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botchedsonnet's review
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
czytomasz's review against another edition
4.0
Niezwykle mroczne i wymagające opowiadania, zwłaszcza pod względem lingwistycznym- mnóstwo tu zabawy słowem, rytmem czy symboliką zdań, dlatego wielkie brawa dla tłumaczek. Częściowo autobiograficzne, surrealistyczne historie o dojrzewaniu i postępowaniu choroby psychicznej, pełne niepokojących obrazów i wizji. Literatura nie dla każdego, nie tylko przez swoją trudną formę, ale również tematykę, pełną obrazów przemocy.
esther_richards's review
dark
mysterious
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? It's complicated
2.0
noleek's review
2.0
Some very pretty words without a whole lot to say.
The initial premise of 'woman sees unborn baby as a parasite and wants to eradicate it' is interesting and could have been a wonderfully dark story. However the dreamscape middle, which consumes the majority of the novella, is meaningless. They are pretty words strung together meaninglessly, which Zurn herself even admits around page 30. Even asking if the reader is bored yet. I can see why this is acclaimed and extremely unknown. It is beautiful, but also shit.
goodbye
The initial premise of 'woman sees unborn baby as a parasite and wants to eradicate it' is interesting and could have been a wonderfully dark story. However the dreamscape middle, which consumes the majority of the novella, is meaningless. They are pretty words strung together meaninglessly, which Zurn herself even admits around page 30. Even asking if the reader is bored yet. I can see why this is acclaimed and extremely unknown. It is beautiful, but also shit.
goodbye
akemi_666's review
1.0
Things happen things happen things happen things happen; this is not so much the unconscious as produced through free association, than the unconscious infinitely deferred through compulsive deflection.
Surrealism's ultimate effect then, is nothing but the desolation of the conscious mind, irrationality without emancipation.
Surrealism's ultimate effect then, is nothing but the desolation of the conscious mind, irrationality without emancipation.
emilianordland's review
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.5
fearandtrembling's review
4.0
Full review here.
An excerpt:
The Trumpets of Jericho, when read alongside her other writings, demonstrates in fascinating detail how Zurn harnessed the principles of surrealism and the facts of her experience as a woman to produce what Svendsen refers to as “outsider art”. Zurn was treated throughout the 1960s for depressive and schizhophrenic episodes, before leaping out of a window to her death in 1970. Her novel Dark Spring is a foreshadowing of what was to come—the young girl narrator commits suicide in the same way at the book’s end. Dark Spring is unremittingly bleak, demonstrating just how much a young girl knows, and how much she absorbs from her immediate surroundings. It details the girl’s rape by her older brother (a fact which, too, appears to be autobiographical), but also the girl’s identification and infatuation with a distant and absent father. There are signs that the girl is repulsed by much of what she sees as the feminine body as symbolised by the figure of the mother; the maternal and the feminine combine to create an image that is at once suffocating and alienating. In Jericho, Zurn creates singular images of animals breaching the physical fortress of a castle, or tower, that the female character is in. As the ravens swarm in, the narrator says of the baby she is birthing, “Out of pride and a sense of justice, I cannot allow this hateful creature to smother me. I’d rather smother it first.”
An excerpt:
The Trumpets of Jericho, when read alongside her other writings, demonstrates in fascinating detail how Zurn harnessed the principles of surrealism and the facts of her experience as a woman to produce what Svendsen refers to as “outsider art”. Zurn was treated throughout the 1960s for depressive and schizhophrenic episodes, before leaping out of a window to her death in 1970. Her novel Dark Spring is a foreshadowing of what was to come—the young girl narrator commits suicide in the same way at the book’s end. Dark Spring is unremittingly bleak, demonstrating just how much a young girl knows, and how much she absorbs from her immediate surroundings. It details the girl’s rape by her older brother (a fact which, too, appears to be autobiographical), but also the girl’s identification and infatuation with a distant and absent father. There are signs that the girl is repulsed by much of what she sees as the feminine body as symbolised by the figure of the mother; the maternal and the feminine combine to create an image that is at once suffocating and alienating. In Jericho, Zurn creates singular images of animals breaching the physical fortress of a castle, or tower, that the female character is in. As the ravens swarm in, the narrator says of the baby she is birthing, “Out of pride and a sense of justice, I cannot allow this hateful creature to smother me. I’d rather smother it first.”
unicazurnfanpage's review
5.0
im literally in love with unica zurn. it doesn't have any chapters so its hard to put down and pick back up. but I still found myself constantly going back to it and getting enveloped into her world.
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