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pixiebix's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
Ahhhhh, I just do not know how I feel about this book. Like, really really really don't.
For the first quarter or so of the book (to be precise, 60 pages in), I truly disliked it. I was disengaged and couldn't keep all the different fragments of the story together. I found it a little pretentious and purposefully elusive and confusing. The overall tone was unsettling in the non-intriguing way; it made me feel like how watching Coraline as a kid did: invasive, perverse, random and grotesque and unnecessary. What age group this book was supposed to be aimed at also confused me, and, admittedly, I probably pondered that far too much in the back of my mind, when I should have been rolling with the punches and taking the story as it is. I (wrongfully) went in with the impression that this book was a Middle Grade, and so found myself really quite disgusted at the tone that had been adopted and some of the events themselves. I can now say my judgement was wrong, however. As Gaiman put it in an interview about the book, this is for anyone who has been seven years old--not children.
Then the friggin worm scene came (never going to forget that. Why did it disturb me so much?), closely followed by Ursula and the bath scene. In those few pages, all lack of engagement all but disappeared and was replaced with a kind of horror you can't turn away from. It was like car crash TV.
Then we get to the whole running away part, and things start to get really weird and abstract and magical realism-y. From this point, the story itself became far less engaging to me (strange considering it's probably the part that is most action-packed and Gaiman-y, but then again, I've learnt in the past month or so that magic that knows no bounds and never gets explained is a sure way to pull me right out of a story), and yet those tidbit sentences of wisdom left me no choice but to tab and tab and grow in respect towards Gaiman and what he has created here, even though it really didn't gel with me personally.
This also allowed me to reflect on the non-fantasy/magical realism sections from a distance (i.e., to detach from the bits that I personally would have left out), and this has led me to conclude that this story perfectly encapsulates the helplessness and perceptiveness of childhood--or, as Gaiman more eloquently puts it, our bearing witness to 'the adult world with all its power and all its secrets and all its foolish casual cruelty' (oof). This is a book about childhood (about suspension of belief; about how much easier the very fabric of the universe is to look past when you are a child) and memory (how susceptible our memories are to change according to what we want to have happened; about how quickly the vibrancy and meat and essence of our experiences fade, especially those from childhood).
Noise is like pain in the fact that your body can't remember its specifics, and I would wager childhood memories are the same (for me, anyway), and that was summed up perfectly in the following:
For the first quarter or so of the book (to be precise, 60 pages in), I truly disliked it. I was disengaged and couldn't keep all the different fragments of the story together. I found it a little pretentious and purposefully elusive and confusing. The overall tone was unsettling in the non-intriguing way; it made me feel like how watching Coraline as a kid did: invasive, perverse, random and grotesque and unnecessary. What age group this book was supposed to be aimed at also confused me, and, admittedly, I probably pondered that far too much in the back of my mind, when I should have been rolling with the punches and taking the story as it is. I (wrongfully) went in with the impression that this book was a Middle Grade, and so found myself really quite disgusted at the tone that had been adopted and some of the events themselves. I can now say my judgement was wrong, however. As Gaiman put it in an interview about the book, this is for anyone who has been seven years old--not children.
Then the friggin worm scene came (never going to forget that. Why did it disturb me so much?), closely followed by Ursula and the bath scene. In those few pages, all lack of engagement all but disappeared and was replaced with a kind of horror you can't turn away from. It was like car crash TV.
Then we get to the whole running away part, and things start to get really weird and abstract and magical realism-y. From this point, the story itself became far less engaging to me (strange considering it's probably the part that is most action-packed and Gaiman-y, but then again, I've learnt in the past month or so that magic that knows no bounds and never gets explained is a sure way to pull me right out of a story), and yet those tidbit sentences of wisdom left me no choice but to tab and tab and grow in respect towards Gaiman and what he has created here, even though it really didn't gel with me personally.
This also allowed me to reflect on the non-fantasy/magical realism sections from a distance (i.e., to detach from the bits that I personally would have left out), and this has led me to conclude that this story perfectly encapsulates the helplessness and perceptiveness of childhood--or, as Gaiman more eloquently puts it, our bearing witness to 'the adult world with all its power and all its secrets and all its foolish casual cruelty' (oof). This is a book about childhood (about suspension of belief; about how much easier the very fabric of the universe is to look past when you are a child) and memory (how susceptible our memories are to change according to what we want to have happened; about how quickly the vibrancy and meat and essence of our experiences fade, especially those from childhood).
Noise is like pain in the fact that your body can't remember its specifics, and I would wager childhood memories are the same (for me, anyway), and that was summed up perfectly in the following:
I could not remember why I disliked Ursula Monkton so much--indeed, I felt faintly guilty for disliking her so absolutely and irrationally.
We know what the boy went through by Ursula's 'hands', and so this sentence (and the parallels we could draw between it and the real experiences of people with PTSD or Stockholm Syndrome) hit me very hard.
So, to summarise: I very much so love what this book has to say, what it does, and how much it means to so many people. However, for me (like oh-so-many books I have read as of late), its execution was mostly a fail for me considering I do find magical realism and intentionally riddle-like language and evasiveness frustrating, to say the least: it pulls me right out of a story and gets me analysing the cracks and trying to come to a conclusive, solid answer, when that is certainly not the author's intention. In terms of the themes that were covered and what it does ultimately have to say about them, however, I do adore this and will very much so enjoy thinking about it and hearing discussions surrounding it in the future. I am simply just not a lover of the whimsical, but can see this is more a fault on my part than the author's: I struggle with completely suspending my belief, and yet in those rare moments when I managed to, I experienced a part of my subconscious (most definitely formed in childhood) that really felt very akin to that of our narrator's. I do think adults (myself included) tend to underestimate the spectrum of children's minds; the fact that they see the disturbing just as much as we do, and that the only reason they appear not to is because they are just so much more adaptable; so used to rolling with the punches and accepting that there are so many things they don't understand constantly happening around them that one more to the list is no harm.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse and Injury/Injury detail
ellensmith's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
I loved this book. It was so sweet. The authors language got flowery at times but very good.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Suicide
nojerama's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Baby’s first cosmic horror. God I love this book
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Gaslighting, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, and Torture
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