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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
Crouched in a corner, without water, I know my sentences won't leave me and that I have a right to them. My father looks through a peephole, all that can be seen are his glazed eyes, he'd like to copy my sentences and take them from me, but in the greatest thirst, after my last hallucinations, I know he is watching me die without words, I have completely hidden the words inside the sentence, sufficiently grounded, which is forever safe and secret from my father, so tightly do I hold my breath. My tongue is dangling far out, but it does not reveal a single word. Because I am unconscious they search me, they want to moisten my mouth, wet my tongue, so they can find the sentences and place them in custody, but then they find three stones beside me and don't know what they mean or where they come from. They are three hard, luminous stones which have been thrown to me by the highest authority, where even my father has no influence, and I alone know what message each stone contains. Young lightning is constantly flashing inside the first reddish stone, which has fallen from heaven into my cell, it says: Live in wonder. The second blue stone, flashing with all possible hues of blue, says: Write in wonder. And I am already holding the third stone in my hand, white and radiant, whose fall can be stopped by no one, not even my father, but the cell grows so dark that the third stone's message cannot be read. The stone can no longer be seen. I shall discover this final message after I am freed. [190]
This was a pretty challenging book, it played with style, not necessarily genre but...format. Dialogue was in fragments, embedded in the narrative, or sometimes pulled apart like a drama. There were often phone conversations where you only heard one half of the conversation (makes sense). I was often bewildered, confused, or left out of the loop. Time really has no meaning in this novel. The most coherent section of the book was Part II, called the Third Man and seemed to focus on her father and her sexual abuse at his hands. There were scenes that made it seem like she was in an asylum, that perhaps Malina was actually a nurse there? Part III then reverts to the style of Part I and I again found myself often lost or confused. The ending sentence made me want to go back and reread the thing and maybe another year I will.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Bachmann's writing feels guided by each word having its own presence, together they culminate linearly and non-linearly to form the surreal reality of dream states. The content is largely her consciousness grounded in the masculine personalities of Malina, Ivan and her father - I had a thought at some point that maybe none of them really exist except for her.
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3.5
‘...for bumping into me and rediscovering me as I once was, my earliest layers, for retrieving me from underneath all the rubble and I shall beautify him for all his gifts... so I’ll begin simply, with the simplest gift of all, his ability to make me laugh again’
‘Reading is a vice which can replace all other vices or temporarily take their place in more intensely helping people live, it is a debauchery, a consuming addiction’
‘There are books i don’t ever let go, I drag them around with me in the apartment, carrying them from the living room into the kitchen, I read them in the hall standing up’
‘A day will come when people will have black golden eyes, they will see beauty, they will be free from dirt and from every burden, they will rise into the sky, they will dive into the waters, they will forget their calluses and hardships. A day will come when they will be free, all people will be free, even from the freedom they had presumed. There shall be a greater freedom, beyond measure, a freedom to last a whole life long.’
‘No one has ever died as far as I’m concerned, and it’s rare that anyone is living, except in the theater of my thoughts.’
‘ People don’t change very much. As long as something’s inconceivable, inexplicable, or pitch black, it moves them, they go walking in the woods or rocketing into space, bringing their own world of secrets into the secrets of the world.’
‘Life is reading a page you have read, or reading over your shoulder, reading with you and not forgetting, because you don’t forget anything.’
‘They don’t need tears made in Austria.’
‘...for bumping into me and rediscovering me as I once was, my earliest layers, for retrieving me from underneath all the rubble and I shall beautify him for all his gifts... so I’ll begin simply, with the simplest gift of all, his ability to make me laugh again’
‘Reading is a vice which can replace all other vices or temporarily take their place in more intensely helping people live, it is a debauchery, a consuming addiction’
‘There are books i don’t ever let go, I drag them around with me in the apartment, carrying them from the living room into the kitchen, I read them in the hall standing up’
‘A day will come when people will have black golden eyes, they will see beauty, they will be free from dirt and from every burden, they will rise into the sky, they will dive into the waters, they will forget their calluses and hardships. A day will come when they will be free, all people will be free, even from the freedom they had presumed. There shall be a greater freedom, beyond measure, a freedom to last a whole life long.’
‘No one has ever died as far as I’m concerned, and it’s rare that anyone is living, except in the theater of my thoughts.’
‘ People don’t change very much. As long as something’s inconceivable, inexplicable, or pitch black, it moves them, they go walking in the woods or rocketing into space, bringing their own world of secrets into the secrets of the world.’
‘Life is reading a page you have read, or reading over your shoulder, reading with you and not forgetting, because you don’t forget anything.’
‘They don’t need tears made in Austria.’
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes