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booklane's reviews
126 reviews
Only About Love by Debbi Voisey
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
Evocative, profound and carefully crafted. We meet Frank and his family in short chapters that often read like prose poetry and focus on key moments of his life told that shine as if surrounded by an aura because they are told with such intensity and lyricism and the writing, exquisite and compelling, fully captures the power of memory. From a difficult childhood with a violent father to courtship, marriage and deviations and illness, the latter superbly portrayed. Only About Love is an uplifting novel that shows the beautiful imperfection of human experience, embracing our falls and inadequacies in a forgiving act of love. Reading this story filled with hope, longing, regret and acceptance was an emotional experience that touched me deeply.
I aM grateful to the publisher for an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. (l
I aM grateful to the publisher for an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. (l
Waiting for the Waters to Rise by Maryse Condé
adventurous
funny
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Displacement, rootlessness and the quest for roots are the main themes in Maryse Conde’s Waiting for the Waters to Rise. It is the story of Babakar, a gynaecologist of Mali origins in Guadeloupe who fulfils the desire of a dying mother to take her child Anais back to Haiti where roots are, despite the country being ravaged by endless violence. This simple storyline expands to incorporate the life stories of Babakar, his family, and other characters from Africa and the Caribbean.
One of the author’s aims is to expose the devastation of postcolonial states, now struggling with democracy and self-determination and governed by puppets instated by foreign states. We observe the way power corrupts, the extent to which man would go, men’s inability to fight for ideals or think for themselves, self-serving dictators’ utter disregard for their own people, pointless fratricide wars and other niceties. Conde’s political satire is effective and biting, as she attempts to highlight the similarities between dilapidated paradises and generally what is at stake with human nature, feral and corruptible. While the ties and the common legacy of Africa and the Caribbean are definitely worth exploring, this approach tends to erase more local features under the unifying effect of satire.
Conde’s writing is vivid, mesmerising and worth your while. Babakar’s story of displacement is compelling, as he negotiates his identity among rootlessness as someone who “felt no sense of belonging” and national myths and his quest for Anais’s roots. Equally interesting are the stories of his companions. Their insertion makes the novel episodic and picaresque, which as a form befits the theme of rootlessness but makes the plot feel a bit loose. Still an important achievement.
I am grateful to World Editions for an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
One of the author’s aims is to expose the devastation of postcolonial states, now struggling with democracy and self-determination and governed by puppets instated by foreign states. We observe the way power corrupts, the extent to which man would go, men’s inability to fight for ideals or think for themselves, self-serving dictators’ utter disregard for their own people, pointless fratricide wars and other niceties. Conde’s political satire is effective and biting, as she attempts to highlight the similarities between dilapidated paradises and generally what is at stake with human nature, feral and corruptible. While the ties and the common legacy of Africa and the Caribbean are definitely worth exploring, this approach tends to erase more local features under the unifying effect of satire.
Conde’s writing is vivid, mesmerising and worth your while. Babakar’s story of displacement is compelling, as he negotiates his identity among rootlessness as someone who “felt no sense of belonging” and national myths and his quest for Anais’s roots. Equally interesting are the stories of his companions. Their insertion makes the novel episodic and picaresque, which as a form befits the theme of rootlessness but makes the plot feel a bit loose. Still an important achievement.
I am grateful to World Editions for an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Island by Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
“I didn’t dare ask, how do you migrate? What do you do about all the things that quiver?”
“He did live in the future, right up until he began to live in the past. When I think of it that way, he was a migrant through and through”
Where is home? a compelling intergenerational tale investigating identity, migration and homeland. A young woman, third generation migrant, is torn between her identity as a modern Danish woman and her idealized family identity as a Faroese descendant, a mute, frail, invisible legacy. Her recollection and reflections mingle with the stories of her grandparents and parents – stories which are the thread that make up her ties to this Ithaca of the soul, ever longed for and ever elusive, and help her reconnect. The narration is beautiful, from the atmospheric descriptions of the rugged landscapes and interiors crystallised in time to the wonderful storytelling in which nature gives birth to legends and people become mythical protagonists of family sagas. Her analysis of the painful, confused condition of migrant is poignant and thought-provoking. A fragmentary, loose structure that is not always easy to follow but interesting and evocative.
My thanks to Pushkn Press and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
“He did live in the future, right up until he began to live in the past. When I think of it that way, he was a migrant through and through”
Where is home? a compelling intergenerational tale investigating identity, migration and homeland. A young woman, third generation migrant, is torn between her identity as a modern Danish woman and her idealized family identity as a Faroese descendant, a mute, frail, invisible legacy. Her recollection and reflections mingle with the stories of her grandparents and parents – stories which are the thread that make up her ties to this Ithaca of the soul, ever longed for and ever elusive, and help her reconnect. The narration is beautiful, from the atmospheric descriptions of the rugged landscapes and interiors crystallised in time to the wonderful storytelling in which nature gives birth to legends and people become mythical protagonists of family sagas. Her analysis of the painful, confused condition of migrant is poignant and thought-provoking. A fragmentary, loose structure that is not always easy to follow but interesting and evocative.
My thanks to Pushkn Press and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
I Am the Sea by Matt Stanley
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.25
I will grant you that it may be perilous but this is why we are here. We impose efficiency and order upon the deep”
James is a newly appointed apprentice at the Ripsaw Reef Lighthouse, located on a rock 20 miles off the coast in the middle of the raging sea often isolated for entire weeks due to the extreme storms. The novel opens with a gruesome sight: the corpse of the previous assistant deceased in mysterious circumstance, tied to the railings in a white shroud and half eaten by gulls. At the lighthouse, haunted by the sinister sounds of the mechanisms, of the howling winds and and of the waves breaking against the wall, we meet a bizarre keeper often absorbed in strange experiments and a morose assistant with a dark past. Soon mysterious writings appear on walls, a fourth person seem to lurk in the shadows and one corpse emerges at the reef … this is only the start of a gripping, atmospheric psychological thriller. As James investigates, the author gradually lets us in on the secrets of the lighthouse and engages us in a chilling, unnerving game of cat and mouse that lasts to the last page.
This fine piece of lighthouse gothic is superbly crafted. In James (the first-person narrator) the author recreates the voice of an educated nineteenth-century young man – at times I felt as if I was reading Poe. James is well versed in letters (the assistant mocks him by calling him poet), and often draws on his vast knowledge of literature – ventriloquizing Homer, Defoe, Shakespeare, Coleridge – to find imagery and metaphors that describe nature, feelings and situations. The result is stunning, rendering James’ reasoning, at times clear and rational at times convoluted, and the paranoia reigning at the lighthouse. The sea is majestic and elemental nature, rendered with painterly precision and memorable strokes. The literary quotes, often very recognizable, are part of an intriguing game of appropriation and intertextuality, and I actually had fun identifying the sources and the echoes.
We learn that the lighthouse, with its strict routine and rules is a pale attempt to bring order onto the primordial chaos of the stormy sea, but in this stunning piece of psychological fiction it holds the mirror to what lurks beneath reason. A hypnotic literary thriller, a subtle piece of postmodern fiction and above all a testament to the affective, transformational power of literature.
My thanks to Legend Press and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
James is a newly appointed apprentice at the Ripsaw Reef Lighthouse, located on a rock 20 miles off the coast in the middle of the raging sea often isolated for entire weeks due to the extreme storms. The novel opens with a gruesome sight: the corpse of the previous assistant deceased in mysterious circumstance, tied to the railings in a white shroud and half eaten by gulls. At the lighthouse, haunted by the sinister sounds of the mechanisms, of the howling winds and and of the waves breaking against the wall, we meet a bizarre keeper often absorbed in strange experiments and a morose assistant with a dark past. Soon mysterious writings appear on walls, a fourth person seem to lurk in the shadows and one corpse emerges at the reef … this is only the start of a gripping, atmospheric psychological thriller. As James investigates, the author gradually lets us in on the secrets of the lighthouse and engages us in a chilling, unnerving game of cat and mouse that lasts to the last page.
This fine piece of lighthouse gothic is superbly crafted. In James (the first-person narrator) the author recreates the voice of an educated nineteenth-century young man – at times I felt as if I was reading Poe. James is well versed in letters (the assistant mocks him by calling him poet), and often draws on his vast knowledge of literature – ventriloquizing Homer, Defoe, Shakespeare, Coleridge – to find imagery and metaphors that describe nature, feelings and situations. The result is stunning, rendering James’ reasoning, at times clear and rational at times convoluted, and the paranoia reigning at the lighthouse. The sea is majestic and elemental nature, rendered with painterly precision and memorable strokes. The literary quotes, often very recognizable, are part of an intriguing game of appropriation and intertextuality, and I actually had fun identifying the sources and the echoes.
We learn that the lighthouse, with its strict routine and rules is a pale attempt to bring order onto the primordial chaos of the stormy sea, but in this stunning piece of psychological fiction it holds the mirror to what lurks beneath reason. A hypnotic literary thriller, a subtle piece of postmodern fiction and above all a testament to the affective, transformational power of literature.
My thanks to Legend Press and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Missing Words by Loree Westron
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
A taut psychological novella set in Thatcher’s Britain, a country that in this snapshot comes through as wavering between anger and resignation. Jenni is a mail sorter at the post office, a job she carries out with the exactness of a machine, and is subjected to humiliating surprise speed and accuracy checks and to the arbitrariness of petty supervisor. Discontent is everywhere and, as the country is shaken by strikes, Jenni has to negotiate where to stand. She works hard to be able to send her daughter Deborah to university and she returns home every evening to find her husband Simon drinking beer slouched on the sofa. The two have been drifting apart for a while and also her daughter is growing more and more alienated from her. When she finds a postcard from a desperate lover that will never reach its destination on the Isle of Wight because the address is wrong, she thinks that fixing that love she might mend hers, too.
An intense story played out between two dimensions: the tense domestic atmospheres where every glance, word and silence weigh a ton and tension is palpable; and the escapades on the Isle of Wight, the uplifting sense of lightness, adventure and freedom that comes when drifting downhill on the bike taking in the fresh air in the magnificent landscape of the island.
I loved the careful way point of view is manipulated, self-deception exposed. Appearances crumble as layers in the story are uncovered and secrets resurface, revealing dark truths and hidden character traits. I found myself shifting, siding with one and then with the other as they go through guilt, grief, anger regret, acceptance and growth. I also loved the way the political shapes the personal, how characters are shown reacting in that particular political climate. Definitely a page turner for me.
An intense story played out between two dimensions: the tense domestic atmospheres where every glance, word and silence weigh a ton and tension is palpable; and the escapades on the Isle of Wight, the uplifting sense of lightness, adventure and freedom that comes when drifting downhill on the bike taking in the fresh air in the magnificent landscape of the island.
I loved the careful way point of view is manipulated, self-deception exposed. Appearances crumble as layers in the story are uncovered and secrets resurface, revealing dark truths and hidden character traits. I found myself shifting, siding with one and then with the other as they go through guilt, grief, anger regret, acceptance and growth. I also loved the way the political shapes the personal, how characters are shown reacting in that particular political climate. Definitely a page turner for me.
The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
“At that moment, they both belonged to a camp that didn’t exist… All the feelings that rose inside them seemed like a form of treachery, and so they preferred to stay silent.”
Otherness, identity, culture clash and non-belonging are at the core of this sweeping #historicalnovel set in Morocco in the period 1947 to 1955, the dawn of Moroccan independence from France. In this time of growing discontent toward the French occupiers we meet Mathilde, a tall, green-eyed Alsatian woman married to Amine, a Moroccan soldier in the French army she met during WW2. They have just arrived in Meknes on an old cart, ready to take possession of Amine’s inherited farm 15 miles from town. Is it going to work?
Soon the two are at odds. Amine desires his wife but starts feeling the pull of the local male-dominated culture; he wishes his wife would let go of her spontaneity and European manners, which had attracted him in the first place, to become a more subdued woman. In her extreme loneliness and sense of foreignness, Mathilde will have to learn how to fit in – often the hard way – while still trying to keep an emancipated role in the world and ties with French culture. Characterisation is superbly nuanced and, despite the novel not being plot-driven, the account of how Mathilde and Amine's relationship unfolds is an engrossing reading experience. The author paints a truly complex picture as the two are pariahs rejected both in their respective and adoptive communities.
This is the first volume of an intended trilogy. Here Sleimani is intent on setting the scene, wonderfully recreating the complex historical context and the sense of place, the heat, life on the farm and in the town – the medina with its “ancestral values” and “the European town, a laboratory of modernity”. She also gives life to a strong cast of secondary characters, representing different positions from superstitious peasants, to fanatics, colonists and Francophiles . An excellent postcolonial novel and a thought-provoking read.
My thanks to the publisher for an arc of this novel via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Otherness, identity, culture clash and non-belonging are at the core of this sweeping #historicalnovel set in Morocco in the period 1947 to 1955, the dawn of Moroccan independence from France. In this time of growing discontent toward the French occupiers we meet Mathilde, a tall, green-eyed Alsatian woman married to Amine, a Moroccan soldier in the French army she met during WW2. They have just arrived in Meknes on an old cart, ready to take possession of Amine’s inherited farm 15 miles from town. Is it going to work?
Soon the two are at odds. Amine desires his wife but starts feeling the pull of the local male-dominated culture; he wishes his wife would let go of her spontaneity and European manners, which had attracted him in the first place, to become a more subdued woman. In her extreme loneliness and sense of foreignness, Mathilde will have to learn how to fit in – often the hard way – while still trying to keep an emancipated role in the world and ties with French culture. Characterisation is superbly nuanced and, despite the novel not being plot-driven, the account of how Mathilde and Amine's relationship unfolds is an engrossing reading experience. The author paints a truly complex picture as the two are pariahs rejected both in their respective and adoptive communities.
This is the first volume of an intended trilogy. Here Sleimani is intent on setting the scene, wonderfully recreating the complex historical context and the sense of place, the heat, life on the farm and in the town – the medina with its “ancestral values” and “the European town, a laboratory of modernity”. She also gives life to a strong cast of secondary characters, representing different positions from superstitious peasants, to fanatics, colonists and Francophiles . An excellent postcolonial novel and a thought-provoking read.
My thanks to the publisher for an arc of this novel via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse
Moderate: Animal cruelty
Paul by Daisy Lafarge
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
What if Gauguin had lived in the 21st century?
An absorbing coming-of-age novel about a dysfunctional, abusive relationship between Paul, an older man, and Frances, a young research student who flees Paris after a traumatic experience (of which we will learn later on).
Still confused, “half-formed" and untethered, she sets off on a trip that should take her to work on a few organic farms. In Noa Noa, she meets Paul, farm owner and amateur anthropologist who has returned from Polynesia to France with lots of artefacts and diaries. While initially the novel resembles a very conventional romance, little by little the asymmetric relationship begins to crumble: starting from tiny, nearly imperceptible details, we witness Paul’s psychological manipulations, mansplaining and passive-aggressiveness and the way he takes advantage of Frances’ fragility as even darker truths emerge. After she leaves the farm, his pull draws her back and the two embark on a trip through the majestic, hazy summer landscape of the sunny countryside. Although she gradually realises what is going on and her self-awareness emerges, we see her unable to react, malleable and often deprived of her voice, and by the end I was totally invested in her character. I am actually still fuming when thinking of him!
Lafarge sets the novel in the present tense and keeps the tone laconic for immediacy, to emphasise Frances’ state of self-detachment and to replicate the effect of the anthropologist’s gaze, as epitomized by Levi-Strauss’ quote on “the complete absorption of the observer by the object of his observation”. Despite this being intentional, at times I was left wanting for some deeper thoughts and more incisive writing and dialogues,. In fairness the novel also contains effective images and metaphors and after a cold start it still drew me in.
I was truly fascinated by the way Paul’s character is modelled on Paul Gauguin: the organic community is a modern version of Gauguin’s search for a primitive, pristine world and reflects Lafarge’s concerns with climate issues; as to the artist, modern postcolonial criticism has exposed him as a sexual predator who had wife and children in Europe but used his white privilege to marry and have children with thirteen-year old girls, infecting them with syphilis. Their elusive gaze on canvas says it all.
This makes for a harrowing and enraging read, a nuanced portrayal of the relationship between predator and prey and a compelling coming of age novel.
An absorbing coming-of-age novel about a dysfunctional, abusive relationship between Paul, an older man, and Frances, a young research student who flees Paris after a traumatic experience (of which we will learn later on).
Still confused, “half-formed" and untethered, she sets off on a trip that should take her to work on a few organic farms. In Noa Noa, she meets Paul, farm owner and amateur anthropologist who has returned from Polynesia to France with lots of artefacts and diaries. While initially the novel resembles a very conventional romance, little by little the asymmetric relationship begins to crumble: starting from tiny, nearly imperceptible details, we witness Paul’s psychological manipulations, mansplaining and passive-aggressiveness and the way he takes advantage of Frances’ fragility as even darker truths emerge. After she leaves the farm, his pull draws her back and the two embark on a trip through the majestic, hazy summer landscape of the sunny countryside. Although she gradually realises what is going on and her self-awareness emerges, we see her unable to react, malleable and often deprived of her voice, and by the end I was totally invested in her character. I am actually still fuming when thinking of him!
Lafarge sets the novel in the present tense and keeps the tone laconic for immediacy, to emphasise Frances’ state of self-detachment and to replicate the effect of the anthropologist’s gaze, as epitomized by Levi-Strauss’ quote on “the complete absorption of the observer by the object of his observation”. Despite this being intentional, at times I was left wanting for some deeper thoughts and more incisive writing and dialogues,. In fairness the novel also contains effective images and metaphors and after a cold start it still drew me in.
I was truly fascinated by the way Paul’s character is modelled on Paul Gauguin: the organic community is a modern version of Gauguin’s search for a primitive, pristine world and reflects Lafarge’s concerns with climate issues; as to the artist, modern postcolonial criticism has exposed him as a sexual predator who had wife and children in Europe but used his white privilege to marry and have children with thirteen-year old girls, infecting them with syphilis. Their elusive gaze on canvas says it all.
This makes for a harrowing and enraging read, a nuanced portrayal of the relationship between predator and prey and a compelling coming of age novel.
My thanks to Granta and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Minor: Adult/minor relationship
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
4.5
We first meet Klara is in the front window of a shop that sells androids that are manufactured to become companions to children. Despite not being the latest model, Josie falls for her and, as she is described to be more empathic than later models, her mother agrees to the purchase.
The novel follows Klara’s point of view as she starts making sense and develops her understanding of the world. She also grows and develop attachments, impulses and a fascination with the sun -- always featuring in her frame of vision – that goes beyond what is simply her source on energy. A dystopia where androids are more empathic than humans, as Klara is attentive, generous, naïve. As we see her grow, we get to observe humans though her eyes and judgement, and this external look reveals their fragility, motives, selfishness, loneliness. This external point of view oh humans provides a “mirror” that works really well.
What it means to be human, engineering of humans, humanising AI, and the inability to face loneliness are all themes in this touching dystopia. Visually, I love the way the world looks through Klara’s gaze: essential and rarefied as if we are inhabiting a painting by Malevich, the sun always in some corner of her field of vision; the aftermath of some environmental catastrophe and the echoes of social unrest in the background ; the slow, measured pace that still manages to create tension, interest and unforgettable atmospheres and evoke the unexpected. Ishiguro has a magic touch, style, imagery, pace, everything seems surrounded by a magic aura.
The novel follows Klara’s point of view as she starts making sense and develops her understanding of the world. She also grows and develop attachments, impulses and a fascination with the sun -- always featuring in her frame of vision – that goes beyond what is simply her source on energy. A dystopia where androids are more empathic than humans, as Klara is attentive, generous, naïve. As we see her grow, we get to observe humans though her eyes and judgement, and this external look reveals their fragility, motives, selfishness, loneliness. This external point of view oh humans provides a “mirror” that works really well.
What it means to be human, engineering of humans, humanising AI, and the inability to face loneliness are all themes in this touching dystopia. Visually, I love the way the world looks through Klara’s gaze: essential and rarefied as if we are inhabiting a painting by Malevich, the sun always in some corner of her field of vision; the aftermath of some environmental catastrophe and the echoes of social unrest in the background ; the slow, measured pace that still manages to create tension, interest and unforgettable atmospheres and evoke the unexpected. Ishiguro has a magic touch, style, imagery, pace, everything seems surrounded by a magic aura.
Red Crosses by Sasha Filipenko
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Red Crosses is the fourth novel by well-respected young Bielorussian-born St-Petersburg-based author Sasha Filipenko. It is his first attempt at a historical novel and has been longlisted for the prestigious Yasnaya Polyana Award.
The novel incorporates a series of authentic documents from WW2, mostly correspondence between the Red Cross and Russian institutions showing Russia’s lack of interest in international treaties regarding POW exchanges as set out in the Geneva Conventions and in the destiny of its prisoners, who, as portrayed in the novel, often were considered cowards and collaborators and their spouses accomplices.
The novel starts as a young father who is moving into a Minsk apartment with his baby daughter, meets his 91-year-old neighbour, Tatyana Alekseevna, a woman who draws red crosses on doors in order to find her way because she suffers from Alzheimer, a sort of blessing to forget the tragic events that have marked her life. As she sets out to tell him her life story we learn of her life as a young woman in Western Europe, the return to Russia due to his father’s belief in the Soviet utopia, and her marriage. During WW2 her husband goes to the front and she works in one of the ministries where she has access to the aforementioned correspondence and to the list of missing Russian soldiers. There is a climate of suspicion and fear, the purges continue sweeping the country (at a certain point there are difficulties in finding personnel), anyone could be arrested and end up in a gulag with children sent to an orphanage to forget about them. In this tense and harrowing story that delves into Soviet Russia’s dark past anything can – and will – happen. Under Stalin’s omnipresent father figure, hers will be a harrowing but irony-filled tale of guilt, atonement and ultimately gross self-deception and staunch survival. It is also very interesting to have a woman go through events that are usually presented by male protagonists.
The story is told in a style that is dry and consciously laconic to reflect the dryness of the documents the novel is based on (as per author interview) and bring out the irony and the grotesque nature of the events we witness. Filipenko also makes effective and extensive use of skaz, the spoken language with its immediacy, punchiness and idiosincracies, which cannot always be rendered successfully in translation .
The author shows how the dehumanising, ruthless face of the system worked both at a state and deeply personal level. However, starting out from the past, the novel is ultimately grounded in present concerns and explicitly in the Soviet legacy of post-Soviet countries like Belorussia: amidst a not so uncommon desire to downplay Soviet Russia’s mistakes, a character intent on defending the old values from so-called new democracy-loving parasites will say that slandering accusations about gulags etc have been made up and thrown into the archive to discredit the system. The man faithful to the Soviet past ready to obliterate the mistakes still thrives.
Like many great Russian novelist, Filkipenko dialogizes with tradition (from questions regarding to how much the Russian people can take, to the existence of God, to the horrible apparatchik and the gulag tradition and also incorporating songs and poems) and interrogates present power asking fundamental questions: what present can be built on the legacy of the horror-filled history of the twentieth century? An urgent, thought-provoking novel. I am looking forward for more novels by this author to be translated.
References to the interview in https://www.labirint.ru/now/intervyu-s-filipenko/ (in Russian).
Thank you so much Europa Editions and NetGalley for an ARC of Red Crosses in exchange for an honest review.
The novel incorporates a series of authentic documents from WW2, mostly correspondence between the Red Cross and Russian institutions showing Russia’s lack of interest in international treaties regarding POW exchanges as set out in the Geneva Conventions and in the destiny of its prisoners, who, as portrayed in the novel, often were considered cowards and collaborators and their spouses accomplices.
The novel starts as a young father who is moving into a Minsk apartment with his baby daughter, meets his 91-year-old neighbour, Tatyana Alekseevna, a woman who draws red crosses on doors in order to find her way because she suffers from Alzheimer, a sort of blessing to forget the tragic events that have marked her life. As she sets out to tell him her life story we learn of her life as a young woman in Western Europe, the return to Russia due to his father’s belief in the Soviet utopia, and her marriage. During WW2 her husband goes to the front and she works in one of the ministries where she has access to the aforementioned correspondence and to the list of missing Russian soldiers. There is a climate of suspicion and fear, the purges continue sweeping the country (at a certain point there are difficulties in finding personnel), anyone could be arrested and end up in a gulag with children sent to an orphanage to forget about them. In this tense and harrowing story that delves into Soviet Russia’s dark past anything can – and will – happen. Under Stalin’s omnipresent father figure, hers will be a harrowing but irony-filled tale of guilt, atonement and ultimately gross self-deception and staunch survival. It is also very interesting to have a woman go through events that are usually presented by male protagonists.
The story is told in a style that is dry and consciously laconic to reflect the dryness of the documents the novel is based on (as per author interview) and bring out the irony and the grotesque nature of the events we witness. Filipenko also makes effective and extensive use of skaz, the spoken language with its immediacy, punchiness and idiosincracies, which cannot always be rendered successfully in translation .
The author shows how the dehumanising, ruthless face of the system worked both at a state and deeply personal level. However, starting out from the past, the novel is ultimately grounded in present concerns and explicitly in the Soviet legacy of post-Soviet countries like Belorussia: amidst a not so uncommon desire to downplay Soviet Russia’s mistakes, a character intent on defending the old values from so-called new democracy-loving parasites will say that slandering accusations about gulags etc have been made up and thrown into the archive to discredit the system. The man faithful to the Soviet past ready to obliterate the mistakes still thrives.
Like many great Russian novelist, Filkipenko dialogizes with tradition (from questions regarding to how much the Russian people can take, to the existence of God, to the horrible apparatchik and the gulag tradition and also incorporating songs and poems) and interrogates present power asking fundamental questions: what present can be built on the legacy of the horror-filled history of the twentieth century? An urgent, thought-provoking novel. I am looking forward for more novels by this author to be translated.
References to the interview in https://www.labirint.ru/now/intervyu-s-filipenko/ (in Russian).
Thank you so much Europa Editions and NetGalley for an ARC of Red Crosses in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
cw rape
A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
“It was only when looking at a horizon that one’s eyes could move past all the obstacles that limited one’s vision to the present situation, that one’s eyes could range without limit to other times and other places, and perhaps this was all that freedom was”
A Passage North, the second novel by award-winning and Dylan Thomas Prize shortlisted Tamil Sri Lankan novelist Anuk Arukpragasam, deals with the legacy of the devastating thirty-year-long Sri Lankan civil war, which saw Sinhalese and Tamil as major opponents. The latter were spearheaded by the Tamil Tigers, fighting for an independent Tamil-speaking state in the NorthEast but eventually defeated in 2009 following a massive attack that many equal to a genocide and that ultimately left the country ravaged and wounded.
Grishan is a young Tamil Sri Lankan employed at an Ngo in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital situated on the southwestern coast. He has returned there from New Delhi abandoning his PhD after a relationship with Anjoum, a woman he met at lgbt events and film viewings. He has always lived far from the conflict but has been drawn back home, partially driven by guilt for having been spared:
“He’d begun to cultivate once, more his sense of having a destiny in that place he he’d never actually lived, fantasising what it would be like to walk over the same land his forebears had, to help create our of near annihilation the possibility of some new and compelling future, as though living a life simplified in the way that only war can simplify he too would be able to find something worth surrendering to”
At the beginning of the novel, a phone call announcing the death of Grishan’s grandmother’s carer Rani prompts a five-day trip to the North-East through a war-ravaged country to attend her funeral. During the trip, through his thoughts and recollections Grishan reconstructs the recent history of “his own poor, violated, stateless people”: a story – as we will learn -- of utter devastation because, apparently, the modern Sri Lankan state can only be built “in direct relation to the evisceration of the northeast”.
But how can you tell the story of something that you have not lived on your skin, of things that are no more, of the aspirations that were annihilated, of monuments that have been reduced to dust along with the memory of what they represent”? Lacking first-hand experience of the conflic, in this compelling narrative Grishan often pieces together his vicarious, mediated experiences reporting his thoughts and visceral reaction: for example, he recounts how he learnt about events immersing himself in diaspora blogs and social media (he tells us of the experience of viewing the mutilated bodies on blogs, of reading about the massive refugee demonstrations and of their odyssey around the world, which is compellingly portrayed), as well as through films, documentaries, books, and the media, all acting as a particular lens. We learn, for example, that Visa Pillayar temple, where people now petition for Visas, has been so labelled by Google Maps. Vision, the possibility to envision a future, the nature of representation and the experience of the direct versus the mediated gaze are prominent themes I found very well developed and particularly interesting: from Grishan’s own experience, to Anjoum’s interest in film and accounts of the threatening male gaze, to the Tamil prisoner who is blinded to deny his only desire to be able to imagine an horizon for his people.
Personal memories and family history find a place, too. While Grishan’s traumatic experience is one of distance, disembodiment and longing to connect, history finds its embodiment in the martyred body of Rani, who is precisely who we are honouring at the end of the trip: prior to her mysterious death at the bottom of a well, she experienced war on her skin, displacement, the loss of her sons and trauma. Her deep depression and psychic wounds resulting in years of electroshock therapy are a living testimony of the horrors of war. Indeed, in this well constructed novel, the symbolical journey through the history of the Tamil people starts with an image of “the painful first moments of entry in the world” with bodies firmly occupying space, and ends with the funeral scene of Rani’s body burning in a pyre, with “ feelings and visions, memories and expectations, all of which would take time to burn, to be reduced to soothing uniformity of ash”, quietly and inexorably vanishing.
The few quotes I have inserted testify as to the beauty and the depth of Arudpragasam’s writing. This is a marvellous read on the different ways trauma affects people, a deeply political novel and a moving love letter to a wounded country: immensely beautiful, original, profound, visceral, meditative, philosophical and a worthy contender for literary prizes. Since it’s dense and slow I would not recommend it to everyone, but if you can make it will be a 5 star experience.
I am grateful to Granta for an Arc of this novel via NetGalley.
A Passage North, the second novel by award-winning and Dylan Thomas Prize shortlisted Tamil Sri Lankan novelist Anuk Arukpragasam, deals with the legacy of the devastating thirty-year-long Sri Lankan civil war, which saw Sinhalese and Tamil as major opponents. The latter were spearheaded by the Tamil Tigers, fighting for an independent Tamil-speaking state in the NorthEast but eventually defeated in 2009 following a massive attack that many equal to a genocide and that ultimately left the country ravaged and wounded.
Grishan is a young Tamil Sri Lankan employed at an Ngo in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital situated on the southwestern coast. He has returned there from New Delhi abandoning his PhD after a relationship with Anjoum, a woman he met at lgbt events and film viewings. He has always lived far from the conflict but has been drawn back home, partially driven by guilt for having been spared:
“He’d begun to cultivate once, more his sense of having a destiny in that place he he’d never actually lived, fantasising what it would be like to walk over the same land his forebears had, to help create our of near annihilation the possibility of some new and compelling future, as though living a life simplified in the way that only war can simplify he too would be able to find something worth surrendering to”
At the beginning of the novel, a phone call announcing the death of Grishan’s grandmother’s carer Rani prompts a five-day trip to the North-East through a war-ravaged country to attend her funeral. During the trip, through his thoughts and recollections Grishan reconstructs the recent history of “his own poor, violated, stateless people”: a story – as we will learn -- of utter devastation because, apparently, the modern Sri Lankan state can only be built “in direct relation to the evisceration of the northeast”.
But how can you tell the story of something that you have not lived on your skin, of things that are no more, of the aspirations that were annihilated, of monuments that have been reduced to dust along with the memory of what they represent”? Lacking first-hand experience of the conflic, in this compelling narrative Grishan often pieces together his vicarious, mediated experiences reporting his thoughts and visceral reaction: for example, he recounts how he learnt about events immersing himself in diaspora blogs and social media (he tells us of the experience of viewing the mutilated bodies on blogs, of reading about the massive refugee demonstrations and of their odyssey around the world, which is compellingly portrayed), as well as through films, documentaries, books, and the media, all acting as a particular lens. We learn, for example, that Visa Pillayar temple, where people now petition for Visas, has been so labelled by Google Maps. Vision, the possibility to envision a future, the nature of representation and the experience of the direct versus the mediated gaze are prominent themes I found very well developed and particularly interesting: from Grishan’s own experience, to Anjoum’s interest in film and accounts of the threatening male gaze, to the Tamil prisoner who is blinded to deny his only desire to be able to imagine an horizon for his people.
Personal memories and family history find a place, too. While Grishan’s traumatic experience is one of distance, disembodiment and longing to connect, history finds its embodiment in the martyred body of Rani, who is precisely who we are honouring at the end of the trip: prior to her mysterious death at the bottom of a well, she experienced war on her skin, displacement, the loss of her sons and trauma. Her deep depression and psychic wounds resulting in years of electroshock therapy are a living testimony of the horrors of war. Indeed, in this well constructed novel, the symbolical journey through the history of the Tamil people starts with an image of “the painful first moments of entry in the world” with bodies firmly occupying space, and ends with the funeral scene of Rani’s body burning in a pyre, with “ feelings and visions, memories and expectations, all of which would take time to burn, to be reduced to soothing uniformity of ash”, quietly and inexorably vanishing.
The few quotes I have inserted testify as to the beauty and the depth of Arudpragasam’s writing. This is a marvellous read on the different ways trauma affects people, a deeply political novel and a moving love letter to a wounded country: immensely beautiful, original, profound, visceral, meditative, philosophical and a worthy contender for literary prizes. Since it’s dense and slow I would not recommend it to everyone, but if you can make it will be a 5 star experience.
I am grateful to Granta for an Arc of this novel via NetGalley.