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alectastic's review against another edition
4.0
I am looking for something that has no outward appearance.
Jaeggy is ferocious. She scrutinizes absolute emptiness, searching for what might be hidden there. And we readers are with her, feeling around in the dark for what she’s trying to find.
Each sentence of hers holds possibilities, secrets. Religiously, her writings fold plenty of sadness and violence between the words. There is a lot “there” that is not there.
When one reads Jaeggy, one holds their breath. Her books submerge the reader in a menacing and atmospheric world with no easy way of escape. The only way out is through.
Jaeggy understands that to communicate sometimes all we need are sentence fragments. Horrifyingly ephemeral mysteries. She mercilessly wields misery.
This book is brutally abrupt.
anetq's review against another edition
5.0
The daughter is travelling with the father - though referred to as Johannes. They are not close, and the cruise on SS Proleterka will not bring them much closer, even though it is the last chance, and he is her closest living relative, if not the only. The cold, distanced descriptions of cold distanced relationships and the deep ocean of tension underneath seems to be Jaeggy's trademark - and she does it so well in deed. While we unravel two families histories it is always seen through glass and cannot be touched.
I definitely see more Jaeggy in my future!
I definitely see more Jaeggy in my future!
frankie_s's review against another edition
3.0
Why is it that I love Fleur Jaeggy with all my heart but can never seem to give her books more than three stars?
jrl6809's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
beesp's review against another edition
5.0
Non ho mai letto niente di simile alla Jaeggy. Ho comprato questo libro perché mio padre mi ha detto "ho letto qualcosa di suo, non me lo ricordo, ma mi sembra che ricordi un po' Christa Wolf, ti può piacere" e visto che avevo voglia di qualcosa di qualità e di scoprire autori nuovi, l'ho preso.
Jaeggy è un po' come la Wolf. Scrive d'introspezione, le sue storie tendono a concentrarsi più sui personaggi che sulla storia - che è qualcosa che adoro in un libro.
Jaeggy mi ha preso e mi ha portato nella vita della protagonista. Non sono mai riuscita a sentire ogni frase di un libro come questa volta. E' irrilevante che abbia pianto da (quasi) principio alla fine. Avevo l'impressione di essere talmente coinvolta con le vicende raccontate, da non riuscire mai più ad uscire dall'universo di "Proleterka". Come potevo sottrarmi alla rabbia smussata dal tempo, al senso di malinconia che traspariva da quelle frasi così pungenti per me? Riuscivo a sentire quella percezione evidente che ben presto tutto sarebbe finito tra figlia e padre, riuscivo a capire il distacco e come la protagonista tentasse, ma non riuscisse, ad aggrapparsi ai suoi legami familiari. Il contatto della protagonista con la morte, l'abbandono è dolorosissimo. Il modo in cui con rimpianto ripensa ai rapporti sessuali (probabilmente non del tutto consenzienti) contratti sulla nave e come si riesce proprio a capire che lì la Jaeggy ci sta dicendo che la protagonista pensa "facevo quello, perché non riuscivo a far altro, andavo avanti nel tempo, senza riuscire a legarmi al passato, a mio padre, a quello che avrei potuto costruire durante quel viaggio". Perché in fondo come si può biasimare una ragazza che non riesce ad avvicinarsi a suo padre in quattordici giorni dopo che per sedici anni le è stato tenuto lontano?
Jaeggy mi ha inciso le parole addosso. Leggere non sarà mai più la stessa cosa. Cinque stelle perché un libro più perfetto di così per me non può esistere.
Jaeggy è un po' come la Wolf. Scrive d'introspezione, le sue storie tendono a concentrarsi più sui personaggi che sulla storia - che è qualcosa che adoro in un libro.
Jaeggy mi ha preso e mi ha portato nella vita della protagonista. Non sono mai riuscita a sentire ogni frase di un libro come questa volta. E' irrilevante che abbia pianto da (quasi) principio alla fine. Avevo l'impressione di essere talmente coinvolta con le vicende raccontate, da non riuscire mai più ad uscire dall'universo di "Proleterka". Come potevo sottrarmi alla rabbia smussata dal tempo, al senso di malinconia che traspariva da quelle frasi così pungenti per me? Riuscivo a sentire quella percezione evidente che ben presto tutto sarebbe finito tra figlia e padre, riuscivo a capire il distacco e come la protagonista tentasse, ma non riuscisse, ad aggrapparsi ai suoi legami familiari. Il contatto della protagonista con la morte, l'abbandono è dolorosissimo. Il modo in cui con rimpianto ripensa ai rapporti sessuali (probabilmente non del tutto consenzienti) contratti sulla nave e come si riesce proprio a capire che lì la Jaeggy ci sta dicendo che la protagonista pensa "facevo quello, perché non riuscivo a far altro, andavo avanti nel tempo, senza riuscire a legarmi al passato, a mio padre, a quello che avrei potuto costruire durante quel viaggio". Perché in fondo come si può biasimare una ragazza che non riesce ad avvicinarsi a suo padre in quattordici giorni dopo che per sedici anni le è stato tenuto lontano?
Jaeggy mi ha inciso le parole addosso. Leggere non sarà mai più la stessa cosa. Cinque stelle perché un libro più perfetto di così per me non può esistere.
jimmylorunning's review against another edition
5.0
Calm ruin. As if calm were imposed by violence. p 26The world in which the main character exists is a bleak one where people are quietly suffocating inside of their starched conventions.
The wife thanks the Lord with a bleak and rigid expression. As she draws nearer the Lord, her blood freezes, pallor flows into her face.” p 19I feel sorry for Johanne’s daughter, who is telling the story here, and sometimes refers to herself as “I” and other times as “Johanne’s daughter”. I thought this worked really well to mirror the distance and disembodiment she felt, as well as the fact that she was always in-relation to—
He was happy when he had the last fitting for the jacket. The final rehearsal of his life. He could bear to forego desperation. p 54Everyone is “in relation to” but nobody makes any genuine connection to—
And the residue of their relationship has remained in the small apartment. Houses are not merely walls. They are often contaminated places. People should not make dinner invitations with such nonchalance. p 102As you can tell, this carefully modulated tone of icy distance is powerful and devastating. I wanted to hug the main character, hug all of the characters, perhaps that’s all they ever needed. But that would destroy their world forever.
The truth has no ornaments. Like a washed corpse, I think. p 115An amazing little book, with absolutely no sentimentality, with the cutting exactitude of the most controlled prose. There is much here beyond the language too, but I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it. Spoilers: The father who is distant vs. the new father who shows up at the end, one replaces another just as she replaces her brother who dies in childhood. The father and his invalid brother. Much is made of the eye. The fathers murderer friend. The journey on the Proleterka is like a journeying out into adulthood for her. It doesn’t really fit into a neat story, as such, but it becomes a story by the act of being told. It’s like strange little experiences that become part of my own story, as if I’ve lived this other life.
Before him, the mountains. Silent shadows run across virgin snow. And crows. One flies very close to the window. They look at each other. The crow promises to return the following day. p 31
kuhkeke's review against another edition
4.0
After reading “Sweet Days of Discipline” and “I Am the Brother of XX,” it’s become clear that Fleur Jaeggy has an obsession with death and emotionally unavailable parents. The narration of the female protagonist’s youth is dissociative as she volleys between between first and third person narration. Presumably, her objective detachment is a method of coping with the absence of warm parental figures.
Perhaps in an effort to provoke her father to care, she engages in a series of sexual relations with sailors aboard the voyage she and her father are on. They are rough and callous towards her, underscoring the protagonist’s inability to seek romance from compassionate figures. Regardless, there’s an apparent desperation of wanting to be wanted. There’s a telling moment where she expectantly gazes back at the ship with the hopes that one of the crew members will acknowledge the intimacy they shared by looking for her when she departs. He does not.
Perhaps in an effort to provoke her father to care, she engages in a series of sexual relations with sailors aboard the voyage she and her father are on. They are rough and callous towards her, underscoring the protagonist’s inability to seek romance from compassionate figures. Regardless, there’s an apparent desperation of wanting to be wanted. There’s a telling moment where she expectantly gazes back at the ship with the hopes that one of the crew members will acknowledge the intimacy they shared by looking for her when she departs. He does not.
blackoxford's review against another edition
5.0
Scary Women
Testosterone may be useful for personal protection; but it is a social plague. One of the best measures of a civilised society is the degree of mitigation of the difference in physical power between the sexes. This is accomplished by laws and customs that limit the use of male physical strength to intimidate females. This is to the good. But as in most other aspects of life, there is a downside. Men can be intimidated by females who resent and seek to punish men. Being nowhere near as clever or persistent as women, men are at a decided disadvantage, especially if the women concerned act tribally.
Jaeggy captures this dialectic rather well in the oxymoronic descriptions of her protagonist’s life among domineering women who exploit men mercilessly: “acrimonious indulgence;” “rapacious charity;” “abysmal politeness;” and “vainglorious restraint.” Her grandmother (a German Miss Cavendish) is the leader of the pack: “In not forgiving she was magnanimous, tolerant, equable.” The girl herself is “a hostage to good. A prisoner of good.” She lives a life in which “Pleasure and punishment are combined.” Her father is anathema because of his failure to live up to the economic expectations of the coven.
In this world of contradictions, reality is hidden behind impenetrable symbols. The girl lives within “a genealogy of images.” At one time her mother played the piano; but that was before the family’s financial troubles. Now, she says “The sound of the piano represents all that I have not had.” Her personal history is swallowed up in these symbols. She is “The girl who has no past.” Even her gender is a symbol of symbolic obsession: “The women of that family had an autistic passion for camellias, roses, and nothing else.” Women, she is taught, are, or ought to be, nihilists: “they harbor a profound resentment, a visceral resentment toward the world, toward existence.”
Estrogen, it seems, has its own unique challenges. Legal reform is unlikely to be effective in meeting them, probably because the law tends to be dominated by men who don’t have a clue about its effects. Women, on the other hand, run society.
Testosterone may be useful for personal protection; but it is a social plague. One of the best measures of a civilised society is the degree of mitigation of the difference in physical power between the sexes. This is accomplished by laws and customs that limit the use of male physical strength to intimidate females. This is to the good. But as in most other aspects of life, there is a downside. Men can be intimidated by females who resent and seek to punish men. Being nowhere near as clever or persistent as women, men are at a decided disadvantage, especially if the women concerned act tribally.
Jaeggy captures this dialectic rather well in the oxymoronic descriptions of her protagonist’s life among domineering women who exploit men mercilessly: “acrimonious indulgence;” “rapacious charity;” “abysmal politeness;” and “vainglorious restraint.” Her grandmother (a German Miss Cavendish) is the leader of the pack: “In not forgiving she was magnanimous, tolerant, equable.” The girl herself is “a hostage to good. A prisoner of good.” She lives a life in which “Pleasure and punishment are combined.” Her father is anathema because of his failure to live up to the economic expectations of the coven.
In this world of contradictions, reality is hidden behind impenetrable symbols. The girl lives within “a genealogy of images.” At one time her mother played the piano; but that was before the family’s financial troubles. Now, she says “The sound of the piano represents all that I have not had.” Her personal history is swallowed up in these symbols. She is “The girl who has no past.” Even her gender is a symbol of symbolic obsession: “The women of that family had an autistic passion for camellias, roses, and nothing else.” Women, she is taught, are, or ought to be, nihilists: “they harbor a profound resentment, a visceral resentment toward the world, toward existence.”
Estrogen, it seems, has its own unique challenges. Legal reform is unlikely to be effective in meeting them, probably because the law tends to be dominated by men who don’t have a clue about its effects. Women, on the other hand, run society.