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emjay2021's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
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? Yes
This is such a strange book. I found the beginning to be a bit of a hard slog, but after 50 pages, things really picked up for me. Things started to actually happen. Disturbing things, mind you, but still.
Bernstein’s writing is really good, but her sentences are long, elliptical, and sometimes hard to parse. The narrator is weird and difficult to like—but I’m convinced this is intentional on the part of the author. Numerous times I found myself very irritated by the narrator and thinking, “Stop being so naive! Stand up for yourself!” Which is all a bit unfair, because we do know why she is the way she is (or at least have a pretty good idea). It casts the reader into the role of the townspeople, which is a discomfiting place to be.
This book is all about dominance and submission, ostracism, prejudice and oppression. It’s about weird, small-town mindset and fear of the other. It’s a claustrophobic, peculiar book. There’s a sense of creeping dread that contrasts with the bucolic setting in a way that reminds me of Shirley Jackson’s “Summer People,” or movies like The Wicker Man or Midsommar.
I’m not going to give it a rating because I don’t tend to rate experimental books. I’m not sorry I read it, but I can’t say it was pleasant, either. Still, I kept noting turns of phrase while reading and thinking about the book even after I finished reading. I was glad it was short, though.
Bernstein’s writing is really good, but her sentences are long, elliptical, and sometimes hard to parse. The narrator is weird and difficult to like—but I’m convinced this is intentional on the part of the author. Numerous times I found myself very irritated by the narrator and thinking, “Stop being so naive! Stand up for yourself!” Which is all a bit unfair, because we do know why she is the way she is (or at least have a pretty good idea). It casts the reader into the role of the townspeople, which is a discomfiting place to be.
This book is all about dominance and submission, ostracism, prejudice and oppression. It’s about weird, small-town mindset and fear of the other. It’s a claustrophobic, peculiar book. There’s a sense of creeping dread that contrasts with the bucolic setting in a way that reminds me of Shirley Jackson’s “Summer People,” or movies like The Wicker Man or Midsommar.
I’m not going to give it a rating because I don’t tend to rate experimental books. I’m not sorry I read it, but I can’t say it was pleasant, either. Still, I kept noting turns of phrase while reading and thinking about the book even after I finished reading. I was glad it was short, though.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Antisemitism, Bullying, Animal death, Gaslighting, and Religious bigotry
sha's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Religious bigotry, Toxic relationship, and Emotional abuse
peregrinwho's review against another edition
challenging
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
I think I'm not academic enough for this, dude. I was hooked at first, feeling startlingly called out by the author's descriptions of loneliness, retreating into oneself, caring more for others than they do for you, and not being missed. Trying to be good by being deferent to others. I was headcanoning an autistic narrator, especially with the descriptions of mis-timed gazes, expressions and speech, others inherint mistrust, the mirroring of emotions, and "withdrawing" or masking to feel control, but realized this was supposed to be an unreliable narrator, and something about that makes me really sad. Are people like me doomed to be ostrisized and labeled weird and occult?
I think this is supposed to relate back to Jewish people in WW2, since the narrator is Jewish and moved to Poland? They mention meeting the history of their ancestors. The theme feels like it's trying to tell me those who live for others lose themselves and get "eradicated", but then the narrator doesn't? She's happy in her blind servitude, and maybe the point is to be weirded out by that, but I thought she was heading for "self-annihilation" since it was referenced so many times. You can argue interioraly, yes, but I thought physical as well would have been the natural end. Maybe everything that happened was supposed to be an exterior representation of her own self hatred? But that's still not satisfying. There are some great insights into losing oneself to please others that get marred and confused by the end. Especially since there are so many run-on sentences that make it hard to follow at times. Overall, I think I understood what happened in this book, just not why. Also, her relationship with her brother was creepy as hell.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism and Animal death
alexreads22's review
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Weird!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Drug use, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Incest, Misogyny, Gore, Religious bigotry, Animal death, Antisemitism, and Death
risemini's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Confinement
blacksallyrooney's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
2.5 / 5 stars
Existence is futile, Sarah Bernstein’s Giller Prize-winning second novel offers flat-out, from its first to its last page. The possibility of a peaceful, or peaceable, life is outright denied, and this conclusion is decisive in the novel’s respective study (or, even, a fable) of Jewish life and diaspora, of power among intimacy, of land, and of the shroud of the Holocaust that Europe willfully wound around itself yet writhes against.
Existence is futile, Sarah Bernstein’s Giller Prize-winning second novel offers flat-out, from its first to its last page. The possibility of a peaceful, or peaceable, life is outright denied, and this conclusion is decisive in the novel’s respective study (or, even, a fable) of Jewish life and diaspora, of power among intimacy, of land, and of the shroud of the Holocaust that Europe willfully wound around itself yet writhes against.
I appreciate Bernstein’s attempt to ‘unspool’ (a word she loves—perhaps too much) this immersive insight into social degradation and power’s effects on the psyche, as well as the powerful mundanity of cruelty, exclusion, and genocide.
However, I was continually unconvinced by the narrator’s placidity, which goes beyond the bounds of stylistic preference and felt like a fundamental rift between myself and Bernstein in what this book’s philosophy is. At times the novel worked in examining ‘how much’ the unnamed narrator could take, psychically—I felt these worked best in more surreal scenes, like the diner scene, which is probably among the best writing. Yet the shakiest parts were these repeating, droning flashbacks that recounted in minute detail the slights and terrors that the narrator had experienced from girlhood onward, so similar in its restrained tone, so fatalistic and deferential to the world’s inevitable cruelty, it wasn’t devastating—it was annoying.
Now, this may be intentional on Bernstein’s part, to evoke a guilt in the reader for becoming so fed-up with a woman staying down after being knocked down. Even, maybe, to implicate the reader in the narrator’s subjection. If it’s the case that it’s intended, it’s even more grating.
I’m not sure if we can both—if a character so totally isolated her entire life from a crumb of fairness and self-determination can also be so articulate about the conditions of her own suffering, without, 1) uttering the word “antisemitism” (which is not erased by any means, but is designed to be the invisible, throttling force—I’m still thinking-through this, but how might this book have been more productive if blatantly voiced?); and 2) uttering a howl?
Here’s my idealism bubbling up—my fault—I believe, like the arc of the moral universe, the human heart bends toward justice. Bernstein’s narrator and I won’t see eye-to-eye on this. But I’m not sure if she’s designed to be able to see into very much, including her own agonies, and that might be a bug, not a feature.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, and Gore
Moderate: Xenophobia
Minor: Emotional abuse and Antisemitism
figsofpeach's review against another edition
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? It's complicated
2.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Xenophobia and Animal death
jillaay_h's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Gaslighting, and Confinement
ogik's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, and Antisemitism
deedireads's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Study for Obedience was shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize and winner of the 2023 Giller Prize, and while it’s definitely not going to be for everyone, it was very much for me. I actually enjoyed it even more than I expected to.
This is one of those (fortunately short) books that begs to be read at least twice. The prose is atypical and more akin to a stream of consciousness (although not quite) than traditional storytelling. There’s also no dialogue. But trust Sarah Bernstein, because she’s going to spin you up into a state where suddenly you’re exploring power dynamics and how someone subjected to abuse can twist it into its own form of controlling power.
Honestly, reading this book was unsettling, and I never quite felt like I fully understood it at any given moment, but also felt like witnessing literary witchcraft. If you’re comfortable being uncomfortable, I recommend it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, Toxic relationship, and Domestic abuse