Scan barcode
thebobsphere's review
2.0
I am struggling to actually write what Asphodel is about. Honestly though it feels like doing that is a useless exercise. There is a plot but this is a ‘textured’ novel. Anyway here goes :
Hermione is an American who is now living in Paris. Us readers get an insight to her views of European culture and relationships with both men and women, then the same thing happens again except in London.
The thing is Asphodel is more about sights and sound being brought out repetition of certain words, certain spelling and twisted viewpoints. The prose is very rhythmic and after a few pages you get used to it.
However there’s a lot of different styles chucked at you, dialogue mashed up with ‘formal’ text so the book shifts narrator-wise, although not as bad as Jachym Topol’s City Sister Silver, I did get a bit frustrated while reading the novel.
I am trying my hardest to like this narrative form but it honestly is something that just irritates me. I’m hoping that there will be one book which helps me change this silly attitude of mine!
Hermione is an American who is now living in Paris. Us readers get an insight to her views of European culture and relationships with both men and women, then the same thing happens again except in London.
The thing is Asphodel is more about sights and sound being brought out repetition of certain words, certain spelling and twisted viewpoints. The prose is very rhythmic and after a few pages you get used to it.
However there’s a lot of different styles chucked at you, dialogue mashed up with ‘formal’ text so the book shifts narrator-wise, although not as bad as Jachym Topol’s City Sister Silver, I did get a bit frustrated while reading the novel.
I am trying my hardest to like this narrative form but it honestly is something that just irritates me. I’m hoping that there will be one book which helps me change this silly attitude of mine!
cattytrona's review
3.0
we’re so reliant on words to make sense, and so much of the writing we receive from the world does, which makes it catastrophically easy to forget that in fact, it’s actually easier to write nonsense than sense; that words can be just as utterly disorienting as grounding or truth-affirming. sense floats to the surface in this, and narrative persists throughout, despite it all, but it’s notable that the book starts on the rolling, seasick deck of a ship a-wave
cnyreader's review
4.0
Reading this book felt like walking through a dream. The style is stream-of-consciousness, which honestly usually annoys me to no end. Here, though... it's compelling and beautiful and readable and it drew me in. Flowers and Greek mythology abound in this book. And the colors- so many colors!
This is an autobiographical story by HD of her time living in Europe before, during and after WWI. She was contemporaries with artists and writers of the time and some of them feature in her story. I was very conscious of reading a true story, because, despite the dream-like feeling of the writing, it feels very real. The substance of the story may fade with time, but feeling of it will stick with me.
Food: a meal of edible flowers. Vibrant, perfumed, sometimes bitter, like nothing you've ever eaten and not soon to be forgotten.
This is an autobiographical story by HD of her time living in Europe before, during and after WWI. She was contemporaries with artists and writers of the time and some of them feature in her story. I was very conscious of reading a true story, because, despite the dream-like feeling of the writing, it feels very real. The substance of the story may fade with time, but feeling of it will stick with me.
Food: a meal of edible flowers. Vibrant, perfumed, sometimes bitter, like nothing you've ever eaten and not soon to be forgotten.
More...