Scan barcode
A review by peripetia
Ei enää Eddy by Édouard Louis
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25
This was a fast read for me - first of all it's short, and second, it just pulled me into it. The book even has this hurried quality, as if the author just had to get these words out, like he sat down one night and couldn't stop writing until the book was done.
It seems that for many people this is a story about growing up gay in a small town. For sure that is what it's about, but for me it was more about poverty. While books about poverty are often about surviving it, Louis' novel is about the mental load it creates and how people in fact do not triumph over adversity. Life in poverty is full of contradictions, rigid life paths to inevitable ends, finding someone to blame, not being able to see where the blame should lie, and, what was most important and impactful for me, the heavy shame that it dumps on people.
Sure, people make bad life choices, but those in poverty have much less space to make choices, and the if the choices they make are wrong, they can't be rectified. People from more prosperous backgrounds get to experiment, wander aimlessly, and make mistakes, while still insisting that their wealth and status are due to their own "hard work", as if the 20-year-olds with their wrists destroyed from working as a cashier are just lazy. The book forces you to look at these uncomfortable truths up close.
Class is one of my favorite topics, in literature and otherwise. This book gave me exactly what I wanted. I do think it ends abruptly, like the author ran out of steam, and it would have been interesting in a different way to see the main character trying to find his way in a strange environment amid the middle class. These class clashes are like culture shocks, just worse. Maybe he's written about this in another book, and I do intend to continue reading from him.
It seems that for many people this is a story about growing up gay in a small town. For sure that is what it's about, but for me it was more about poverty. While books about poverty are often about surviving it, Louis' novel is about the mental load it creates and how people in fact do not triumph over adversity. Life in poverty is full of contradictions, rigid life paths to inevitable ends, finding someone to blame, not being able to see where the blame should lie, and, what was most important and impactful for me, the heavy shame that it dumps on people.
Sure, people make bad life choices, but those in poverty have much less space to make choices, and the if the choices they make are wrong, they can't be rectified. People from more prosperous backgrounds get to experiment, wander aimlessly, and make mistakes, while still insisting that their wealth and status are due to their own "hard work", as if the 20-year-olds with their wrists destroyed from working as a cashier are just lazy. The book forces you to look at these uncomfortable truths up close.
Class is one of my favorite topics, in literature and otherwise. This book gave me exactly what I wanted. I do think it ends abruptly, like the author ran out of steam, and it would have been interesting in a different way to see the main character trying to find his way in a strange environment amid the middle class. These class clashes are like culture shocks, just worse. Maybe he's written about this in another book, and I do intend to continue reading from him.