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A review by nana_h
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
The concept of the “Orchards of Unusual Possibilities” is a very interesting one, and Petrushevskaya does it justice, this departure of the physical reality. There were some gems, like when she’s describing the Father in “The Fountain House” being very embarrassed that his sandwich meat wasn’t cooked right, rather than being alarmed by the fact that said meat was a human heart.
The book was a challenge to get through, though.
The stories are not scary, and they aren’t particularly well written, either. Most of them are heavy-handed, clumsy, and incredibly bone dry, very matter-of-fact. I’m not sure how much of that is the translation.
They also seem to drag on, and on, and on and only some of them pay off, like The New Robinson Crusoes.
I did appreciate, however, how accurately and simplistically she portrays women’s self-sacrificial nature and how much that goes unnoticed, unthanked. In The Miracle, when Nadya says:
The book was a challenge to get through, though.
The stories are not scary, and they aren’t particularly well written, either. Most of them are heavy-handed, clumsy, and incredibly bone dry, very matter-of-fact. I’m not sure how much of that is the translation.
They also seem to drag on, and on, and on and only some of them pay off, like The New Robinson Crusoes.
I did appreciate, however, how accurately and simplistically she portrays women’s self-sacrificial nature and how much that goes unnoticed, unthanked. In The Miracle, when Nadya says:
You call me a sinner, but when did I get a chance to sin? When? I don’t live for myself, I live only for him… only for him. All I think about is how to feed and clothe him.
Or in My Love, where the mother withers away while her husband entertains an affair with a coworker for most of her life and manages to reach him, with her pain, only after she is long dead.
Everything else, though… had to power through it.
Everything else, though… had to power through it.