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ronanmcd's review
emotional
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I am reminded of Camus' l'Étranger.
There's a mechanical nature to the character and, by association, the plot. He just does things or lets them happen, as though the universe and fate are just pulling him along, as though he has no agency.
This is made explicit early on when his automaton-like piano playing ruins a recital. He is said to be unfeeling in his playing.
The house is an echo of his mechanical nature - it's a "machine for living". But the house is not the real thing, it is itself an echo or homage in the way the book feels like it is to l'Étranger. Both even feature beaches at either end of teh African continent.
Everything just occurs. Like clockwork. One thing after another. It makes for a strange reading experience. I found myself skipping sentences, knowing they would be inconsequential as the book moves along with its on momentum.
There's a mechanical nature to the character and, by association, the plot. He just does things or lets them happen, as though the universe and fate are just pulling him along, as though he has no agency.
This is made explicit early on when his automaton-like piano playing ruins a recital. He is said to be unfeeling in his playing.
The house is an echo of his mechanical nature - it's a "machine for living". But the house is not the real thing, it is itself an echo or homage in the way the book feels like it is to l'Étranger. Both even feature beaches at either end of teh African continent.
Everything just occurs. Like clockwork. One thing after another. It makes for a strange reading experience. I found myself skipping sentences, knowing they would be inconsequential as the book moves along with its on momentum.
nini23's review against another edition
reflective
4.0
OK, Mr Field is an astonishingly accomplished experimental debut by Katharine Kilalea. I alighted on this short novel from another (Is Mother Dead) that was bleeding emotion from out the pages and it was cool relief. As this Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/19/ok-mr-field-katharine-kilalea-review) points out, it's rare for a debut female writer not to include some autofiction or self-identifying elements into the fictional characters. As it was, I spent part of the time feeling a little quizzical about the author's intention. For example, there is a bizarre section where the male protagonist is at the beach with his wife who has taken off her top and he imagines the areola to be eyes. Suddenly everywhere he looks, the women's breasts are winking at him. Is Kilalea toying with the idea of male gaze or is this a surreal hallucination betraying his mental state? The same goes for even the title. Depending on the inflection and tone, is it meant to be read as exasperation or condescension in the vein of 'Ok, boomer' or in a concerned manner as the protagonist keeps being asked by a hallucinatory voice of his landlady whether he is ok.
Mr Field is decidedly not ok. He is a concert pianist who after a somewhat disastrous performance in London, England gets into a train accident requiring surgery on his hand due to fractures. With the compensation money, he decides to rent a villa in Durban, South Africa with his wife Mim. At some point in the narrative, Mim leaves him.
Without looking at the author's bio, it is evident that she is a poet. The choice of words and sentence structure is very deliberate with wordplay and recurrent motifs. As the protagonist is a classical musician, he is sensitive to the rhythm of his surroundings such as the sounds of nearby construction and raindrops. Certain scenes such as that of the room of the landlady he stalks are presented as if beholding a still life painting. Architecture, classical music with particular emphasis on Chopin's works, art and the plumbing of loneliness blend to present an intriguing intellectual puzzle for the reader.
One of the more memorable passages was the one where he is attempting to play Chopin's Raindrop Prelude after his surgery. Due to the particular requirements of the piece requiring the striking of the same note with varying degrees of strength, his post-surgery hand is unable to accomplish the effect. The non-injured hand becomes independent, decouples from the other hand and seemingly Mr Field's control, and proceeds to musically concernedly seduce the injured hand. Another surreal scene includes a rider on a horse with the author prepping us beforehand about the similarity in sound between writer and rider. Whole swaths of time appear to pass by even with important events cloaking the novel in a dreamlike state.
In some ways, OK, Mr Field is opaque in contrast to contemporary novels which are quite upfront about their themes and foci. After reading some reviews like https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/katharine-kilalea-ok-mr-field-review-brilliantly-funny-debut-novel-1.3550957 and https://www.thisissplice.co.uk/2018/06/04/a-room-for-fantasy-katharine-kilaleas-ok-mr-field/, I went back to reread the first section, in particular paying more attention to the architectural description of the house he rented and noting the motif of doppelgänger, not only with buildings but later on with another character. I also asked myself why I wasn't reacting more strongly to some elements of the story that I would normally find objectionable. Being a piano player myself (though not at concert performance level), I enjoyed the descriptions of classical music and digressions such as speculation of the emotion that Chopin had waiting for George Sand in the piece. Are there Bernhardian influences with repetition and an obsessed male character displaying little self-insight? Two books that come to my mind which may be comparables are Saint Sebastian's Abyss and Peaces: A Novel.
All in all, this is a thought-provoking cleverly constructed novel that has gone under the radar.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Stalking
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Mental illness
Minor: Animal death
ameliacapelia's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
an interesting premise with a strong start. the writing is lyrical, metaphorical and requires the reader to do a lot of work in order to even understand what is being described. generally i love this type of work, but this was not it. it became muddeld & mismatched not interestingly but frustratingly so.
also at some point strange sexual language was directed towards a dog, so much so that it made me uncomfortable, as it had nothing to do with the plot & really just came out of nowhere.
also at some point strange sexual language was directed towards a dog, so much so that it made me uncomfortable, as it had nothing to do with the plot & really just came out of nowhere.
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death and Animal cruelty
rumasipuli's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
ky__'s review against another edition
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
rpmirabella's review against another edition
3.0
I don't think I'm in the right place to enjoy this right now. It's so quiet. It didn't hold my interest. My brain is mush. The writing is, of course, STUNNING. I love the atmospheric, haunted quality of the book, but I was bored about 80% of the time.
chris_bel's review against another edition
4.0
This book was an odd experience but I enjoyed it. Frequently it is mentioned throughout the book that we orient ourselves by knowing that there is always something coming next and I feel like the purpose of this book is simply to confuse that feeling of security.
stefanija's review against another edition
1.0
dnf @ 50%
How this book manages to sound both incredibly pretentious and fucking stupid at the same time is honestly beyond me. The author spends more time providing us with completely irrelevant and worthless information (that bit about the tennis ball falling from the sun? why?) than she does actually writing a good plot or compelling characters. I was just so bored. And I was actually excited to read this to find out why it had such a low rating, but I couldn't even find enjoyment from how bad it was because it was that bland.
I considered just skimming the final 50% of this, but then I realised! I don't care enough about this book to skim it! My understanding of the plot would still be where it's at now even if I had finished this, which is why I gave up.
How this book manages to sound both incredibly pretentious and fucking stupid at the same time is honestly beyond me. The author spends more time providing us with completely irrelevant and worthless information (that bit about the tennis ball falling from the sun? why?) than she does actually writing a good plot or compelling characters. I was just so bored. And I was actually excited to read this to find out why it had such a low rating, but I couldn't even find enjoyment from how bad it was because it was that bland.
I considered just skimming the final 50% of this, but then I realised! I don't care enough about this book to skim it! My understanding of the plot would still be where it's at now even if I had finished this, which is why I gave up.