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A review by bailey_bea
The Appointment by Herta Müller
3.0
"I prefer looking out the kitchen window. There the swallows fly through a vast stretch of sky in circles of their own invention."
The Appointment is a cobbled together collection of memories interrupted by observations from the main character's tram journey toward "the appointment".
It's difficult to say if I enjoyed this book or not. The book is subtle, to say the least. Without chapters or quotation marks, it often feels like you're not getting anywhere (perhaps purposefully). And if you're not a fan of stream of consciousness, I certainly wouldn't recommend this novel.
And though it's lauded as an intense and haunting novel about living in Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania, I found it a bit too subtle to be called either. That said, I'm glad I read it; there are a number of beautifully written lines I'm happy to have met.
The Appointment is a cobbled together collection of memories interrupted by observations from the main character's tram journey toward "the appointment".
It's difficult to say if I enjoyed this book or not. The book is subtle, to say the least. Without chapters or quotation marks, it often feels like you're not getting anywhere (perhaps purposefully). And if you're not a fan of stream of consciousness, I certainly wouldn't recommend this novel.
And though it's lauded as an intense and haunting novel about living in Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania, I found it a bit too subtle to be called either. That said, I'm glad I read it; there are a number of beautifully written lines I'm happy to have met.