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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
What a fantastic book. I read Luckenbooth a few years ago, loved its powerful, hallucinatory quality, and was keen to read more of Jenni Fagan’s work. I don’t know why, but I had it in my head that The Panopticon was going to have a similar gothic otherness to it. I was soon disabused of this. The Panopticon is an unflinching, but so tender and delicate, tale of navigating a life without apparent hope, and building your own magic to survive.
Anais is fifteen and has spent her life in care. She’s forever in trouble, with an endless list of charges against her - theft, vandalism, assault – and has now, possibly, burned all her boats with a suspected attack on a police officer. If she’s found guilty, she will be detained until she is 18 and the statistics show that after this there is little chance of a “normal life”.
Anais is fifteen and has spent her life in care. She’s forever in trouble, with an endless list of charges against her - theft, vandalism, assault – and has now, possibly, burned all her boats with a suspected attack on a police officer. If she’s found guilty, she will be detained until she is 18 and the statistics show that after this there is little chance of a “normal life”.
As she waits in The Panopticon, she starts to bond with some of the other residents who observe and identify to some degree with the damage they can see inside each other. This is a social services accommodation, not a prison, so they are free to come and go before curfew. Some engage in hazardous sex work, all continue their substance abuse, increasing their sense of disjoint from society. The service workers supporting them struggle to penetrate their hard shells of scar tissue, and to make real human contact, contact which the residents often crave – to be seen as a person, not a problem.
Fagan’s writing is wonderful and vivid. She summons joy and horror with a few perfectly chosen words and evokes the Scottish dialect with sparing phonetics. This is pure witchery – one word in an entire sentence and you experience the full cadence of a voice, speaking directly to you.
It’s not an easy read, but it‘s an enthralling and rewarding one. Anais’ milieu is not enticing, but the peer pressure and the hopelessness make it hard to disclaim when you’ve been immersed in it all your life, and any other kind of life looks completely unattainable.
I knew what I was getting into...so I focused on the beautiful parts. The accents. The character development. The description of the world created by a broken brain.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
A unique, challenging read. It's not what I'd call accessible, in fact I'd go so far as to say it's rather esoteric. The writing style is much like that of Irvine Welsh, in that the narrator's voice is colloquial Scots. However, it's broken up with random punctuation in order to convey the the main character, Anais' way of talking. It is not what I'd describe as an enjoyable book. There are parts that are quite harsh and hard-hitting. I can tell though, that it's the kind of story that stays with you. Even though the writing it's so stylised, the imagery it's clear and memorable. It's certainly not for the faint-hearted, and it's no easy read. I'm not sure it's the kind of story you can just recommend to anyone. If you get the feeling that you want to read this book, then you're probably the kind of person who could take something from it.
Wow, those last fifty pages or so were a real punch in the throat. Dark and real and terrifying. It was definitely worth the read, but now I need to read something cheerful to cleanse my palate.
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Very strange book. Not bad. Difficult to understand madness and its shown here pretty well. Not sure if it was supposed to be targeted at an institution.. but definitely much criticism of society. I liked the remembrance of registration numbers and the struggles of multiple disorders within one institution. Definitely captures the crazyness of puberty and honestly modern life.
This was… interesting. Anais was an interesting character, but being an unreliable narrator, some things were confusing. The way it was written in a Scottish accent was distracting at first but eventually it flowed alright.
This was written in dialect, which I loathe. Didn't make it past page 3.