A review by jimmylorunning
SS Proleterka by Alastair McEwan, Fleur Jaeggy

5.0

Calm ruin. As if calm were imposed by violence. p 26

The world in which the main character exists is a bleak one where people are quietly suffocating inside of their starched conventions.

The wife thanks the Lord with a bleak and rigid expression. As she draws nearer the Lord, her blood freezes, pallor flows into her face.” p 19

I feel sorry for Johanne’s daughter, who is telling the story here, and sometimes refers to herself as “I” and other times as “Johanne’s daughter”. I thought this worked really well to mirror the distance and disembodiment she felt, as well as the fact that she was always in-relation to—

He was happy when he had the last fitting for the jacket. The final rehearsal of his life. He could bear to forego desperation. p 54

Everyone is “in relation to” but nobody makes any genuine connection to—

And the residue of their relationship has remained in the small apartment. Houses are not merely walls. They are often contaminated places. People should not make dinner invitations with such nonchalance. p 102

As you can tell, this carefully modulated tone of icy distance is powerful and devastating. I wanted to hug the main character, hug all of the characters, perhaps that’s all they ever needed. But that would destroy their world forever.

The truth has no ornaments. Like a washed corpse, I think. p 115

An amazing little book, with absolutely no sentimentality, with the cutting exactitude of the most controlled prose. There is much here beyond the language too, but I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it. Spoilers: The father who is distant vs. the new father who shows up at the end, one replaces another just as she replaces her brother who dies in childhood. The father and his invalid brother. Much is made of the eye. The fathers murderer friend. The journey on the Proleterka is like a journeying out into adulthood for her. It doesn’t really fit into a neat story, as such, but it becomes a story by the act of being told. It’s like strange little experiences that become part of my own story, as if I’ve lived this other life.

Before him, the mountains. Silent shadows run across virgin snow. And crows. One flies very close to the window. They look at each other. The crow promises to return the following day. p 31