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karleah_may's review
4.0
This was a short read, and I think it needed to be because there was so much darkness and intense sadness in this short novel that I don't know if I could have read a longer story. This was a very intimate portrayal of mental illness and motherhood, and one woman's heartbreaking battle between the two. The writing itself was beautiful, and I have to commend both the author and the translator, there was something haunting about the raw pain that was communicated in this book. I would find it hard to recommend this book because of how painful it was to read, but it is a beautiful work of literature.
thepickygirl's review
4.0
From thepickygirl.com:
Beside the Sea, a novella by Véronique Olmi, translated into English by Adriana Hunter, is what Lionel Shriver (author of We Need To Talk About Kevin) describes as “[a] sustained exercise in dread for the reader” because from the opening lines of the novella, it is apparent that all is not well with our unnamed narrator who is taking her two sons on a trip, staying in a rundown hotel, parceling out her coins for hot chocolate and a trip to the carnival, knowing all along it will be the last trip they make together.
We took the bus, the last bus of the evening, so no one would see us. The boys had their tea before we left, I noticed they didn’t finish the jar of jam and I thought of that jam left there for nothing, it was a shame, but I’d taught them not to waste stuff and to think of the next day.
This mother wants no witnesses to their departure, and though jam is left out, it won’t be used again, so she doesn’t mind the waste too terribly. Though the title implies a vacation of some sort, the way the author describes leaving, it doesn’t sound as though this will be a pleasant holiday on the seashore.
In that oddly-disturbing stream of consciousness manner evident in the brief quote above, the narrator and mother of two boys, describes the two-day trip, and as she does, her further descent and overwhelming despair are suffocating. Riding the bus, she describes watching the cars below:
So cars – which are normally so frightening – were pathetic little contraptions now…it made them see less dangerous, yep, we felt better protected in that bus, even if we were dying of cold.
And here:
Now that we knew where we were we could pretend we didn’t give a damn about anything, didn’t feel any danger, like the other passengers.
This is a fragile individual, one for whom the everyday is nearly impossible, but there are moments of lucidity:
…shoes are the ruination of many a mother. I love saying that: many a mother! then heaving a sigh, overwhelmed, like the ones who wait at twenty-five after four, that’s when you feel like you’ve got so much in common and might understand each other.
But no one does understand this mother, and she’s obviously been tested before as she mentions the social worker with whom she’s met multiple times for various reasons, though none is ever explained. We do know, though, that she’s incapable of remembering almost anything, so rarely remembering to pick up her young son from school that the 9-year-old Stan takes over the responsibility.
At times, she’s painfully aware that she’s different:
You’re never what they want you to be. You irritate them, disgust them….Sometimes, no one knows why, someone exactly matches what everyone expected. And everybody loves them, they cheer them and put them on TV. It’s very rare.
When they finally reach their destination, wet from the rain, dirty, and exhausted, she talks about her weariness:
I’m the only one who’s so exhausted, didn’t I used to long to be knocked down by a car and break my leg so I’d finally have a good enough reason to be left in peace? When am I going to be left in peace?
Yet her children don’t seem to disturb that peace, though her son Stan is ever watchful, watching over Kevin, the youngest, and his mother, obviously aware of any changes in her mood and sensitive to them. Reading her descriptions of him made me achingly sad, so aware that his little life was full of anxiety, wondering if his mother would need to cry or need to sleep or need silence.
They go to the seaside because the boys have always wanted to see it, and because the outing isn’t successful, ruined by a shopkeeper who scorns the few coins she has to feed the boys on their trip, she decides to make it up to them, taking them to a carnival, wanting to see them happy. But the happiness doesn’t last, and they return to the hotel:
I was frightened. We went into that place like going into a church….Churches are very old but they never die. An empty church is something you can’t explain, I like it. The hotel was the same. Something had to happen there.
And happen it does, in a most effective way. The translation award-winning Adriana Hunter is beautiful, all the more because of the challenge of the stream of consciousness narration. At 119 pages, this novella is brief but incredibly powerful, exploring all those unanswerable questions that arise when a mother kills her children.
Beside the Sea, a novella by Véronique Olmi, translated into English by Adriana Hunter, is what Lionel Shriver (author of We Need To Talk About Kevin) describes as “[a] sustained exercise in dread for the reader” because from the opening lines of the novella, it is apparent that all is not well with our unnamed narrator who is taking her two sons on a trip, staying in a rundown hotel, parceling out her coins for hot chocolate and a trip to the carnival, knowing all along it will be the last trip they make together.
We took the bus, the last bus of the evening, so no one would see us. The boys had their tea before we left, I noticed they didn’t finish the jar of jam and I thought of that jam left there for nothing, it was a shame, but I’d taught them not to waste stuff and to think of the next day.
This mother wants no witnesses to their departure, and though jam is left out, it won’t be used again, so she doesn’t mind the waste too terribly. Though the title implies a vacation of some sort, the way the author describes leaving, it doesn’t sound as though this will be a pleasant holiday on the seashore.
In that oddly-disturbing stream of consciousness manner evident in the brief quote above, the narrator and mother of two boys, describes the two-day trip, and as she does, her further descent and overwhelming despair are suffocating. Riding the bus, she describes watching the cars below:
So cars – which are normally so frightening – were pathetic little contraptions now…it made them see less dangerous, yep, we felt better protected in that bus, even if we were dying of cold.
And here:
Now that we knew where we were we could pretend we didn’t give a damn about anything, didn’t feel any danger, like the other passengers.
This is a fragile individual, one for whom the everyday is nearly impossible, but there are moments of lucidity:
…shoes are the ruination of many a mother. I love saying that: many a mother! then heaving a sigh, overwhelmed, like the ones who wait at twenty-five after four, that’s when you feel like you’ve got so much in common and might understand each other.
But no one does understand this mother, and she’s obviously been tested before as she mentions the social worker with whom she’s met multiple times for various reasons, though none is ever explained. We do know, though, that she’s incapable of remembering almost anything, so rarely remembering to pick up her young son from school that the 9-year-old Stan takes over the responsibility.
At times, she’s painfully aware that she’s different:
You’re never what they want you to be. You irritate them, disgust them….Sometimes, no one knows why, someone exactly matches what everyone expected. And everybody loves them, they cheer them and put them on TV. It’s very rare.
When they finally reach their destination, wet from the rain, dirty, and exhausted, she talks about her weariness:
I’m the only one who’s so exhausted, didn’t I used to long to be knocked down by a car and break my leg so I’d finally have a good enough reason to be left in peace? When am I going to be left in peace?
Yet her children don’t seem to disturb that peace, though her son Stan is ever watchful, watching over Kevin, the youngest, and his mother, obviously aware of any changes in her mood and sensitive to them. Reading her descriptions of him made me achingly sad, so aware that his little life was full of anxiety, wondering if his mother would need to cry or need to sleep or need silence.
They go to the seaside because the boys have always wanted to see it, and because the outing isn’t successful, ruined by a shopkeeper who scorns the few coins she has to feed the boys on their trip, she decides to make it up to them, taking them to a carnival, wanting to see them happy. But the happiness doesn’t last, and they return to the hotel:
I was frightened. We went into that place like going into a church….Churches are very old but they never die. An empty church is something you can’t explain, I like it. The hotel was the same. Something had to happen there.
And happen it does, in a most effective way. The translation award-winning Adriana Hunter is beautiful, all the more because of the challenge of the stream of consciousness narration. At 119 pages, this novella is brief but incredibly powerful, exploring all those unanswerable questions that arise when a mother kills her children.
aritrow's review
4.0
Short book that I finished in one read, well written in that I felt the main character's anxiety so much that I felt anxious the more o read. The ending was awful in what happened and in that I would've liked a bit more. Then what? How did she feel at the end? Sigh.
kayasreads's review
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
withlovebatman's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-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? Yes
5.0
Written very, very beautifully
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death and Mental illness
clairewords's review
3.0
A single mother of two boys wants to take them on a little holiday near the sea. That might sound simple enough, but it is a major life event and challenge for this mother, who suffers from some kind of mental affliction that requires her to take daily medication.
This trip is out of the ordinary and we experience it from inside the mind of the mother, the stream of consciousness narrative is so effective here, it gets inside your own mind as you read and we feel her sense of anxiety and the hostility of the outside world, from which she wishes to protect her children.
An incredible novella, I just couldn't give it any more stars, as I don't particularly enjoy going into that state and arriving at its inevitable conclusion.
It is an interesting challenge, that an author would choose to travel inside the mind of someone like this and I am sure this was probably one of the works that the publisher Mieke Ziervogel read as research in writing her book 'Magda'.
Poignant and thought-provoking too, given the issues that lie beneath its surface, this is the story that is never told and rarely understood by the public, who only see the end result and judge it too easily.
This is the first book in the Peirene Press Female Voices: Inner Realities series.
My full review here at Word by Word.
This trip is out of the ordinary and we experience it from inside the mind of the mother, the stream of consciousness narrative is so effective here, it gets inside your own mind as you read and we feel her sense of anxiety and the hostility of the outside world, from which she wishes to protect her children.
An incredible novella, I just couldn't give it any more stars, as I don't particularly enjoy going into that state and arriving at its inevitable conclusion.
It is an interesting challenge, that an author would choose to travel inside the mind of someone like this and I am sure this was probably one of the works that the publisher Mieke Ziervogel read as research in writing her book 'Magda'.
Poignant and thought-provoking too, given the issues that lie beneath its surface, this is the story that is never told and rarely understood by the public, who only see the end result and judge it too easily.
This is the first book in the Peirene Press Female Voices: Inner Realities series.
My full review here at Word by Word.
your_true_shelf's review
5.0
Not a lot happens throughout most of the book, but it doesn't matter as its so beautifully written. The insight you get into the characters is amazing. I can feel how it feels to be the narrator. The translation is fantastic. Even though this book is heartbreaking, it's very much worth reading, it's a real work of art.
silverthane's review
1.0
The story is a narrative told by a mother who takes her two children to the seaside for a holiday. It quickly becomes apparent that she is not the best mother in the world; she can't organise anything properly, shes gets flustered very easily and doesn't have two pennies to rub together. Her children are, on the whole, a pain in the neck and she is almost completely unable to cope with their behaviour.
The story effectively highlights the difficulties faced every day by single mothers and the frustration she feels at their povety however there is a much darker thread throughout the story.
The mother is scared of life, suffers from mental illness and has had her abilities as a mother openly questioned by the authorities. She is close to the edge and the events of the story are a build up to the terrible ending.
I could be specific and mention what happens but if you think about it long enough its not difficult to come to the correct conclusion.
The ending really pained me to read it. I suppose in some ways it is the mark of a good storyteller and writer to be able to terrify the reader so well however the book will only be given one star because, although undeniably powerful, I hated the way this book ended. Not disliked you understand but HATED.
A story truly devoid of hope and, I feel, purpose. Why write a story like that? Does the world need pain and misery in fiction? I don't think so. We have enough of it in reality
The story effectively highlights the difficulties faced every day by single mothers and the frustration she feels at their povety however there is a much darker thread throughout the story.
The mother is scared of life, suffers from mental illness and has had her abilities as a mother openly questioned by the authorities. She is close to the edge and the events of the story are a build up to the terrible ending.
I could be specific and mention what happens but if you think about it long enough its not difficult to come to the correct conclusion.
The ending really pained me to read it. I suppose in some ways it is the mark of a good storyteller and writer to be able to terrify the reader so well however the book will only be given one star because, although undeniably powerful, I hated the way this book ended. Not disliked you understand but HATED.
A story truly devoid of hope and, I feel, purpose. Why write a story like that? Does the world need pain and misery in fiction? I don't think so. We have enough of it in reality