Scan barcode
thebetterstory's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
This was a strange and occasionally beautiful collection of stories. Some of them are likely to stick with me for a good long time due to their sheer originality.
My favourites were generally the ones that were a bit tenderer and more human, with the standout for me being the bittersweet story of a woman returning to the house her abandoned, alcoholic father owned after his death and reflecting on the bygone days when he and her mother had been part of a group of artistic, hippie communists who all lived and dreamed together there. (There's a supernatural twist, of course.)
In general, short story collections aren't my favourite format, as I often end up wishing I could see what the author does when their characters and narratives are given more room to expand. Here, at least, the stories all felt complete in and of themselves. I would definitely love to see Tidbeck's blend of creepiness, domesticity and nostalgia in a longer story some day in the future.
My favourites were generally the ones that were a bit tenderer and more human, with the standout for me being the bittersweet story of a woman returning to the house her abandoned, alcoholic father owned after his death and reflecting on the bygone days when he and her mother had been part of a group of artistic, hippie communists who all lived and dreamed together there. (There's a supernatural twist, of course.)
In general, short story collections aren't my favourite format, as I often end up wishing I could see what the author does when their characters and narratives are given more room to expand. Here, at least, the stories all felt complete in and of themselves. I would definitely love to see Tidbeck's blend of creepiness, domesticity and nostalgia in a longer story some day in the future.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore and Body horror
Moderate: Grief, Death, Death of parent, and Incest
Minor: Bullying and Fatphobia
rorikae's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
'Jagannath' by Karin Tidback is a speculative short story collection full of strange stories, many that are great and a few that I found lackluster.
The collection starts out on a high note with a strange story called 'Beatrice' about a man who falls in love with an airship and a woman who falls in love with a steam engine. It starts out fantastical and takes a darker turn at the end that I wasn't expecting but that I think did a great job of setting up the rest of the collection. After the first story, there were a number of stories that were on the shorter side and that I felt were never given the full time to come into their own. These were my least favorite in the collection and because there were so many of them toward the front of the collection, it really dragged down my enjoyment of the whole. Thankfully, about halfway through the stories pick up with 'Brita's Holiday Village' and keep on getting better. My two favorite stories in the collection are 'Cloudberry Jam,' which tells the story of a woman who grows her own child in a tin can and then has to deal with the truth of a child growing up, and 'Pyret' which is set up as a scholarly paper discussing a folklore creature called the Pyret.
Tidbeck shines when she is utilizing folklore in her stories, even when there are just a few moments of it. I also really appreciated her afterword, which discusses translation. Tidbeck translated some of the stories from Swedish and wrote some of the others in English. She discusses what it is like writing in English vs. Swedish, including how there are concepts she can't translate and how careful she has to be with translations because a direct translation may have words that don't feel the same and fit the tone of the piece. It was the perfect cap to the collection.
I will definitely be picking up more from Tidbeck and I am interested in her full novels since her longer pieces were the ones that I thought were the most successful.
The collection starts out on a high note with a strange story called 'Beatrice' about a man who falls in love with an airship and a woman who falls in love with a steam engine. It starts out fantastical and takes a darker turn at the end that I wasn't expecting but that I think did a great job of setting up the rest of the collection. After the first story, there were a number of stories that were on the shorter side and that I felt were never given the full time to come into their own. These were my least favorite in the collection and because there were so many of them toward the front of the collection, it really dragged down my enjoyment of the whole. Thankfully, about halfway through the stories pick up with 'Brita's Holiday Village' and keep on getting better. My two favorite stories in the collection are 'Cloudberry Jam,' which tells the story of a woman who grows her own child in a tin can and then has to deal with the truth of a child growing up, and 'Pyret' which is set up as a scholarly paper discussing a folklore creature called the Pyret.
Tidbeck shines when she is utilizing folklore in her stories, even when there are just a few moments of it. I also really appreciated her afterword, which discusses translation. Tidbeck translated some of the stories from Swedish and wrote some of the others in English. She discusses what it is like writing in English vs. Swedish, including how there are concepts she can't translate and how careful she has to be with translations because a direct translation may have words that don't feel the same and fit the tone of the piece. It was the perfect cap to the collection.
I will definitely be picking up more from Tidbeck and I am interested in her full novels since her longer pieces were the ones that I thought were the most successful.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Cannibalism, Death, Grief, Rape, and Violence
More...