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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
To be fair to this book, I don’t think I was in the right headspace while battling a cold. I was disoriented in time and POV, though I get that this is deliberate to a certain extent to show the effects of trauma and loss on identity.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I might come back and review this again once it settles.
This is a very complicated book. It is obviously beautifully written - it is really what kept me going through multiple complex story lines.
My suggestion would be to take note of the chapter titles as guides for what story, timeline, and perspective you are in. I figured it out a quarter of the way through and had to go back and confirm details.
Despite the beauty of the writing, there is very little romance in this book - the place and characters are tough, gritty, and complicated. The use/meaning of gender dismorphia and trans-ness is something i will be trying to figure out for a bit i feel.
It is not a bad book, but note sure i would recommend it.
This is a very complicated book. It is obviously beautifully written - it is really what kept me going through multiple complex story lines.
My suggestion would be to take note of the chapter titles as guides for what story, timeline, and perspective you are in. I figured it out a quarter of the way through and had to go back and confirm details.
Despite the beauty of the writing, there is very little romance in this book - the place and characters are tough, gritty, and complicated. The use/meaning of gender dismorphia and trans-ness is something i will be trying to figure out for a bit i feel.
It is not a bad book, but note sure i would recommend it.
I found this to be a tedious slog through a world of hopelessly-broken (almost cartoonishly so) characters who are unrelentingly miserable about everything.
We are all completely familiar with the main plot -- it would be unlikely for anyone to read this book without being aware that it is Oedipus, and anyone who did so would be confused about what is happening. Margot/Marcus exists as a character only to touch each of the main plot points, without there being any pretense that he is making choices or living as an individual. The narrator exists only to investigate and narrate, seemingly without any desire to do so. Sarah and Fiona exist only to be hopelessly unreliable sources of scraps of information, which nonetheless are doled out and fit into place just when needed for the purpose of the narration. "The Bonak" is just as present or absent or scary or beatable as it needs to be in any circumstance, and we don't feel inclined to ponder it.
Unrelenting direness aside, the writing is lovely. It's just not enough to make you glad that you are immersed in the hopeless riverside counter-world.
We are all completely familiar with the main plot -- it would be unlikely for anyone to read this book without being aware that it is Oedipus, and anyone who did so would be confused about what is happening. Margot/Marcus exists as a character only to touch each of the main plot points, without there being any pretense that he is making choices or living as an individual. The narrator exists only to investigate and narrate, seemingly without any desire to do so. Sarah and Fiona exist only to be hopelessly unreliable sources of scraps of information, which nonetheless are doled out and fit into place just when needed for the purpose of the narration. "The Bonak" is just as present or absent or scary or beatable as it needs to be in any circumstance, and we don't feel inclined to ponder it.
Unrelenting direness aside, the writing is lovely. It's just not enough to make you glad that you are immersed in the hopeless riverside counter-world.
This is the story of Gretel, a young lexicographer who was abandoned by her mother at sixteen. It's the story of a woman in search of her roots, the story of a woman trying to reconnect with her past, the story of a woman trying to find her mother and the young person who lived with them on their houseboat, years ago...
It's a wonderfully unsettling revisioning of the Oedipus myth (how could it be anything else?), with several allusions to Hansel and Gretel as well. The language is stunning, and it is also, in many ways, the point. Language matters a great deal in this book. I'm in. Anyone can retell a myth, a fairy tale; this one takes some care. The language drives the book. It's weird and beautiful and it works.
It's a wonderfully unsettling revisioning of the Oedipus myth (how could it be anything else?), with several allusions to Hansel and Gretel as well. The language is stunning, and it is also, in many ways, the point. Language matters a great deal in this book. I'm in. Anyone can retell a myth, a fairy tale; this one takes some care. The language drives the book. It's weird and beautiful and it works.
I almost never read the synopsis of a book before starting it but with this one it would've been very helpful. This is a gender transforming retelling of the myth of Oedipus.
A quiet, moody mediation on Oedipus, gender, and language itself.
I see a few of my Goodreads friends are rather lukewarm about this novel. Maybe because I'm coming to it late--not sure how, I found it on my Kindle so I must have pirated it on Bittorrent at some point but I don't remember, now, what prompted me to do so--and so I started reading it with no hype in my ear, I really loved it. This is the most original and wonderful contemporary novel I've read since Anna Burns's Milkman.
Interestingly, because of its Rome setting, I'd picked up Tom Rachman's The Italian Teacher, and had gotten around 15 pages in when the writing style really started to grate. Although the characters and story was starting to pull me in, I was resisting the tone, put the book down and started casually browsing through the novels on my Kindle. Maybe it was the contrast, but even just the first few sentences of Everything Under hooked me and I plowed right through. The language was so inventive it grabbed me right away and carried me straight through to the end. The narrative voice is just wonderfully quirky and original--as are the characters and the tale. Also the greater forms, the non-linear story telling and the slow reveal back to the heart of the story, were just perfect. Absolutely great writing in my opinion.
Oddly, I found it reminding me of Davis Grubb's Night of the Hunter, maybe because of the take on childhood and adolescence, and the relative innocence of the narrative voice, or perhaps having a river as a main character. Well, and the fear permeating both tales. Also, beyond the crux of the narrative--which I won't give away as it was so pleasurable to slowly figure it out--the situations and characters here were so raw and human, it was refreshing. not only are there no cellphones or social media, but not much school or taxes or anything bourgeois at all. The river people here, bordering on madness, I suppose, but also wholly rejecting the mainstream world as we know it today for the most part made the story all the more real, alluring, and important. Loved the blurring of myth, dreams, paranoid fears, and a kind of reality. So well done.
Interestingly, because of its Rome setting, I'd picked up Tom Rachman's The Italian Teacher, and had gotten around 15 pages in when the writing style really started to grate. Although the characters and story was starting to pull me in, I was resisting the tone, put the book down and started casually browsing through the novels on my Kindle. Maybe it was the contrast, but even just the first few sentences of Everything Under hooked me and I plowed right through. The language was so inventive it grabbed me right away and carried me straight through to the end. The narrative voice is just wonderfully quirky and original--as are the characters and the tale. Also the greater forms, the non-linear story telling and the slow reveal back to the heart of the story, were just perfect. Absolutely great writing in my opinion.
Oddly, I found it reminding me of Davis Grubb's Night of the Hunter, maybe because of the take on childhood and adolescence, and the relative innocence of the narrative voice, or perhaps having a river as a main character. Well, and the fear permeating both tales. Also, beyond the crux of the narrative--which I won't give away as it was so pleasurable to slowly figure it out--the situations and characters here were so raw and human, it was refreshing. not only are there no cellphones or social media, but not much school or taxes or anything bourgeois at all. The river people here, bordering on madness, I suppose, but also wholly rejecting the mainstream world as we know it today for the most part made the story all the more real, alluring, and important. Loved the blurring of myth, dreams, paranoid fears, and a kind of reality. So well done.
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes