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challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
I'm giving this a 3 star rating mostly because I don't think I understood half of what was going on, so it's a reflection on me rather than the book.
Some gems:
"Thus Lina, who in 1907 read everything written by Sibilla Alerano, learned that despite the great distances between women thinking, we might still enter into intimate correspondence." (p. 61)
"We are still denying to women the rights to their own bodies? Its as if the new century has changed nothing." (p. 149, on Italy in 1914).
Some gems:
"Thus Lina, who in 1907 read everything written by Sibilla Alerano, learned that despite the great distances between women thinking, we might still enter into intimate correspondence." (p. 61)
"We are still denying to women the rights to their own bodies? Its as if the new century has changed nothing." (p. 149, on Italy in 1914).
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
16th book of 2023. Artist for this review is Catalan painter Miguel Carbonell Selva (1854-1896).
2.5. I didn't quite manage the whole of the Booker and International Booker longlists last year because I can't afford to buy books new and the reservation queues on books, when they are first announced on the list, are far too long for my impatient self. The other day though, after a job interview in a nearby city, I wandered opposite to their circular 1967 build library and found some of those longlist books that I couldn't get a hold of last year. This being one of them, of course.

Death of Sappho, 1881
I think it's great that this made the longlist. It's original, it's different. Sometimes it barely feels like a novel and I'm fine with that. The novel, to me, is uncategorisable. I can also see why other reviewers on this website say it reads like Wikipedia entries. It's a smorgasbord of stuff: women, feminism, gender, names, identity. I preferred the latter half of the book which began to focus on Virginia Woolf and her novels. That felt focussed to me. In the beginning there was too much going on and too many characters. Interestingly it's a blend of fact and fiction, which is usually my favourite sort of thing to read. It is funny in parts, well-written, too. Some of the historical women who are explored are Sarah Bernhardt, Colette, Eleanora Duse, Josephine Baker, Djuna Barnes, Isadora Duncan... The latter of whom I end up reading about all the time, completely by accident. So I like it for its boldness and its experimentation, even if I don't think it landed it.
And also credited to Woolf:
And marital advice for later: 'The best sorts of marriage were companionable and involved a shared taste in novels and furniture.'
2.5. I didn't quite manage the whole of the Booker and International Booker longlists last year because I can't afford to buy books new and the reservation queues on books, when they are first announced on the list, are far too long for my impatient self. The other day though, after a job interview in a nearby city, I wandered opposite to their circular 1967 build library and found some of those longlist books that I couldn't get a hold of last year. This being one of them, of course.
'Readers according to Colette were like lovers. The best were attentive, intelligent, exigent, and promiscuous. She urged us to read widely and well, to seek out precisely the novels prohibited to us and lie down for hours in bed with them.'

Death of Sappho, 1881
I think it's great that this made the longlist. It's original, it's different. Sometimes it barely feels like a novel and I'm fine with that. The novel, to me, is uncategorisable. I can also see why other reviewers on this website say it reads like Wikipedia entries. It's a smorgasbord of stuff: women, feminism, gender, names, identity. I preferred the latter half of the book which began to focus on Virginia Woolf and her novels. That felt focussed to me. In the beginning there was too much going on and too many characters. Interestingly it's a blend of fact and fiction, which is usually my favourite sort of thing to read. It is funny in parts, well-written, too. Some of the historical women who are explored are Sarah Bernhardt, Colette, Eleanora Duse, Josephine Baker, Djuna Barnes, Isadora Duncan... The latter of whom I end up reading about all the time, completely by accident. So I like it for its boldness and its experimentation, even if I don't think it landed it.
'But life itself was in constant variance, Virginia Woolf protested, a novel ought to run alongside it the way the shadow of a railway carriage travels over the landscape. Now rising fleetingly along a low wall, now falling away into a riverbed, passing its silhouette unevenly over grass and gravel: that was a novel, that was the spirit of a life moving on a page. Is it not the task of the novelist, Virginia Woolf demanded, to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display?'
And also credited to Woolf:
'Half of writing a novel is looking out of the window in gentle despair and idleness.'
And marital advice for later: 'The best sorts of marriage were companionable and involved a shared taste in novels and furniture.'
I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of the characters, there were so many strands of stories but nothing felt fleshed out. This was also pretty much entirely just white feminism in a historical tone. Just a way to pass the time but not enjoyable
slow-paced
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Lyrical. Slow and tangled.