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A review by delekelll
Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
4.0
I found this book unsettling because of the way that Gen X ideas sometimes unsettle me. The resistance against self identifying and pathologizing the self, and the way that I feel that I am sometimes seen by my parents. I understand it, and it sometimes undermines my own beliefs which is I think what makes me uncomfortable. I liked the relationship between the Gen X academics and their young queer daughter, it felt very true and a little painful in the truth. It did feel very "kids these days are so wokey" on occasion but I think my skin is thick enough to not mind that too much.
These characters get an easy out at the end, through a large tragedy they are able to kind of skate past a lot of the weird or bad things they've done. I find the protagonist highly relatable in the way that you hate the flaws in someone else that you see in yourself. Her vanity and issues with her age and body were difficult to read about. Her sexuality was refreshing. I don't think her relationship with her husband and his extramarital affairs was resolved in any way that satisfied me but that was probably the point. I like her resistance to auto fiction, and I can tell that this character study of a book is not auto fiction and I enjoy when women refuse to allow people to assume their fiction is about them.
I love a weird obsessive main character, and this judgey and self-assured mother made me feel delighted and sad and want to understand my own mother more.
I'm sitting in my hot car as I write this because I needed to get my thoughts out. I've been in a reading drought and I think this might get me back from that.
Makes me want to write + a book I found from a list of some of the best campus novels from the last 100 years.
These characters get an easy out at the end, through a large tragedy they are able to kind of skate past a lot of the weird or bad things they've done. I find the protagonist highly relatable in the way that you hate the flaws in someone else that you see in yourself. Her vanity and issues with her age and body were difficult to read about. Her sexuality was refreshing. I don't think her relationship with her husband and his extramarital affairs was resolved in any way that satisfied me but that was probably the point. I like her resistance to auto fiction, and I can tell that this character study of a book is not auto fiction and I enjoy when women refuse to allow people to assume their fiction is about them.
I love a weird obsessive main character, and this judgey and self-assured mother made me feel delighted and sad and want to understand my own mother more.
I'm sitting in my hot car as I write this because I needed to get my thoughts out. I've been in a reading drought and I think this might get me back from that.
Makes me want to write + a book I found from a list of some of the best campus novels from the last 100 years.