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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
just didn't do it for me. this was extremely disappointing for a booker prize nominee as well, maybe my expectations would have been different without it.
long winded, with the author showing
long winded, with the author showing
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
I have a LOT of thoughts on this one, so this review is going to be extensive.
Everything Under is a strange, thought-provoking and at times blatantly cryptic story about memory, family, madness and fate.
The plot interweaves the events of a well-known Greek Myth with elements of a popular fairy tale . Allusions to the former are fairly easy to spot and had me predicting the tragic and dark secrets at the heart of the tale from about halfway through. Despite knowing what was going to happen, I still found myself intensely captivated by the way the opaque references to the myth pulled together all the different parts of the story. In contrast, the fairy tale imagery was so subtle and clever that I almost didn't pick up on it, and only retrospectively understood those references, scattered throughout the novel, in the final five pages.
The novel is beautifully and precisely written, rich with metaphors, symbols and subtle, everyday motifs which act as signposts linking the different segments of the story together, creating a timeline of events in the mind of the reader and helping to alleviate the initial confusion caused by the novel's lack of chronology.
The very structure of the novel has symbolic significance. The story is mainly told in three principal segments which run alongside each other (The Cottage, The Hunt, The River), perhaps mimicking the flow of different currents in the river on which the majority of the action occurs. The Cottage is the segment in which the novel starts and ends and the most recent in the timeline. It depicts a 32 year old Gretel and Sarah, the aged, dementia-suffering mother who she has recently found again after being abandoned by her at the age of sixteen. The Hunt tells the story of Gretel's search for her mother in the days before she finds her and brings her back to her cottage. The River is told from the perspective of Marcus, a mysterious boy of unknown origins who we will later learn has an inextricable connection with Gretel and her mother. The novel also closely deals with the theme of memory and its deceptiveness. The structure flits between these three segments and so mingles and interchanges different time periods and plot points, adding to the sense of ambiguity in the storytelling and underlining the cracks in the characters' memories which are tangled and elusive due to Sarah's dementia and Gretel's childhood trauma.
All three of the main storytellers are unreliable narrators, their perceptions are distorted by different forms of mental instability and love, by isolation from the outside world. Johnson describes the scenery and atmosphere of life on the river with a sort of creepy mysticality which is as compelling as it is unsettling. The river appears to be all-consuming and omnipotent, and those living on it exist outside any of the normal authorities, systems, and laws in human society. I saw one reviewer label this novel as magical realism, and while I'm not sure if the author intended to brand it as such, I can definitely see where this term applies. It is often implied that the many supposedly supernatural elements in the novel are figments of the narrators' imagination, and because of this constant uncertainty, the reader is left at the end of the novel with more questions than answers: what is real and what isn't; what is supernatural and what is the creation of an unstable mind; are the tragic occurrences of the novel inevitable and determined by fate or simply a result of mental tricks and emotional disturbance?
We still know nothing about Sarah's background, why does she crave isolation and independence to such a strong degree? How can she justify her actions, how can she be so destructive to herself, her children, her lovers? Did she always know that Marcus was really her first abandoned daughter or did she only realise later? Why did she let him drown? How much of her mental instability was caused by dementia and how much of it by another, preexisting form of madness? What happened to Otto? It seems implied that he may have been the creature that Sarah and Gretel killed and ate, mistaking it for the Bonak. The dog's story could be seen to represent the character arc of Marcus: both are taken in by Gretel/Sarah and then effectively abandoned and killed by one or both of the two women. Then there is the complexity and confusion surrounding the Bonak itself. It is both a mental delusion which questions the limits of memory and the power of paranoia and a personification of fear, which in itself could be read as the driving factor behind the actions of all the characters. Margot's fear of Fiona's prophetic warning drives her to run away to protect her parents, but this is in fact what starts the chain of events which leads to that same prophecy's fulfilment. Marcus's fear of the water thief leads him to frighten Charlie, and Charlie's fear in turn leads him to attack Marcus which culminates in the struggle and Charlie's death.
The complexity of and interconnection between all these different elements leave me with the inclination to read this book again and pay as much attention as possible to all its deceptively understated intricacies. While Everything Under is strange, bewildering, dark, and at times disgusting, it was a thrilling, thought-provoking and brilliantly executed novel which I would highly recommend.
Everything Under is a strange, thought-provoking and at times blatantly cryptic story about memory, family, madness and fate.
The plot interweaves the events of a well-known Greek Myth
Spoiler
(Oedipus)Spoiler
(Hansel and Gretel)The novel is beautifully and precisely written, rich with metaphors, symbols and subtle, everyday motifs which act as signposts linking the different segments of the story together, creating a timeline of events in the mind of the reader and helping to alleviate the initial confusion caused by the novel's lack of chronology.
The very structure of the novel has symbolic significance. The story is mainly told in three principal segments which run alongside each other (The Cottage, The Hunt, The River), perhaps mimicking the flow of different currents in the river on which the majority of the action occurs. The Cottage is the segment in which the novel starts and ends and the most recent in the timeline. It depicts a 32 year old Gretel and Sarah, the aged, dementia-suffering mother who she has recently found again after being abandoned by her at the age of sixteen. The Hunt tells the story of Gretel's search for her mother in the days before she finds her and brings her back to her cottage. The River is told from the perspective of Marcus, a mysterious boy of unknown origins who we will later learn has an inextricable connection with Gretel and her mother. The novel also closely deals with the theme of memory and its deceptiveness. The structure flits between these three segments and so mingles and interchanges different time periods and plot points, adding to the sense of ambiguity in the storytelling and underlining the cracks in the characters' memories which are tangled and elusive due to Sarah's dementia and Gretel's childhood trauma.
All three of the main storytellers are unreliable narrators, their perceptions are distorted by different forms of mental instability and love, by isolation from the outside world. Johnson describes the scenery and atmosphere of life on the river with a sort of creepy mysticality which is as compelling as it is unsettling. The river appears to be all-consuming and omnipotent, and those living on it exist outside any of the normal authorities, systems, and laws in human society. I saw one reviewer label this novel as magical realism, and while I'm not sure if the author intended to brand it as such, I can definitely see where this term applies. It is often implied that the many supposedly supernatural elements in the novel are figments of the narrators' imagination, and because of this constant uncertainty, the reader is left at the end of the novel with more questions than answers: what is real and what isn't; what is supernatural and what is the creation of an unstable mind; are the tragic occurrences of the novel inevitable and determined by fate or simply a result of mental tricks and emotional disturbance?
Spoiler
We still know nothing about Sarah's background, why does she crave isolation and independence to such a strong degree? How can she justify her actions, how can she be so destructive to herself, her children, her lovers? Did she always know that Marcus was really her first abandoned daughter or did she only realise later? Why did she let him drown? How much of her mental instability was caused by dementia and how much of it by another, preexisting form of madness? What happened to Otto? It seems implied that he may have been the creature that Sarah and Gretel killed and ate, mistaking it for the Bonak. The dog's story could be seen to represent the character arc of Marcus: both are taken in by Gretel/Sarah and then effectively abandoned and killed by one or both of the two women. Then there is the complexity and confusion surrounding the Bonak itself. It is both a mental delusion which questions the limits of memory and the power of paranoia and a personification of fear, which in itself could be read as the driving factor behind the actions of all the characters. Margot's fear of Fiona's prophetic warning drives her to run away to protect her parents, but this is in fact what starts the chain of events which leads to that same prophecy's fulfilment. Marcus's fear of the water thief leads him to frighten Charlie, and Charlie's fear in turn leads him to attack Marcus which culminates in the struggle and Charlie's death.
The complexity of and interconnection between all these different elements leave me with the inclination to read this book again and pay as much attention as possible to all its deceptively understated intricacies. While Everything Under is strange, bewildering, dark, and at times disgusting, it was a thrilling, thought-provoking and brilliantly executed novel which I would highly recommend.
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Well that was the strangest book I’ve read in a while. Maybe it’s me but I just didn’t understand what was going on. Then by the time it became clearer it was still really odd. I wish I knew what the author was trying to get at.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Without a doubt the best book of the year, perhaps of its kind, and there is truly nothing like it. Haunting, horrifying — a dizzying dream you can’t look away from.
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Unfortunately I saw where this one was heading from a mile away and didn't get any real zinger from it, just confirmation. I also felt the end was spelled out as though the reader wasn't intelligent enough to read between the lines.
This book is strange and full of foreboding. It keeps the reader on edge throughout, but that becomes a little one note. There's no peaks and troughs as you'd expect.
Language and relationships are key to this novel and as complex as they were I didn't end up feeling strongly for any of the characters. I think it's because things happened to them, but you never really got an insight into who they were.
This is one of those literary novels that just doesn't work for me. I feel there's supposed to be something deeper and angsty hidden in it's shallows, but it never gets there for me.
This book is strange and full of foreboding. It keeps the reader on edge throughout, but that becomes a little one note. There's no peaks and troughs as you'd expect.
Language and relationships are key to this novel and as complex as they were I didn't end up feeling strongly for any of the characters. I think it's because things happened to them, but you never really got an insight into who they were.
This is one of those literary novels that just doesn't work for me. I feel there's supposed to be something deeper and angsty hidden in it's shallows, but it never gets there for me.