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A review by booklane
Magma by Thora Hjörleifsdóttir
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
“I didn’t think any of it was really important. Just two pieces of meat kneading each other, trying to find an orgasm that would make them forget, if only for a fleeting second, how empty their lives are”
An account of a toxic relationship in chapters that are like flashes, written a sparse, magnetic prose that does not hesitate to call thing by their own name.
20-year-old Lilja falls for a young man a few years older than her. He seems to tick many the boxes: smart, well read, a vegetarian, does work for a charity. Yet their relation exudes toxicity from the very first lines, with humiliation as a key word: Lilja got chlamydia from someone else while travelling before they got together and he thinks she is a slut (never mind he will openly sleep around multiple times). This should send her reeling, yet she feels guilty and undeserving. Her sense of guilt increases as, enumerating the partners she could have got it from, she loses count, and we understand that she is a fragile, confused being desperate for connection who has found someone ready to take advantage.
The introductory episode sets the tone for a novella in which the anonymous boyfriend will debase Lilja in a number of ways, including gaslighting, openly cheating on her (even as part of a game), ignoring, exposing or isolating her her, comparing her to his idealised ex and forcing LIlja to meet her and listen to her anecdotes filled with graphic sexual details. As the narration progresses, we witness Lilja's spiralling down and falling apart as she tries to save him from his callousness, drowning in demeaning acts of self-denial and feelings of worthlessness. The narration in flashes focusing on single significant moments is particularly effective.
It always takes two to tango or to build a co-dependent relationship, and this is particularly true in this subtle, powerful investigation of female fragility -- a condition that makes Lilja the perfect prey for an equally fragile man who hides behind a facade of self-confidence and righteousness and fills the void of his life with fleeting, strong, violent emotions and may be playing out on her his repressed anger and trauma. An insightful exploration of prevarication, of the power imbalance between men and women and the anguish, vacuity, and emptiness that can pervade social and affective relationships (in our time and other times as well), in which sex is a perfunctory, empty act, sleeping around an empty game to kill time and communication is close to zero, replaced by a harsh physicality and rough sex the protagonists don’t seem to enjoy: anything “to shake me out of this deadness”.
The ending, strangely hopeful and open, leaves it up to us to imagine what future awaits Lilija.
A graphic, shocking novel that, in its cold lucidity, reminded me of the lost youth and moral vacuum brilliantly depicted in Bret Easton Ellis’ early novels.
An account of a toxic relationship in chapters that are like flashes, written a sparse, magnetic prose that does not hesitate to call thing by their own name.
20-year-old Lilja falls for a young man a few years older than her. He seems to tick many the boxes: smart, well read, a vegetarian, does work for a charity. Yet their relation exudes toxicity from the very first lines, with humiliation as a key word: Lilja got chlamydia from someone else while travelling before they got together and he thinks she is a slut (never mind he will openly sleep around multiple times). This should send her reeling, yet she feels guilty and undeserving. Her sense of guilt increases as, enumerating the partners she could have got it from, she loses count, and we understand that she is a fragile, confused being desperate for connection who has found someone ready to take advantage.
The introductory episode sets the tone for a novella in which the anonymous boyfriend will debase Lilja in a number of ways, including gaslighting, openly cheating on her (even as part of a game), ignoring, exposing or isolating her her, comparing her to his idealised ex and forcing LIlja to meet her and listen to her anecdotes filled with graphic sexual details. As the narration progresses, we witness Lilja's spiralling down and falling apart as she tries to save him from his callousness, drowning in demeaning acts of self-denial and feelings of worthlessness. The narration in flashes focusing on single significant moments is particularly effective.
It always takes two to tango or to build a co-dependent relationship, and this is particularly true in this subtle, powerful investigation of female fragility -- a condition that makes Lilja the perfect prey for an equally fragile man who hides behind a facade of self-confidence and righteousness and fills the void of his life with fleeting, strong, violent emotions and may be playing out on her his repressed anger and trauma. An insightful exploration of prevarication, of the power imbalance between men and women and the anguish, vacuity, and emptiness that can pervade social and affective relationships (in our time and other times as well), in which sex is a perfunctory, empty act, sleeping around an empty game to kill time and communication is close to zero, replaced by a harsh physicality and rough sex the protagonists don’t seem to enjoy: anything “to shake me out of this deadness”.
The ending, strangely hopeful and open, leaves it up to us to imagine what future awaits Lilija.
A graphic, shocking novel that, in its cold lucidity, reminded me of the lost youth and moral vacuum brilliantly depicted in Bret Easton Ellis’ early novels.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Self harm, and Gaslighting