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3.28 AVERAGE
3.28 AVERAGE
The Transcriptionist follows Lena, who is a transcriptionist for a respected newspaper. Although not explicitly stated, she struggles with dissociation, which exacerbated by the continued focus of everyone's voices and stories but her own. She feels like she is a recording - not herself. Her world starts to unravel when a women she very briefly knew dies and fixates on the circumstances surrounding the woman's death. While slow at times, it's a beautiful and insightful read.
I was immediately struck by the clarity of Rowland's voice in this, her first novel. It wasn't surprising to later learn that she has had a career at The New York Times; the journalistic influences are clear and make her writing easy to devour. The protagonist, Lena, is presented as a somewhat reclusive, odd, and yet extremely well-educated wallflower-- making her equal parts identifiable and underwhelming. In fact, the novel is populated with characters of this sort, and they all seem to be caught up in their own, magnanimous agenda. I should stress that the best parts of the novel happen in the beginning, and Lena's interaction with the blind woman is definitely powerful. She also has a smart, easy humor that is quite entertaining. Themes of ephemerality, loss, and imprisonment are employed with a heavy hand, and the ending seems contrived. That being said, the novel is enjoyable, and I hope to see more from Rowland in the future.
i couldn’t really get into this one, but i didn’t necessarily dislike it. the dialogue felt too aware of itself, and that threw me off. the pacing was a little weird, too, and i didn't care much about any of the characters. it wasn't bad, it just wasn’t for me.
Over the last year, I’ve read more than a handful of debut novels. This one ranks close to the top of my favorites.
Lena is the sole transcriptionist at The Record in Manhattan. She becomes obsessed with the story of a Jane Doe who was mauled to death by lions at a zoo.
Lena is the sole transcriptionist at The Record in Manhattan. She becomes obsessed with the story of a Jane Doe who was mauled to death by lions at a zoo.
Though beautifully written, this whole novel fell flat for me. From brief interest at the beginning, I quickly realized not much was going to happen in the novel, so I held out for some greater meaning, some exploration of the human condition that would rock my world and alter my paradigm. Nope. Just lots and lots of pretty words.
The blurb here on Goodreads says "Obsessed with understanding what caused the woman to deliberately climb into the lion's den, Lena begins a campaign for truth that will destroy the Record's complacency and shake the venerable institution to its very foundation." I mean, that's just not what happened at all. Lena's personal campaign has little to nothing to do with the actual running of the Record, a newspaper which seems to actually have several excellent journalists in it (I loved Russell and was surprised other people on here thought he was a douche! Oh well). In addition, the portrayal of the war correspondent seemed WAY off to me. You don't get embedded in a war zone for years and end up a shallow, self-obsessed truth-bender. I can just imagine my friend who reports for NPR reading this book and throwing it across the room in a rage. It isn't fair to the profession of reporting and what they go through, and how it changes and challenges them. Maybe this is why I was more sympathetic to Russell's horror over Lena's breach of ethics than I was Lena.
I also could not get a grasp on the technology. I was stupefied to think they were using cassettes -CASSETTES- and corded land lines. This is set several years after 9/11, and I can understand the whole bemoaning changing technology and making certain jobs obsolete bit, but seriously who the heck was using cassettes in 2004? Lena herself seemed to be from a different decade that didn't fit her age.
Where I can identify with this story, is in the head of the transcriptionist in the act of transcribing. I have been this person for many years. It's how I put myself through grad school. There is a bizarre state of consciousness that a transcriptionist enters, in which they are wholly and entirely absorbing a conversation of which they are not a part, but which they must faithfully present to the world. You can't help but learn all of the facts that are presented to you, or reflect on the accuracy of them, or judge the person dictating them. You just do. In that regard, I get Lena, but rather than be a full exploration of the way we filter and disseminate information, this was a rambling angsty journal entry which I fully expected to culminate in a suicide.
I DID love the reflection on scripture, newspaper, and television toward the end, but overall this felt like something the author saw as brilliant but it simply wasn't. Pretty but pretentious, in summary.
The blurb here on Goodreads says "Obsessed with understanding what caused the woman to deliberately climb into the lion's den, Lena begins a campaign for truth that will destroy the Record's complacency and shake the venerable institution to its very foundation." I mean, that's just not what happened at all. Lena's personal campaign has little to nothing to do with the actual running of the Record, a newspaper which seems to actually have several excellent journalists in it (I loved Russell and was surprised other people on here thought he was a douche! Oh well). In addition, the portrayal of the war correspondent seemed WAY off to me. You don't get embedded in a war zone for years and end up a shallow, self-obsessed truth-bender. I can just imagine my friend who reports for NPR reading this book and throwing it across the room in a rage. It isn't fair to the profession of reporting and what they go through, and how it changes and challenges them. Maybe this is why I was more sympathetic to Russell's horror over Lena's breach of ethics than I was Lena.
I also could not get a grasp on the technology. I was stupefied to think they were using cassettes -CASSETTES- and corded land lines. This is set several years after 9/11, and I can understand the whole bemoaning changing technology and making certain jobs obsolete bit, but seriously who the heck was using cassettes in 2004? Lena herself seemed to be from a different decade that didn't fit her age.
Where I can identify with this story, is in the head of the transcriptionist in the act of transcribing. I have been this person for many years. It's how I put myself through grad school. There is a bizarre state of consciousness that a transcriptionist enters, in which they are wholly and entirely absorbing a conversation of which they are not a part, but which they must faithfully present to the world. You can't help but learn all of the facts that are presented to you, or reflect on the accuracy of them, or judge the person dictating them. You just do. In that regard, I get Lena, but rather than be a full exploration of the way we filter and disseminate information, this was a rambling angsty journal entry which I fully expected to culminate in a suicide.
I DID love the reflection on scripture, newspaper, and television toward the end, but overall this felt like something the author saw as brilliant but it simply wasn't. Pretty but pretentious, in summary.
Lena is the last transcriptionist working for a large New York city paper, the Record. As the stories have floated her way through her headset only this latest one has haunted her so much, the story of a blind woman who commits suicide by giving herself over to the lions at the zoo.
This was a lovely little read, but I wanted more. I felt like it ended right when it was supposed to begin. Also, for some reason I thought there was going to be a much bigger mystery to solve. So maybe this is a case of never have expectations because again it was beautiful and rich and a really great testimonial to the times. I also just really loved this character.
#BookBingoNW2018 #fiction
This was a lovely little read, but I wanted more. I felt like it ended right when it was supposed to begin. Also, for some reason I thought there was going to be a much bigger mystery to solve. So maybe this is a case of never have expectations because again it was beautiful and rich and a really great testimonial to the times. I also just really loved this character.
#BookBingoNW2018 #fiction
Lina works as a transcriptionist in an important New York newspaper. But transcripting isn't just her job - it's her whole being. She lives her life through the words of others. She is almost invisible, hidden in far corner of the newspaper building, without anyone knowing her name. The only person who calls her by name does it by the wrong one. In response to events in her daily life, quotes from books she has read and from articles she has worked on keep popping into her mind. She almost never has words of her own. As opposed to all of those verbal reporters she works with, Lina is almost speechless. Silence vs. Speech is one of the strongest motifs in the novel. Lina is like the dictaphone she uses for her work - recorded in her mind are texts written by others in different times and places, but no original texts which reflect her authentic self.
In the beginning of the novel, Lina hears about a blind woman who has entered the lions' den in the zoo and was eaten by them. Later she remembers that she has met the woman a few days beforehand on the bus. It seems that the idea of losing a sense is very troubling to Lina. One of the episodes' title sayd that hearing is the last sense we lose before we die. For Lina, losing her hearing is death. She also seems to be much troubled (but also drawn to) death, especially the choice of suicide. She watches reporters jump to their deaths, and is interested in the possibility that the blind woman's death was a suicide. But is Lina's life can truly be considered as living? If you can't find your own words and live authentically, are you really alive? Lina tries to convince the pigeon on her window seal to jump into the scary air outside. Will she be able to jump out and fly, or will she fall down?
Profound writing, thought provoking and unique.
In the beginning of the novel, Lina hears about a blind woman who has entered the lions' den in the zoo and was eaten by them. Later she remembers that she has met the woman a few days beforehand on the bus. It seems that the idea of losing a sense is very troubling to Lina. One of the episodes' title sayd that hearing is the last sense we lose before we die. For Lina, losing her hearing is death. She also seems to be much troubled (but also drawn to) death, especially the choice of suicide. She watches reporters jump to their deaths, and is interested in the possibility that the blind woman's death was a suicide. But is Lina's life can truly be considered as living? If you can't find your own words and live authentically, are you really alive? Lina tries to convince the pigeon on her window seal to jump into the scary air outside. Will she be able to jump out and fly, or will she fall down?
Profound writing, thought provoking and unique.
The Transcriptionist
Lena is a transcriptionist at The Record (a sort of faux New York Times). She is the last vestige of a dying role in a fading industry. This ephemeral state has left her unsettled as of late. She hears the reporters calling in reporting various horrors and she must play them back and transcribe them. A reporter talks about the war in Iraq, how an explosion in a marketplace has blown off the foot of a young man; another reports on a mudslide in Pakistan and how the families will continue to dig until they find their lost loved ones. The stories become too much to bear, creating a crisis for Lena. She suffers severe migraines and is generally depressed. One evening, she meets a blind woman on the subway who comforts her. She is a court reporter who must transcribe similar horrors and atrocities. She talks of how she had to transcribe a recording of a child screaming not wanting to go with her father during a custody dispute. How does she transcribe the screaming? Lena discovers later that this same fellow recorder is found dead inside the lion’s cage at the zoo, mauled to death. The story and the subsequent aftermath push Lena over the edge, forcing her to confront her actions and find out the truth.
Much of this story reminded me of Tethered by Amy MacKinnon. In that story a fragile mortician who faces death everyday has to find a way to deal with it without her faith. Lena has also turned away from her Catholic upbringing hoping the written word would be her own faith. Books like Middlemarch become her Bible. However, she also loses that core and now only uses it to distance herself from others instead of using her own voice and her own thoughts. This is one of the main points of the story. Those who report in to her for dictation pass the words and stories through her and she cannot find her own. She begins to unravel very early in the story. It has a very Twilight Zone kind of feel. She calls into to her own dictation phone and leaves messages for herself and sometimes for the dead woman killed by lions. She begins to feel the same way as if she herself is disappearing into vapor. She only finds herself when she stands up for herself and who she is.
The story is a long slow descent into a somewhat madness. Rowland doesn’t take it that far, but Lena seemingly skirts on the edge of depression and suicide. The blind court reporter could be her future and most of the story is taken up with that obsession. Most of this story takes place around 2004 and it becomes a key point to the story even though it feels like a hollow resurrection. The Iraq War and some notorious reporting in the fictional The Record are reminiscent of the planted stories from the Pentagon in the New York Times around the same period. This aspect didn’t seem to fit and it doesn’t seem to redeem or resolve Lena’s character. In my mind, that doesn’t seem to be a strong enough revelation to break her from her spell.
This was an incredibly difficult book to review and I would imagine even more difficult to blurb. There seems to be two aspects to the story, the ephermal nature of the transcriptionist, and the corruption of the newspaper. They don't seem connected and they don't resolve one another. I couldn't get what the author was going for in the resolution. Her story alone was good and had the best resolution she could have had making it satisfying, but disjointed story.
Lena is a transcriptionist at The Record (a sort of faux New York Times). She is the last vestige of a dying role in a fading industry. This ephemeral state has left her unsettled as of late. She hears the reporters calling in reporting various horrors and she must play them back and transcribe them. A reporter talks about the war in Iraq, how an explosion in a marketplace has blown off the foot of a young man; another reports on a mudslide in Pakistan and how the families will continue to dig until they find their lost loved ones. The stories become too much to bear, creating a crisis for Lena. She suffers severe migraines and is generally depressed. One evening, she meets a blind woman on the subway who comforts her. She is a court reporter who must transcribe similar horrors and atrocities. She talks of how she had to transcribe a recording of a child screaming not wanting to go with her father during a custody dispute. How does she transcribe the screaming? Lena discovers later that this same fellow recorder is found dead inside the lion’s cage at the zoo, mauled to death. The story and the subsequent aftermath push Lena over the edge, forcing her to confront her actions and find out the truth.
Much of this story reminded me of Tethered by Amy MacKinnon. In that story a fragile mortician who faces death everyday has to find a way to deal with it without her faith. Lena has also turned away from her Catholic upbringing hoping the written word would be her own faith. Books like Middlemarch become her Bible. However, she also loses that core and now only uses it to distance herself from others instead of using her own voice and her own thoughts. This is one of the main points of the story. Those who report in to her for dictation pass the words and stories through her and she cannot find her own. She begins to unravel very early in the story. It has a very Twilight Zone kind of feel. She calls into to her own dictation phone and leaves messages for herself and sometimes for the dead woman killed by lions. She begins to feel the same way as if she herself is disappearing into vapor. She only finds herself when she stands up for herself and who she is.
The story is a long slow descent into a somewhat madness. Rowland doesn’t take it that far, but Lena seemingly skirts on the edge of depression and suicide. The blind court reporter could be her future and most of the story is taken up with that obsession. Most of this story takes place around 2004 and it becomes a key point to the story even though it feels like a hollow resurrection. The Iraq War and some notorious reporting in the fictional The Record are reminiscent of the planted stories from the Pentagon in the New York Times around the same period. This aspect didn’t seem to fit and it doesn’t seem to redeem or resolve Lena’s character. In my mind, that doesn’t seem to be a strong enough revelation to break her from her spell.
This was an incredibly difficult book to review and I would imagine even more difficult to blurb. There seems to be two aspects to the story, the ephermal nature of the transcriptionist, and the corruption of the newspaper. They don't seem connected and they don't resolve one another. I couldn't get what the author was going for in the resolution. Her story alone was good and had the best resolution she could have had making it satisfying, but disjointed story.