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A review by octavia_cade
Locust Girl: A Lovesong by Merlinda Bobis
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
There's no other to describe this but strange, I think - it's beautifully, compellingly eerie. I don't quite know whether or not it's magical realism, but it feels as if it ought to be, containing as it does fantastical elements that illuminate political response, this case to environmental change. A nine year old refugee goes to sleep for ten years and wakes up with a locust embedded in her forehead; she wanders the desert, making friends, seeing them all exploited and mostly burnt alive, and in the end... well. I don't want to spoil it.
Admittedly, this is a difficult book. It's so very abstract that half the time I'm only guessing as to what's going on, and to just how much can be traced back to the influence of a contemporary world. It's hard not to read some of what happens here as an analogue for nuclear warfare and radiation, but even so I'm not sure that's accurate. I think the key point is sterilisation; the searing of a land and a people, in order that others may thrive. Which is a deeply unfair and tragic thing, as Bobis so clearly feels, but the horror of it all is somewhat mitigated by the dreamy, beautiful prose.
Admittedly, this is a difficult book. It's so very abstract that half the time I'm only guessing as to what's going on, and to just how much can be traced back to the influence of a contemporary world. It's hard not to read some of what happens here as an analogue for nuclear warfare and radiation, but even so I'm not sure that's accurate. I think the key point is sterilisation; the searing of a land and a people, in order that others may thrive. Which is a deeply unfair and tragic thing, as Bobis so clearly feels, but the horror of it all is somewhat mitigated by the dreamy, beautiful prose.