranges. Just oranges. Bright. Listen. I don't know who that women is singing but I know the words by heart.

Tsushima’s writing is very somber, and the atmosphere that she creates in her fiction is mesmerising and illusive, allowing the reader to understand her women character’s detached feeling within society. This is possibly my favourite of hers I’ve read so far, and I felt very sympathetic toward Koko and the way her relationships with men have defined her life, and how her love for her daughter is intwined with and hindered by her loneliness, regret, and the way she is so thoroughly disapproved of by all those around her, including her daughter herself. Tsushima’s writing helps me to understand myself, although I am not a mother, and the way she so devotedly writes complex and imperfect women is very special. Once again, she has written of a woman who, despite all misgivings, all loss, refuses to stop living as she wishes, yet in an extremely real and vulnerable way.

How impartial the light was! It streamed into the tiniest crevices between roofs, missing none. It might go unnoticed by people passing in the street, but it was there. Light simply obeyed the physical laws that generated it, dispassionately. Surely nothing else fell on us with such perfect equality? She drew a deep breath at the thought.

I appreciate the intentions and atmosphere of this short story anthology, and I feel that Adaui’s longer prose may be more compelling - unfortunately, as short stories, these tiny snippets of writing failed to garner much feeling or evoke much thought since they were just too fleeting. Ten pages is not enough to delve into an entire family’s history, and whilst the content was interesting, the execution just left me feeling that what Adaui was exploring was not, in this medium, as profound as intended.

I am disappointed that I didn't enjoy this, but the matter-of-fact tone and the relatively fast paced writing, focused almost entirely on the worst and least interesting characters in the story, made me lose interest very quickly. Whilst I understand the point of this story in criticising English 'morality', Victorian society fiction just doesn't do it for me. I have very little interest in reading about rich people bickering and making bad decisions, especially when I feel entirely disconnected from them.

Philosophical fiction and its tendency to dwell on and thoroughly dissect human thought and feeling is a unique and precious thing, and Sartre achieves it to an incredible degree. The novel follows Antoine, who Sartre uses to explore his existentialist philosophy - Antoine grapples with the absurd meaninglessness of his existence, the one that owes him nothing and will not explain itself, and suffers with the Nausea that grips him in this confusion. Whilst this novel is extremely dense, the ideas Sartre explores are fascinating, and his prose is very solemnly beautiful. How does one draw meaning from a relentless existence, one as bizarre as that of a tree or a bench, how does one justify attributing it meaning at all? Extremely contemplative and a wonderful study of existentialist philosophy. I think I will be referring back to this novel for a long time.

'I...I am outliving myself.'
What can I say to her? Do I know any reasons for living? I don't feel the same despair she does, because I never expected very much. I am rather...astonished at this life which is given to me - given for nothing. I keep my head bowed. I don't want to see Anny's face at this moment.

Duffy’s curation of Plath’s poetry was excellently done, I think. This is the first time I have read Plath’s poetry, and this chronological selection, divided into three parts, seems to reflect brilliantly and sadly the movement of her tragic life. The first part features a lot about nature and the wonder of the world, the second more about love and the self, and the third the most bleak, many poems discussing suicide, her children, and her domestic discontent. Beautiful poetry, moving and deeply sad at times, but Plath’s use of language is stunning.

My favourite poems include Mirror, In Plaster, Mushrooms, Fever 103, and Edge. 

I think a lot about what makes us human, what defines our humanity, whether it can be sustained in isolation. This narrator joined me in these musings. Harpman broaches many questions about the reality of personhood, including love, loneliness, grief and freedom. The narrator’s unique position of youth and ignorance about life before has meant she has spent the majority of life in isolation, unable to comprehend love or understand those around her - yet, I feel Harpman cleverly coveys her increasing wisdom as she grows, using the narrative voice to show the reader how this life has traumatised and affected her, what a life made up of unanswerable questions can really mean.

There is no continuity and the world I have come from is utterly foreign to me. I know only the stony plain, wandering, and the gradual loss of hope. I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing. Perhaps, somewhere, humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence. There is nothing we can do about it.

I have read a lot of Baldwin's work before this famous story, and whilst it is not my favourite of his, it is an acutely intelligent study of the intersectionality of queerness, and really of how the white American male is able to inflict so much tragedy whilst only experiencing his own. I was led to believe from what I had seen about this novel that it would be a devastating love story, but it was devastating in Baldwin's magnificent ability to reveal and dissect the social structures that affect people and their behaviour differently, and create a whole and detailed discussion around the awful ramifications of white, male apathy. It means a lot, that Baldwin wrote only of white people in this story, that he wrote of women in such a neglectful way - through the eyes of this unreliable and selfish narrator, women are meaningless placeholders and destiny-fulfillers, and his queer experience is the blight on his otherwise perfect life, one which he forces Giovanni, in his poverty and vulnerability, to suffer the direct consequences of. David becomes so smothered by guilt and remorse and hatred that, whilst he too suffers hugely, he cannot face the ways in which he hurts others, and he uses his ability to fill Giovanni's world to satiate his vain desires to be powerful and right. Baldwin's genius never falters, and he must surely be one of the smartest people who have ever lived.

Each day he invited me to witness how he had changed, how love had changed him, how he worked and sang and cherished me. I was in a terrible confusion. Sometimes I thought, but this is your life. Stop fighting it. Or I thought, but I am happy. And he loves me. I am safe. Sometimes I thought, when he was not near me, I will never let him touch me again. Then, when he touched me, I thought it doesn't matter, it is only the body and it will soon be over. When it was over I lay in the dark and listened to his breathing and dreamed of the touch of hands, of Giovanni's hands, anyone's hands, hands which would have the power to crush me and make me whole again.