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3.18 AVERAGE
3.18 AVERAGE
Friend whose recommendations I like: "You like Kafka, right? You'll love 'Harrow' then."
Me to same friend upon finishing 'Harrow: "You've gone down in the book recommendations queue."
'Harrow' focuses on young Lamb (later known as Khristen) focuses on the teen's upbringing in what might be termed a doomsday community filled with oddly named characters. Hard pass.
Me to same friend upon finishing 'Harrow: "You've gone down in the book recommendations queue."
'Harrow' focuses on young Lamb (later known as Khristen) focuses on the teen's upbringing in what might be termed a doomsday community filled with oddly named characters. Hard pass.
I appreciate what another reviewer wrote: "I have never casually recommended Joy Williams to anyone. She’s often challenging, and can SEEM nonsensical."
Yeah, that sounds about right. I can't say I loved the book but it did challenge me and made me think quite a bit, which is always good.
Yeah, that sounds about right. I can't say I loved the book but it did challenge me and made me think quite a bit, which is always good.
This book sounds so great and interesting https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/books/review-harrow-joy-williams.html but I found it completely unappealing to read, as opposed to to read about.
A seething, heartbreaking, often hilarious book about the emptiness at the heart of the human urge to make transformative, systemic change, to have an impact, to have life *mean* something in the face of absolute indifference. Throughout HARROW there is a powerful feeling of rage-- at being voiceless, at wanting to DO SOMETHING (!!) in the face of relentless stupidity-- which is made manifest in direct action which this book does not flinch in exposing as empty, narcissistic fantasy.
I experienced a deep connection to these feelings while reading the book, to the bleak humor that sits atop a wrenching feeling of helplessness in the face of preventable, man-made catastrophe, and I think HARROW truly captures the feeling of impotence-- despite our words, our ideas, our hopes, our beliefs-- that sits at the center of contemporary experience. I really loved this book and found it immensely comforting to discover so much of my own darkly comic despair reflected in the story (speaking of narcissism *ha*). It took me a minute to get into its rhythms and style, but this is definitely a book I'll be thinking about for a long, long time.
SPOILER-ISH SIDE NOTE:
The feeling of the book called to mind, for me, an echo of THE LITTLE PRINCE, if that makes any sense at all, with Khristen in the position of the narrator, "crash landing" in a hostile landscape, and brought into a world of loss and isolation before being ultimately left behind prior to her final meeting with Jeffrey, who represented (for me) the infantile, arbitrary self-satisfaction of the state with which she ambiguously reconciles(?). This is more tonal than narrative, but I couldn't shake it.
I experienced a deep connection to these feelings while reading the book, to the bleak humor that sits atop a wrenching feeling of helplessness in the face of preventable, man-made catastrophe, and I think HARROW truly captures the feeling of impotence-- despite our words, our ideas, our hopes, our beliefs-- that sits at the center of contemporary experience. I really loved this book and found it immensely comforting to discover so much of my own darkly comic despair reflected in the story (speaking of narcissism *ha*). It took me a minute to get into its rhythms and style, but this is definitely a book I'll be thinking about for a long, long time.
SPOILER-ISH SIDE NOTE:
The feeling of the book called to mind, for me, an echo of THE LITTLE PRINCE, if that makes any sense at all, with Khristen in the position of the narrator, "crash landing" in a hostile landscape, and brought into a world of loss and isolation before being ultimately left behind prior to her final meeting with Jeffrey, who represented (for me) the infantile, arbitrary self-satisfaction of the state with which she ambiguously reconciles(?). This is more tonal than narrative, but I couldn't shake it.
DNF, baby. I like plenty of weird fiction but I definitely lean into either the more gonzo bizarre or matter-of-fact surrealism. This novel was just too amorphous to hit with me, and I wasn’t willing to invest any more time in being brow-beaten with vagaries.
DNF at 22%.
DNF at 22%.
It was a hard read and that’s on me for being unfamiliar with Joy Williams. The existential dread paired with my reading upon an unseasonably warm fall did not link well.
I did not quite understand the linkage of what can be repaired. Would read again after time and maybe a slip into some easier Williams’ works.
I did not quite understand the linkage of what can be repaired. Would read again after time and maybe a slip into some easier Williams’ works.
3.5. strange and kinda hard to follow. Might require another read to really grasp. Post apocalyptic magical realism with a geriatric death cult seeking to destroy those who want to revive the capitalist institutions responsible for the apocalypse to begin with. Challenging but interesting.
Some language in Harrow:
inchoate
penurious rabble
My mother's eager beauty faded, her reckless teasing ways.
squamous cell
stanchion
ingravescent
obsequies
defenestration
cellarage
percheron
premarin foals
maundering
anathema
an old friend of equal decrepitude
yesteryear
tenantry
fatuous
stygian
vizier
gangrel
incandescence
bilious
wizened
in morose embrace
vivariums
glanders
sherbet
cabana
fulsome
chorister
chary
numinous
owlet
He remembered the description in an old book of a phenomenon long since vanished from the world, the sound of birds, of migrating wings passing through the darkness in countless armies with a velvety rustle long drawn out.
inchoate
penurious rabble
My mother's eager beauty faded, her reckless teasing ways.
squamous cell
stanchion
ingravescent
obsequies
defenestration
cellarage
percheron
premarin foals
maundering
anathema
an old friend of equal decrepitude
yesteryear
tenantry
fatuous
stygian
vizier
gangrel
incandescence
bilious
wizened
in morose embrace
vivariums
glanders
sherbet
cabana
fulsome
chorister
chary
numinous
owlet
He remembered the description in an old book of a phenomenon long since vanished from the world, the sound of birds, of migrating wings passing through the darkness in countless armies with a velvety rustle long drawn out.
3.5-4 stars -> I appreciate the experimental nature of it, but I think I will have to reread it like 3 more times
This one is very hard to rate. The experimental writing style made it somewhat challenging to decipher, but the theme of ecological collapse, the philosophical musings, and the anarchic spirit of the thing were all very appealing. It felt like the kind of book Cormac McCarthy was attempting with his execrable waste of paper, [b:The Road|350540|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600667691l/350540._SY75_.jpg|3355573], though [b:Harrow|56376963|Harrow|Joy Williams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1616434647l/56376963._SX50_.jpg|87819327] was superior in every way. (Not a particularly high bar to clear, as [b:The Road|350540|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600667691l/350540._SY75_.jpg|3355573] is one of only a handful of books I’ve disliked intensely enough to grant it only one star on Goodreads and that was generous). [b:Harrow|56376963|Harrow|Joy Williams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1616434647l/56376963._SX50_.jpg|87819327] is also somewhat reminiscent of Edward Abbey’s [b:The Monkey Wrench Gang|99208|The Monkey Wrench Gang (Monkey Wrench Gang, #1)|Edward Abbey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349067863l/99208._SY75_.jpg|2803318] and Richard Powers’s [b:The Overstory|40180098|The Overstory|Richard Powers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1562786502l/40180098._SY75_.jpg|57662223] though it’s far less coherent and intelligible than either of them. All and all, I think this one will stick with me, even though big chunks of it confused the heck out of me.