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briancrandall's review against another edition
5.0
Words rolled in my hand like marbles, damaged glass marbles with dull, scratched surfaces and tiny nicks, scoured by sand, dirt, concrete, the glass of other marbles. A soft click when they collided, a sound that my entire body would strain to hear, to see if it would form a picture. [123]
lene_kretzsch's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
lauradvb's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
relaxing
slow-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
3.75
alexwont's review against another edition
3.0
In the vein of A Sand County Almanac or Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but with more people
drifterontherun's review against another edition
2.0
Books about nothing are especially in vogue lately. I've read a few myself, and generally quite liked them, Karl Ove Knausgaard's six-part "My Struggle" series in particular, but Jon Fosse's recent [b:The Other Name: Septology I-II|46024004|The Other Name Septology I-II|Jon Fosse|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1558984578l/46024004._SY75_.jpg|72858854] wasn't bad either.
Like those books, "Grove" is essentially plotless and features a protagonist who's a thinly veiled version of the author. But unlike those books, "Grove" isn't worth the slog. And a slog it most certainly is.
If Knausgaard's "My Struggle" is about nothing, then "Grove" is about less than nothing. It's the literary equivalent of watching paint dry. Each page goes on, and on, and on, seemingly without end, blending one into another.
I like cemeteries a lot. I'm always up to visit a good cemetery, and Kinsky never misses the chance to visit a cemetery either. Or to write about it. The problem is, she writes about them all, except she's not writing, she's just describing.
Whereas a trip through a cemetery in "My Struggle" would have resulted in a digression on the nature of life and death and the odd habit we in the Western world have of embalming our dead before burying them, Kinsky writes when it seems what she really wants to do is take a photo. She describes this tombstone, that tombstone, the flowers on the tombstone, the birds that are chirping in the trees above the tombstones, it's all surface. It's all outer details.
In short, it's boring. It teaches us nothing. We've all seen a tombstone before. We've all seen a flower. We know how they look. What we want, when reading a novel, is to know how these things make our protagonist feels. Instead, "Grove" just tells us what our protagonist sees.
"Grove" isn't "A Field Novel," it's a field journal, the kind of thing you might take with you on a walk through the countryside. You'd stop and sit, making notes along the way, and — I don't think I'm going out on a limb saying this — yours would almost certainly be more interesting.
Because have I mentioned yet how uninteresting all this is? Here are 277 pages — which feel more like 677 — full of descriptions of cemeteries, trees, grass, crumbling Italian facades. That's it. There is nothing here to enlighten, nothing here that you couldn't have written yourself.
I did stop and think before writing that last sentence, because there is nothing more annoying than the person who, glancing quickly from artwork to artwork in a world class museum, claims, "I could paint that."
But there is nothing here that makes me think that a person who scored reasonably well in a college English exam could not write a few pages about their local park and make it sound at least as interesting as Esther Kinsky manages to make the Italian countryside sound.
Italy is a beautiful country, an inspiring country, but you wouldn't guess it from reading this dull tome. I'm not saying that there aren't people who may enjoy this kind of writing. There are people, after all, who enjoy golfing. People who think the most thrilling thing in life is having their toes sucked. And, most horrifying of all, people who support Donald Trump. The point is, I can't speak for the entirety of our bewildering species.
Let's just put it this way. If you're one of those people who really like listening to the sound of rain falling, but not when you're trying to fall asleep, and you don't actually like listening to it, you like reading about it, then this is the book for you.
Yes, a book about the sound of rain falling. Nothing more. Because you find reading about the sound of falling rain soothing, comforting somehow.
Here it is at last. A book about the sound of falling rain, except you can't hear it. You just see it, written on the page over and over and over again for 277 pages.
This is what falling rain sounds like when you read about it in a book.
Is it pointless? Sure. Does it put you to sleep? Yes. But not because it's pleasant. Nothing about it really is.
Like those books, "Grove" is essentially plotless and features a protagonist who's a thinly veiled version of the author. But unlike those books, "Grove" isn't worth the slog. And a slog it most certainly is.
If Knausgaard's "My Struggle" is about nothing, then "Grove" is about less than nothing. It's the literary equivalent of watching paint dry. Each page goes on, and on, and on, seemingly without end, blending one into another.
I like cemeteries a lot. I'm always up to visit a good cemetery, and Kinsky never misses the chance to visit a cemetery either. Or to write about it. The problem is, she writes about them all, except she's not writing, she's just describing.
Whereas a trip through a cemetery in "My Struggle" would have resulted in a digression on the nature of life and death and the odd habit we in the Western world have of embalming our dead before burying them, Kinsky writes when it seems what she really wants to do is take a photo. She describes this tombstone, that tombstone, the flowers on the tombstone, the birds that are chirping in the trees above the tombstones, it's all surface. It's all outer details.
In short, it's boring. It teaches us nothing. We've all seen a tombstone before. We've all seen a flower. We know how they look. What we want, when reading a novel, is to know how these things make our protagonist feels. Instead, "Grove" just tells us what our protagonist sees.
"Grove" isn't "A Field Novel," it's a field journal, the kind of thing you might take with you on a walk through the countryside. You'd stop and sit, making notes along the way, and — I don't think I'm going out on a limb saying this — yours would almost certainly be more interesting.
Because have I mentioned yet how uninteresting all this is? Here are 277 pages — which feel more like 677 — full of descriptions of cemeteries, trees, grass, crumbling Italian facades. That's it. There is nothing here to enlighten, nothing here that you couldn't have written yourself.
I did stop and think before writing that last sentence, because there is nothing more annoying than the person who, glancing quickly from artwork to artwork in a world class museum, claims, "I could paint that."
But there is nothing here that makes me think that a person who scored reasonably well in a college English exam could not write a few pages about their local park and make it sound at least as interesting as Esther Kinsky manages to make the Italian countryside sound.
Italy is a beautiful country, an inspiring country, but you wouldn't guess it from reading this dull tome. I'm not saying that there aren't people who may enjoy this kind of writing. There are people, after all, who enjoy golfing. People who think the most thrilling thing in life is having their toes sucked. And, most horrifying of all, people who support Donald Trump. The point is, I can't speak for the entirety of our bewildering species.
Let's just put it this way. If you're one of those people who really like listening to the sound of rain falling, but not when you're trying to fall asleep, and you don't actually like listening to it, you like reading about it, then this is the book for you.
Yes, a book about the sound of rain falling. Nothing more. Because you find reading about the sound of falling rain soothing, comforting somehow.
Here it is at last. A book about the sound of falling rain, except you can't hear it. You just see it, written on the page over and over and over again for 277 pages.
This is what falling rain sounds like when you read about it in a book.
Is it pointless? Sure. Does it put you to sleep? Yes. But not because it's pleasant. Nothing about it really is.
abby_writes's review against another edition
Grove is an intensely interior book comprised of the narrator's reflections on nostalgia and death -- the unnamed narrator travels to the outskirts of Rome to mourn the loss of her partner, 'M' and, in the second section, to remember her father, who loved both Italy and the Etruscans, it seems as though her travels are something of a pilgrimage for them both. The narrator is steeped in her bereavement and wanders through landscapes, describing them in great detail, a mosaic comprised of singular photographs. In particular, the narrator describes cemeteries, birds, even traffic, and speaks often her abiding disgust with eels. Grove was incredibly slow and dense and took me several days to read, but I am glad I had the experience. This book is difficult to rate as it's mostly about nothing, so I won't try.
kylie_the_second's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
This text seems pure like a crystal paperweight. It is beautiful, and some days more than others call for staring at a crystal paperweight. I appreciate this book more thinking of it like this, something to pick up and ponder at from time to time, rather than trying to find a reason to read its pages in order in consecutive sittings. So many descriptions of trees and clouds and the sky and birds and dead birds and observing the landscape - these are all positives for me and i realized there's no need to take them in all at once
evaross's review against another edition
Was good but near the end felt like it could be wrapped up. got a little boring. might come back and finish it one day
abbie_'s review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
Free review copy provided by the publisher!
I’m sorry to say that this book just was not for me. I was looking forward to it since Fitzcarraldo are one of my favourite publishers and anyone who knows my reading taste knows I love a good book about not much in particular. But apparently Grove surpassed my limit, and it was too much nothing 🙈
I’m sorry to say that this book just was not for me. I was looking forward to it since Fitzcarraldo are one of my favourite publishers and anyone who knows my reading taste knows I love a good book about not much in particular. But apparently Grove surpassed my limit, and it was too much nothing 🙈
.
I do think this book has its readers who will cherish it. It follows a woman whose partner recently passed away, who decides to take their planned trip to Italy solo. Then in part two she reminisces on her trips to Italy with her family. Then in part three... I’m not sure as my attention span had well and truly checked out. But I think it might offer some comfort and solidarity to the recently bereaved. Those who love Italy and nature writing (or despise eels) might also enjoy this one!
.
It did make me realise what I love about books about ‘nothing’, which was lacking in part one (making up 125 pages) of Grove. I love reading about the everyday lives of people, but I love gaining insight into their thoughts, memories, their dynamics with other people in their lives. Part one of this book felt like the very long setting of a scene in a theatre. The narrator just describes what she sees, it’s all very static and we’re not really privy to what’s going on *inside* her head, only what she witnesses. Part two was slightly better, as we had some family dynamics!
.
It’s a shame, but I hope this book will find its way into the hands of the right reader! Caroline Schmidt has done a lovely job with the translation from German - it was the content that was not for me.
gremily's review against another edition
3.0
Another “it’s not you it’s me" reading experience this week.
Esther Kinsky’s unnamed, presumably autobiographical narrator spends time in Italy mourning the recent death of her partner. She describes everything around her at length; particularly the cemetery and the birds, but also the town, bus rides to different cities and villages, people outside bars and inside grocery stores, African migrants hawking packs of underwear.
In part II she recalls family trips to Italy and her father, who died many years before and who had an abiding fascination with the country and with the Etruscans. Part III knots the various strands together, although that could be overstating it; it could just be read as more of the same. The back cover tells us that “seeing, describing, naming the world around her is her way of redefining her place within it.” This isn’t entirely obvious from the text, but it’s plausible.
I felt immense sympathy with the narrator, crushed by bereavement. And among her short descriptive vignettes were some real standouts; particularly a running thread about eels which I found really very striking. Her descriptions of a semi-deserted Italian town were very evocative too – I’ve spent time in winter in Olevano’s Spanish equivalents and there is a certain cold, bird-inflected emptiness that really comes across on the page.
It is also, however, a glacially slow book, endlessly interior, really with very little in the way of epiphany or reward for the reader. Perhaps it would be most fair to say that this is a book for a very specific reader. I could be that reader if Grove were half the length it is, but I found myself losing the will to live (ironically) every time the narrator visited a new cemetery, and every time the word “Etruscan” appeared on the page. I don’t regret reading this, but I wish it had been a slightly different experience.
Esther Kinsky’s unnamed, presumably autobiographical narrator spends time in Italy mourning the recent death of her partner. She describes everything around her at length; particularly the cemetery and the birds, but also the town, bus rides to different cities and villages, people outside bars and inside grocery stores, African migrants hawking packs of underwear.
In part II she recalls family trips to Italy and her father, who died many years before and who had an abiding fascination with the country and with the Etruscans. Part III knots the various strands together, although that could be overstating it; it could just be read as more of the same. The back cover tells us that “seeing, describing, naming the world around her is her way of redefining her place within it.” This isn’t entirely obvious from the text, but it’s plausible.
I felt immense sympathy with the narrator, crushed by bereavement. And among her short descriptive vignettes were some real standouts; particularly a running thread about eels which I found really very striking. Her descriptions of a semi-deserted Italian town were very evocative too – I’ve spent time in winter in Olevano’s Spanish equivalents and there is a certain cold, bird-inflected emptiness that really comes across on the page.
It is also, however, a glacially slow book, endlessly interior, really with very little in the way of epiphany or reward for the reader. Perhaps it would be most fair to say that this is a book for a very specific reader. I could be that reader if Grove were half the length it is, but I found myself losing the will to live (ironically) every time the narrator visited a new cemetery, and every time the word “Etruscan” appeared on the page. I don’t regret reading this, but I wish it had been a slightly different experience.