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A review by sarahsadiesmith
The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt
4.0
As a little person my favourite author was Roald Dahl (because sweet sweet Matilda, but also Danny the Champion of the World, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and pretty much all of the books he wrote) and then when I got to say 15 or so my favourite author was Zadie Smith (because White Teeth) but now as an elderly 34 year old I think Zadie is being given quite the run for her money by Siri Hustvedt. Memories of the Future was one of hers I read a few weeks ago, and it has stuck with me in the way that the special books do, this week I read (or tried to...I’ll explain in a second) another one of her books, and the subject of this review, The Sorrows of an American, and it was exactly the sort of book I love.
I am a quick reader, and if my ability to concentrate goes a little awry in other areas I’m usually able to manage to hold steadfast with books. This week though has been too much for me, it was unsustainably bad. And it made reading very difficult,. There was an awful lot in this book at the surface that I loved, but the best parts of it, the things you need to think a little bit about I will have missed. Imagine, if you will, that you have a cold and you eat what you know is the best lasagna in the world but it doesn’t taste of anything much, on account of your compromised taste buds. Reading this week has been like eating with the cold and so it’s a book I’ll have to read again when I’m not afflicted so deeply with my usual sorts of maladies.
Husdvedt’s books don’t sound that exciting when synopsised, to be fair they aren’t exciting, but they are so interesting in this almost introverted way, that you just have to give them a chance. There’s a patter to her writing that is almost calm. But also intelligent and wise and thought provoking. This story weaves several different threads together and deals a lot with all the things people don’t say. About memories and loss, all the trauma, and secrets and lies you carry and how psychologically distant you can be from people you are seemingly close with, “...when people are in desperate need, something falls away. The posing that’s part of the ordinary world vanishes, that How-are-you?-I’m-fine falseness.” Husdvedt is so so good in depicting human fragility, and it’s an insightful profound book, even if I only managed to have assimilated about 40% of it with my addled little brain this week.
I am a quick reader, and if my ability to concentrate goes a little awry in other areas I’m usually able to manage to hold steadfast with books. This week though has been too much for me, it was unsustainably bad. And it made reading very difficult,. There was an awful lot in this book at the surface that I loved, but the best parts of it, the things you need to think a little bit about I will have missed. Imagine, if you will, that you have a cold and you eat what you know is the best lasagna in the world but it doesn’t taste of anything much, on account of your compromised taste buds. Reading this week has been like eating with the cold and so it’s a book I’ll have to read again when I’m not afflicted so deeply with my usual sorts of maladies.
Husdvedt’s books don’t sound that exciting when synopsised, to be fair they aren’t exciting, but they are so interesting in this almost introverted way, that you just have to give them a chance. There’s a patter to her writing that is almost calm. But also intelligent and wise and thought provoking. This story weaves several different threads together and deals a lot with all the things people don’t say. About memories and loss, all the trauma, and secrets and lies you carry and how psychologically distant you can be from people you are seemingly close with, “...when people are in desperate need, something falls away. The posing that’s part of the ordinary world vanishes, that How-are-you?-I’m-fine falseness.” Husdvedt is so so good in depicting human fragility, and it’s an insightful profound book, even if I only managed to have assimilated about 40% of it with my addled little brain this week.