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luhos's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
anything ottessa moshfegh writes, i’ll read! this was soooo good, and i just love her writing style. weird in the best way possible.
daja57's review against another edition
1.0
Lapvona is a fantasy book. Marek is the crippled son of shepherd Jude, his mum Agata is missing presumed dead. There are peasants in the village, bandits in the mountains, and a lord in his castle on the hill.
But the prose style is very different from most fantasies. Lapvona is mostly written in short, declarative sentences: "They boiled lamb's milk and covered the pot with a cloth to keep the flies away while it cooled. Marek picked the bugs off some potatoes and plunged them and a few apples in the fire. They were old apples from the fall harvest. Jude had eaten only lamb's milk, bread, apples and potatoes, and wild grasses his entire life. Like the rest of Lapvona, he didn't eat meat. Nor did he drink mead, only milk and water. Marek are what Jude ate, always saving a few bites for Go: he knew that sacrifice was the best way to please him." This simple third person past tense narration included the explication of characters and their motives. There is very little left for the reader to infer.
Furthermore, the narration was done as a sequence of events: first this, then this. There seemed very little connection between the events; any causal connections were straightforward. There was never any nuance.
I quickly found this monotony of style extremely irksome; I was swiftly bored. It seemed to me that the only way the author could keep my interest was to ramp up the weirdness. The story is full of bizarre, frequently grotesque and horrible occurrences.
Yo be charitable, one could argue that the style suited the content. It reminded me of how Kafka narrates Metamorphosis ("As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”). It had a fairy tale feel to it. Perhaps a deadpan, direct narration is the best way of recounting weird stuff, as if the plainness of the style is the only way to add verisimilitude to what would otherwise be unbelievable. And a lot of fairy tales are full of violence and childish, crude, cruel humour. So to write as if one is writing for young children (although the content is frequently adult, with sex, starvation, mutilation, death, cannibalism and spontaneous lactation) is perhaps the only way to persuade the reader to suspend their disbelief.
It didn't work for me. I began to long for a difficult word or even a subjunctive clause. I didn't care about the characters, I didn't believe the setting, I had no involvement. I did wonder why the author was so keen on the word 'pubis' but this was the most interesting aspect about this book.
But the prose style is very different from most fantasies. Lapvona is mostly written in short, declarative sentences: "They boiled lamb's milk and covered the pot with a cloth to keep the flies away while it cooled. Marek picked the bugs off some potatoes and plunged them and a few apples in the fire. They were old apples from the fall harvest. Jude had eaten only lamb's milk, bread, apples and potatoes, and wild grasses his entire life. Like the rest of Lapvona, he didn't eat meat. Nor did he drink mead, only milk and water. Marek are what Jude ate, always saving a few bites for Go: he knew that sacrifice was the best way to please him." This simple third person past tense narration included the explication of characters and their motives. There is very little left for the reader to infer.
Furthermore, the narration was done as a sequence of events: first this, then this. There seemed very little connection between the events; any causal connections were straightforward. There was never any nuance.
I quickly found this monotony of style extremely irksome; I was swiftly bored. It seemed to me that the only way the author could keep my interest was to ramp up the weirdness. The story is full of bizarre, frequently grotesque and horrible occurrences.
Yo be charitable, one could argue that the style suited the content. It reminded me of how Kafka narrates Metamorphosis ("As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”). It had a fairy tale feel to it. Perhaps a deadpan, direct narration is the best way of recounting weird stuff, as if the plainness of the style is the only way to add verisimilitude to what would otherwise be unbelievable. And a lot of fairy tales are full of violence and childish, crude, cruel humour. So to write as if one is writing for young children (although the content is frequently adult, with sex, starvation, mutilation, death, cannibalism and spontaneous lactation) is perhaps the only way to persuade the reader to suspend their disbelief.
It didn't work for me. I began to long for a difficult word or even a subjunctive clause. I didn't care about the characters, I didn't believe the setting, I had no involvement. I did wonder why the author was so keen on the word 'pubis' but this was the most interesting aspect about this book.
doreni_01's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
aubreyharris's review against another edition
3.0
i can’t decide if i liked or disliked this book. it was so disturbing that i never want to pick it up again, but the symbolism was STUNNING
abglucas's review against another edition
2.0
Nearly 300 pages of grotesque and indefensively perverse characters. Though Moshfegh does tie in some cynical commentary on religion, this book feels like it was primarily written just to nauseate and disgust. The writing was okay but overall not for me.
madisonh31's review against another edition
4.0
Definitely read the trigger warnings for this one. Was so bizarre and entertaining, I will be thinking about this one for a while.
bookblaster's review against another edition
4.0
Non c’entra niente con gli altri libri dell’autrice, e forse molti sono in disaccordo con me perché hanno il giudizio offuscato da quello che avrebbero voluto leggere.
Lapvona fa realmente chiedere: ma che diavolo sto leggendo? Ma più si va avanti, più l’inquietudine della popolazione vessata dalla religione diventa una satira, fino a rendere i personaggi, a tratti inquietanti, buffi e con l’ironia tipica di moshfegh.
Certo non parla di una ragazza, ma se lo si analizza non è così tanto diverso dei suoi precedenti lavori. l’inquietudine, la ricerca di uno scopo, l’animo umano messo a nudo nella sua crudezza.
E come i suoi protagonisti soliti, Malek è insopportabile
Lapvona fa realmente chiedere: ma che diavolo sto leggendo? Ma più si va avanti, più l’inquietudine della popolazione vessata dalla religione diventa una satira, fino a rendere i personaggi, a tratti inquietanti, buffi e con l’ironia tipica di moshfegh.
Certo non parla di una ragazza, ma se lo si analizza non è così tanto diverso dei suoi precedenti lavori. l’inquietudine, la ricerca di uno scopo, l’animo umano messo a nudo nella sua crudezza.
E come i suoi protagonisti soliti, Malek è insopportabile
visual_eyes's review against another edition
gritty and gnarly and "obsessions" from not one but multiple perspectives. a tainted perspective and a fascinating progression into an ari-midsomar-esque montage