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A review by daniels_books
The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns
2.0
Meh. Humorous without enough humor to call it funny, grotesque but not as much as her more powerful [b:Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead|1785957|Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead |Barbara Comyns|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1283885155s/1785957.jpg|1784841], this book is mostly just underwhelming. Start with Who Was Changed, and maybe skip this.
It must be damn hard to market this book, because 3/4 of it is your standard novel of oppression that is frankly, quite boring (the only saving grace of the first hundred pages is really its subtle display of various grotesqueries), and the last 1/4 of it is hardly a "scene of appalling triumph," as NYRB claims it is. The ending is as if Stephen King picked up the first hundred pages of someone else's mediocre novel and decided to finish it himself in thirty pages with no attempt of emotional catharsis or further character development. Comyns has a style that is interesting, but again, it's simply put to better use in Who Was Changed, though beware that Comyns doesn't understand how to finish that novel, either.
(Edit: Although I have to give this novel props for using the same unnamed man in both the opening and the ending, it was a bit uncanny, if not useless.)
It must be damn hard to market this book, because 3/4 of it is your standard novel of oppression that is frankly, quite boring (the only saving grace of the first hundred pages is really its subtle display of various grotesqueries), and the last 1/4 of it is hardly a "scene of appalling triumph," as NYRB claims it is. The ending is as if Stephen King picked up the first hundred pages of someone else's mediocre novel and decided to finish it himself in thirty pages with no attempt of emotional catharsis or further character development. Comyns has a style that is interesting, but again, it's simply put to better use in Who Was Changed, though beware that Comyns doesn't understand how to finish that novel, either.
(Edit: Although I have to give this novel props for using the same unnamed man in both the opening and the ending, it was a bit uncanny, if not useless.)