Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
challenging
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A fun, quirky, and odd book, I AM SOVREIGN felt like such a ride to read. I enjoyed how playful it was, and how Barker broke the forth wall. I must admit, I did enjoy the latter part of the novella and found the beginning quite confusing. It was definitely worth it for the latter part, and just a fun, quick read!
While reading The Novella, The Reader was feeling:
Amused.
Entertained.
Delighted.
In awe.
Hence, The Reader wishes to acknowledge that The Author is indeed a genius, as already rightfully stated by The Newspaper on the cover.
Amused.
Entertained.
Delighted.
In awe.
Hence, The Reader wishes to acknowledge that The Author is indeed a genius, as already rightfully stated by The Newspaper on the cover.
Lately it feels like Nicola Barker hasn’t been able to finish writing a novel without wanting to blow it up. Her last novel “H(A)PPY” was set in a future society where everyone’s mind was plugged into a single continuous stream and its hero’s consciousness became more hallucinatory while the text itself morphed into multi-coloured fragments and bizarre structures. It seems like there’s more tension in her narratives lately where the fourth wall is breaking down. Her new book “I Am Sovereign” is a self-designated novella. Within the story it’s stated “This is just a novella (approx.. 23,000 words)”. It’s story is quite simple on the surface. The 49 year-old protagonist Charles creates customized stuffed bears and is seeking to sell his house in Wales. Over a twenty minute period estate agent Avigail presents the house to prospective buyer Wang Shu accompanied by her daughter Ying Yue who has come along as her translator. But the concept of this tale is merely a box within which Barker illuminates the artificiality of her characters and uses them as ciphers to discuss concepts of narrative itself. What little story there is soon breaks down – Barker even states at one point “Nothing of much note happens, really, does it?” Instead, Barker engages in arguments with a particular character and muses upon the nature of language, storytelling and authority. There’s a frenetic energy to Barker’s writing which is irresistible if you’re in a good humour or frustrating if you’re after an old-fashioned plot.
Read my full review of I Am Sovereign by Nicola Barker on LonesomeReader
Read my full review of I Am Sovereign by Nicola Barker on LonesomeReader
The novella, as a form, is not too ambitious. The novella, as a form, is unbearably cute. The Author has been prey to ‘mixed feelings’ about the novel, as a form, ever since completing her last work (H(A)PPY) which — to all intents and purposes — destroyed the novel (as a form) for The Author.
Nicola Barker's I Am Sovereign is a sneeze of a novella, following the flu she caught after the Goldsmith's Prize winning [b:H(A)PPY|32603519|H(A)PPY|Nicola Barker|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1505808345l/32603519._SX50_.jpg|53184528].
“A sneeze is a sudden, spontaneous, joyous, almost orgasmic experience, whereas the flu is never fun, is it?”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nicola-barker-interview-i-wanted-to-be-a-go-go-dancer-rg5bkrp69
Barker has a lot of fun, first setting up a bizarre scenario - a chaotic 20 minute house viewing with some decidedly odd characters (one described appropriately as "this strange, bedraggled, ill-drawn creature; this girl, part-stuffed, badly sewn") as well as copious references to two real-life figures, a Youtube self-help guru Richard Grannon, and a tattooed instagram star Lucy Molloy. J
Just as the novella is starting to sag a little, getting bogged down in some rather existential questions, The Author decides to intervene directly, and the last third, as the Guardian memorably put it, "doesn’t so much break the fourth wall as present the author, sobbing, seated among her audience," as well as dialing up the bizarreness - one new character she introduces is a a legally-blind “little old man with quince-testicles.”
An early extract as a taster:
In the Introductory Module which Charles has only watched half of because he suddenly felt terrified and overwhelmed and tired – tired – just so ludicrously, deliriously tired – Richard Grannon stood majestically in front of a whiteboard wearing a newly-pressed blue shirt and calmly outlined the role of the Toxic Super-Ego. The Toxic Super-Ego was sitting (Grannon drew a little cartoon with his trusty marker pen) in its own small bath of ‘toxic shame’.
Grannon is funny and handsome and ‘buff’ and Charles finds it difficult to believe that Grannon was also an unholy screw-up a mere two years ago. Two years. Before he cured himself.
Although there is already something about this picture that doesn’t entirely add up. If a person is truly, authentically an unholy screw-up then how the hell do they still manage to hold down a job as a life-coach/therapist and teach high level martial arts and do a series of other remarkably cool and interesting things like becoming an NLP Master Practitioner and living in the Far East and having an encyclopaedic knowledge of Important Cultural Moments in both fiction and film while owning a giant, blonde dog which lollops about shedding hair and stealing socks?
(from https://granta.com/i-am-sovereign/)
In Gumble's Yard's excellent review, he used the last lines of that passage to show how the novel seemed to know who was reading it.
In my case I read this novel, while developing an appropriate sneeze, between Twitter discussions with supporters of one particular Booker shortlisted novel who somehow took the judges being unable to decide between two other novels as the winner, as meaning their book was robbed. And I felt, biting my tongue to say what I really thought, as the Novelist does in this book dealing with a particularly troublesome character:
It’s the pervasive atmosphere of ill-will seeping into every line that I’m really struggling with. I find myself overcompensating, being excessively complimentary.
As as for why their novel didn't win well, as this book says a few lines later: commas seriously endanger lives, particularly, it doesn't add, where there are no full stops.
Sadly that book is on the Goldsmith's shortlist and this book isn't.
3.5 stars - rounded down to 3 as even The Author is happy to admit this is a sneeze of a work.
Nicola Barker's I Am Sovereign is a sneeze of a novella, following the flu she caught after the Goldsmith's Prize winning [b:H(A)PPY|32603519|H(A)PPY|Nicola Barker|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1505808345l/32603519._SX50_.jpg|53184528].
“A sneeze is a sudden, spontaneous, joyous, almost orgasmic experience, whereas the flu is never fun, is it?”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nicola-barker-interview-i-wanted-to-be-a-go-go-dancer-rg5bkrp69
Barker has a lot of fun, first setting up a bizarre scenario - a chaotic 20 minute house viewing with some decidedly odd characters (one described appropriately as "this strange, bedraggled, ill-drawn creature; this girl, part-stuffed, badly sewn") as well as copious references to two real-life figures, a Youtube self-help guru Richard Grannon, and a tattooed instagram star Lucy Molloy. J
Just as the novella is starting to sag a little, getting bogged down in some rather existential questions, The Author decides to intervene directly, and the last third, as the Guardian memorably put it, "doesn’t so much break the fourth wall as present the author, sobbing, seated among her audience," as well as dialing up the bizarreness - one new character she introduces is a a legally-blind “little old man with quince-testicles.”
An early extract as a taster:
In the Introductory Module which Charles has only watched half of because he suddenly felt terrified and overwhelmed and tired – tired – just so ludicrously, deliriously tired – Richard Grannon stood majestically in front of a whiteboard wearing a newly-pressed blue shirt and calmly outlined the role of the Toxic Super-Ego. The Toxic Super-Ego was sitting (Grannon drew a little cartoon with his trusty marker pen) in its own small bath of ‘toxic shame’.
Grannon is funny and handsome and ‘buff’ and Charles finds it difficult to believe that Grannon was also an unholy screw-up a mere two years ago. Two years. Before he cured himself.
Although there is already something about this picture that doesn’t entirely add up. If a person is truly, authentically an unholy screw-up then how the hell do they still manage to hold down a job as a life-coach/therapist and teach high level martial arts and do a series of other remarkably cool and interesting things like becoming an NLP Master Practitioner and living in the Far East and having an encyclopaedic knowledge of Important Cultural Moments in both fiction and film while owning a giant, blonde dog which lollops about shedding hair and stealing socks?
(from https://granta.com/i-am-sovereign/)
In Gumble's Yard's excellent review, he used the last lines of that passage to show how the novel seemed to know who was reading it.
In my case I read this novel, while developing an appropriate sneeze, between Twitter discussions with supporters of one particular Booker shortlisted novel who somehow took the judges being unable to decide between two other novels as the winner, as meaning their book was robbed. And I felt, biting my tongue to say what I really thought, as the Novelist does in this book dealing with a particularly troublesome character:
It’s the pervasive atmosphere of ill-will seeping into every line that I’m really struggling with. I find myself overcompensating, being excessively complimentary.
As as for why their novel didn't win well, as this book says a few lines later: commas seriously endanger lives, particularly, it doesn't add, where there are no full stops.
Sadly that book is on the Goldsmith's shortlist and this book isn't.
3.5 stars - rounded down to 3 as even The Author is happy to admit this is a sneeze of a work.
The author's short-form decompression, it seems, to her own last novel. Playful and oddly charming. I enjoyed it very much.