It never fails to amaze me just how little I know about classics before I read them. Take this for example. All I knew about Metamorphosis was that a It never fails to amaze me just how little I know about classics before I read them. Take this for example. All I knew about Metamorphosis was that a man turned into bug and Kafka was adamantly against using an image of a bug on any covers for this book (rip Kafka, you would’ve hated 99% of the covers for this book), I expected it to be good, but I didn’t expect it to emotionally devastate me. I find it quite impressive that whilst reading this novella featuring a man-turned-bug I constantly felt sick, but that feeling of disgust was never directed at the unfortunate Gregor; it was directed at the gut-wrenching reaction to him once he stopped being a “useful” member of society.
tldr: This book ruined my life.
“Why was only Gregor condemned to work for a company where the smallest lapse was greeted with the gravest suspicion?”
A big part of this book centers around what becomes of a person when, for whatever reason, they are no longer fit to work. Gregor Samsa handles waking up only to realize he has transformed in the night exactly as any overworked person whose entire family is completely reliant on their income: he said screw it, ‘What if I went back to sleep for a while, and forgot about all this nonsense?’ Which is, unfortunately, so real. You’re overworked, overstressed, overtired, waking up before the sunrise and realise that you are now in a state that would be deemed unfit to work and may potentially lose your job, of course you’re going to sleep and hoping that things work themselves out before you wake up again, because what are you going to do if it doesn’t? The interaction with his boss at the beginning was absolutely insane, but so representative of how so many bosses view their employees—even the ones that do their jobs perfectly for years aren’t safe from the wrath that one slipup incurs. Seriously, Gregor had never called in sick for 5 years, yet they went ballistic and assumed absolute worst of him when he was a couple hours late to work (because he was a bug and didn’t know how to use his new, little legs, so how was he going to get on a train?) and immediately threatened to fire him? While EVERY SINGLE thought he has when he first realizes he is now a bug is about how he is going to get to work and do his job. That man was seriously considering taking the bus as a BUG (he just had to figure out how to stand up, your honor!) and they had the gall to start yelling at him? That story definitely belongs on r/antiwork. Throughout the entire book I find it quite fascinating that Gregor never views this metamorphosis as how it affects him internally, but fixates on how this affects his ability to keep his job and provide for his family. The focus on this highlights just how conditioned we are to be productive members of society at all costs and how dangerous it can for one’s well-being when they are viewed as just another cog in the machine, whose value is only tied to their usefulness and when they live in a society that requires overworking yourself to put food on the table. Metamorphosis has a strong foundation, set up by Samsa’s need to provide for his family and his ability to do just that taken away. Once he is deemed useless, his thoughts of how he has failed his family begin. Never once does he blame his family for how abhorrently they treat him, because he genuinely believes that he is disgusting and terrible, not because he is a bug, but because he can no longer provide money for them. And because of that, he genuinely believes that he deserves this treatment and accepts it with an unconditional love and desire only to help his family in any way he can, whatever that may mean for himself.
“But what if all peace, prosperity, all contentment, were to come to a sudden and terrible end?”
Gregor’s fear of losing “peace, prosperity, all contentment” is not for himself, but for his family. He works like a dog in order for them to maintain that and, once he is unable to do so, his main fear is that he will be the cause of their demise. It seems clear that his father, who took on a strict and violent method with him as soon as he transformed, has instilled in him the belief that he has to be the provider for the family and that everyone will rely on him, following in his father and many men’s footsteps in a patriarchal society. What we see of his father’s feelings towards him are extremely straightforward. His son has fallen. His son will surely never be good enough now that he is in this predicament, so he turns towards rage. There is no sympathy in the way his father views him now, and it leads me to wonder if there ever was or if he was doomed from the start. His mother is the stereotypical “if you don’t see the world/live in the world my way then there is something inherently wrong with you” type, which opens some interesting avenues for discussion on the treatment of disabled people. There is a scene where she is fighting with the sister and says, ‘Isn’t it the case as well, that by taking away his furniture, we would be showing him we were abandoning all hope of an improvement of his condition, and leaving him utterly to his own devices?’ It is almost laughable how often I have heard a variation of that sentiment in the modern day. Her adamance to keep things the same, despite the very obvious changes in her son’s physical needs, speaks to an unwillingness to give accessibility because in doing so, she would have to accept that he has changed, which is something she is not willing to do, even if it will make Gregor’s quality of life significantly better. Grete, his sister, is the most interesting and heartbreaking of the group because of how strong Gregor and Grete’s love runs. They were always by each other’s side, looking out for each other. He would have given her the world; he was trying to before he transformed. In a way, the whole family has a metamorphosis, but hers is the most clear (besides Gregor’s, of course). As time moves, the burden of this “beast” she can barely see as her brother begins to far outweigh her desire to help him and make him comfortable. My jaw was on the floor for the last few pages, and, while the entire family was heinous, she was the main reason why.
“... he thought how simple everything would be if he had some help.”
From the start of the book, there is a language (species?) barrier when it comes to communication, at least for his family. While Gregor can perfectly understand his family, they cannot understand him and therefore assume that he cannot understand them. This, along with the fact that his family thinks he is so disgusting that they can’t look at him and can barely stand to be in the same room as him, alienates Gregor, leaving him completely alone by the time the story is over. But, in the beginning, there were glimpses of what could have been. Multiple times, Gregor notes just how much easier his life would be if he just had some help, or thinks about how his father wouldn’t have to harm him if he just noticed that the reason Gregor wasn’t moving fast enough was because there was something blocking him. The importance of community and togetherness is highlighted well through the injuries that Gregor sustains and how his family feels about him. When he is first seriously injured, he is completely healed quite quickly because, even though his parents have already given up on him and his sister is quite distressed about the situation, his sister makes an effort to accommodate him and his new needs. He isn’t lucky with his second injury, as he is now completely alone and rejected by everyone. This time, he suffers the injury for months and the weapon stays embedded in him, with no one who cares enough, or wants enough to get it out. Even when he thinks about helping his family, he moves significantly faster than when he is feeling especially rejected. I cannot stop thinking about how different this story would have been if his family worked towards helping and accommodating him, and it breaks my heart all over again. Kafka made it clear just how valuable it was whenever his sister, though rare, showed him kindness, as it quite literally healed him. There is power in community, there is power in family, there is power in love. Humans are social beings and we are not meant to crawl through this world on our own.
“Meanwhile, Gregor of course didn’t have the least intention of frightening anyone, and certainly not his sister.”
The part of this that really makes me sick is just how good of a person Gregor is. Being inside his head and seeing just how everything he does is with his family in mind, even as they reject him and isolate him, is nauseating and fills me with a deep pain. The only times he gets in trouble are when he leaves his room and the only times he leaves his room are when he is trying to help his family. How does one just throw someone away, especially someone who loves and cares for them so deeply and did so much for them. How do you not even check to see if your brother, your son who you have known for years can understand you even if he cannot communicate with you? How devastating it must be to be Gregor Samsa, who has only ever put his family first, but has finally worn out his use. How devastating it must be to be thrown away in disgust. How devastating it must be to justify this mistreatment by rationalizing that he somehow deserves it, because how can he, who has loved his family so deeply and unconditionally rationalize the fact that they weren’t willing to go near him let alone try and help him through this weird and unsettling change. How different this book would have been if they were willing to look past his grotesque exterior and understand that their boy was still there. Well, now I feel sick again, and I just want to give that little vermin a hug. This book made me cry way too many times for its seventy-seven pages. It shredded my soul to pieces and left me hollowed out. I want to go on and on about how brilliant and painful and relatable it is, I want to never shut up about it. This is one of those books that makes me question how I gave so many other books five stars before it because now it doesn’t feel as special to give this one five stars. This book is seared into my soul, and I fear it’ll stay there forever.
"I needed to keep going too. If I wanted to be ordinary, I had to put the effort into being ordinary."
In a shocking turn of events, I really just d "I needed to keep going too. If I wanted to be ordinary, I had to put the effort into being ordinary."
In a shocking turn of events, I really just don't have much to say about this one. It was a cute read that touched a bit on darker topics, such as suicide, alluding to the way women are treated in Korea, and climate change, but I just found myself wanting more from it.
" 'Because these powers are granted to the weakest people, it just looks like girls are the ones who get to be magical.' " ...more
“It was a wonderful night, the kind of night, dear reader, which is only possible when we are young.”
“White Nights: A Sentimental Love Story (From “It was a wonderful night, the kind of night, dear reader, which is only possible when we are young.”
“White Nights: A Sentimental Love Story (From the Memoirs of a Dreamer” is a beautiful little story about temporary companionship as a young dreamer opens up and finds comfort in a young woman over the course of four nights. It’s small, but packs a mighty punch. Over the course of four nights, both parties find necessary solace in the other and the dreamer, who is not used to forming any type of connection with anyone, is found feeling a little bit more.
“ ‘I’m a dreamer; I have so little real life that I regard such moments as this one, now, to be so rare that I can’t help repeating these moments in my dreams.’ ”
Dostoevsky has a real knack for making the most relatable character that you would really rather not relate to. The dreamer is a lonely man who spends the time in the company of his own thoughts and imagination rather than with other people. A part of the joy of this story is the dreamer finally having another soul to talk to. No matter the end, the fleeting moments of being able to talk and be understood (and not even understood most of the time) are something that are so valuable that it left me hoping that, at the end, he would try to reach out again. Given how incredibly depressing and pessimistic he is, that probably is the last time he talked to anyone besides the help forever, but one can dream.
“. . . And you regret that the momentary beauty faded so quickly, so irretrievably, that it flashed before you so deceptively and in vain—you regret this because there was not time for you even to fall in love with her. . .”
“ ‘. . . although from a distance it will look like a love story.’ ”
While we get glimpses into Nastenka’s story and temperament throughout the nights, we see the most of her when she tells the dreamer her story. There is a sort of youthful fickleness to her that gets highlighted well during this and seems to foreshadow how this story was always going to end.
“How could I have been so blind, when everything had already been taken by another, when everything was not mine, when, in the end, even this very tenderness of her attentions, her love. . . yes, her love for me—was nothing more than joy at the impending meeting with someone else, the desire to thrust her happiness on me?”
The love story aspect was damned since the start, with our narrator just being a stand-in for another man, but it doesn’t stop it from being exceptionally heartbreaking when the book ends the way it does. It’s a story that tugs on the heartstrings as one cannot help but feel the hopes and dreams that the dreamer tries his best to prevent himself from feeling as two people help each other feel a bit less lonely for a brief moment in time.
“My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man’s life?”
A very fun buddy read with the one and only renly <3
This is a brutal book. And I mean brutal. It’s a book that makes you stare unblinking into the eyes of the graphic violence of war. As the reader, youThis is a brutal book. And I mean brutal. It’s a book that makes you stare unblinking into the eyes of the graphic violence of war. As the reader, you will want to turn away, have some reprieve from this nightmare, but Diop will not let you look away. He grabs your head and forces you to keep on staring. It’s gruesome, but it’s brilliant. It’s also why this review is a bit short and took so long for me to get to – I was dreading being plummeted back into the nightmares this book holds.
“But before you, Mademba, I was incapable of being a man. I let you curse me, my friend, you, my more-than-brother, as soon as you were dead, I knew, I understood that I should not have abandoned you.”
Plagued with guilt after failing to mercy kill his “more-than-brother”, Mademba Diop, we follow Senegalese Chocolat soldier (aka a tirailleur sénégalais) Alfa Ndiaye as he fights in the trenches for the French army during World War II. During the first half, Ndiaye is plagued with guilt, leading him to do a string of killings that would be considered “barbaric” and “savage” as he continues to lose his grip with reality. The more he does this, the more isolated he becomes from his trench as he is seen as “barbaric” and “savage” (ironically the exact reason that the Chocolat soldiers were recruited). This part of the book is insanely repetitive and written in a way that made me really feel how this traumatic event (and the general trauma of war) was breaking Ndiaye. His paranoia makes him an incredibly unreliable narrator at this time, but there is still enough of him grounded in reality that makes one question the hypocrisy of war.
The second half has more to do with Ndiaye’s past as we are transported back to Senegal and get a better understanding of the climate under colonialization. Part of this section is focused on Ndiaye’s guilt and obsession to “make it up” to Diop, but there is a shift in how that manifests that, while still a bit jarring, was less painful to read about. There’s a lot more insight here into how colonialization negatively impacted Sengal and it makes it incredibly heartbreaking to read. While we see more anger in the first half, this half is focused more on a deep sadness as we are shoved back into reality. Diop really does an incredibly job showing the gritty details and effectively portraying how horrific war and colonization really are in these pages.
Because of the language barrier between the French and West African soldiers, the translators have an incredibly important part to play in the book. French and West African soldiers cannot understand each other with their translator and some things may be lost in translation or told differently because of that. It’s interesting to see the divide in this especially since these people have been conscripted to join the French forces and given many promises that would push them further away from their roots and more into French culture.
“To translate is never simple. To translate is to betray at the borders, it’s to cheat, it’s to trade one sentence for another. To translate is one of the only human activities in which one is required to lie about the details to convey the truth at large. To translate is to risk understanding better than others that the truth about a word is not single, but double, even trouble, quadruple, or quintuple. To translate is to distance oneself from God’s truth, which, as everyone knows or believes, is single.”
This work was brilliantly translated from French by Anna Moschovakis and shows an incredibly important look into Senegalese (and other West African) soldiers fighting for their French colonizers during World War I. It is a hard read, but I would recommend it if you have the stomach for it.
Paradise Rot is a trippy sensory overload taking place in a rotting Garden of Eden. It’s disgusting, it’s weird, it’s… enthralling. It captures you coParadise Rot is a trippy sensory overload taking place in a rotting Garden of Eden. It’s disgusting, it’s weird, it’s… enthralling. It captures you completely for 148 pages then spits you out disoriented and confused. In fact, this is such a surreal and disorienting book that when I finished it yesterday morning I tried to write a review for hours, failed, then picked up this book at 1am and read it all over again. This book burrowed itself into my brain and has left me in an odd, obsessive state. The world feels louder right now, when I close my eyes all I see is a rotting Garden of Eden, and my brain feels absolutely numb. The writing creates a nauseating sensory nightmare as the words jumped off the page and I could hear and feel them so loudly. I heard juices dribbling, pulp oozing, muted trickling (yes, of piss). I could feel yolks bursting, a Spanish slug’s antennas tickling the roof of my mouth, something warm and slimy white in my throat, warm spores melting into my skin. I wanted to scream at the girls to please drink some water as I listened to thick milky urine stream against a porcelain bowl and when Jo’s urine was described as acrid. I was horrified and deeply intrigued as various bodily fluids, oozes, and runny substances were described in just a little too much detail. I felt everything and I’m not really sure I wanted to (I actually am sure – I didn’t want to). “In the hostel my body became light and insubstantial, and I imagined that I, too, was being swallowed by fog, that I was dissolving in it.” / “Maybe it wasn’t the house, but me that was porous.” Jo has just moved from Norway to Australia for school and due to issues, such as a language barrier and loneliness, she has lost her sense of self. Before she finds the brewery, she is constantly drifting in and out of space feeling like it is impossible to connect with anyone. She finds comfort in the weird and disgusting as experiencing those things tend to transcend this new barrier that she is facing. When something gross happens on public transport in the beginning of the book, instead of being absolutely disgusted she thinks about how everyone is connected temporarily, and once the moment ends, she thinks “They could return to themselves, disappear into their enclosures. I was alone again.” In the outside world this language barrier is pervasive. When trying to explain things to her new friends she has trouble finding the right words, on the first day of class her inner monologue reveals “I became increasingly aware how unprepared I was to study in English.” … “I suddenly knew nothing about myself, nothing seemed right in English, nothing was true.” But when she finds this apartment and meets her new roommate Carral – a native English speaker – she never seems to have this problem. In this inside world, where she is cocooned against the unfamiliar, she feels a safety and familiarity that she hasn’t felt in Australia yet. Her combined fascination with mycology and pretty gross bodily fluids intertwines to produce a very interesting surreal world. “But the apple was first, and it never stops rotting, it just gets blacker. The apple has no end, just like this fairy tale.” The catalyst of this story and the introduction to the rotting Garden of Eden is when Carral brings home a bunch of apples, and they start rotting: “Through the drumming, something else could be heard: apple skin against the wood, rolling through the kitchen, back and forth, like eggs ready to hatch.” We get so much imagery of symbolism from these apples that intertwines with Jo and Carral and their desires. As the book progresses, the apples rot further as do Jo and Carral. ”An apple is never just an apple.” As their inner world begins to rot, their desire begins to grow until mushrooms begin to grow and then their desire (especially Carral’s) starts to show itself in very fungi-like ways. The brewery/Garden of Eden is an interesting place in itself. The moldy it gets, the more languidly we rot in it. There is a safety in this version of Eden, but there is also ruin. This version of the creation myth is also distorted, with a new story for every character. I liked this aspect because, while it was easy to figure out who some characters were meant to be, they didn’t necessarily have the same story. It’s an interesting way to depict a queer awakening/finding yourself story and Jo rushing to escaping the infected Garden in seared into my brain. “when she turned and lay behind me, firmly against my body, I thought we were synchronized, or I wished we were: that she should dream what I’d dreamt, that she should taste what my mouth tasted. There are two major transformations that begin to take place in this book, both have two different dynamics. With the neighbor Pym, we see how a male centered view on relationships can literally consume and destroy the woman. In his book, Pym writes about how “two girls took turns satisfying the man’s every sexual fantasy and eventually melted into him.” While claiming that the book is “somewhat feminist”, he shows his true intention of consuming the girls, taking the things that will benefit him, and discarding the rest. Even when him and Jo kiss, either Jo is consuming him and making him shrink, or Pym is doing the same to Jo. There is this dynamic where they only take and never give. Even when she gets physically close to him, he rarely leaves any residue/bodily fluid on her. And when she does feel a lingering mark, she is repulsed. Jo’s relationship with Carral based on fluids early on, representing this weird desire. In the beginning, Jo is already fascinated by how Carral crushes the sweet flesh of an apple between her teeth and dissolves the flesh into foam and the sound of her peeing. Instead of consuming Jo, Carral desires a conjoining of the two of them. She even adds a new ending to Pym’s story: “From his ashes will a four-breasted creature arise.” This seems to show a different kind of consumption where Carral still wants to meld with Jo but in a way where both of them are equals. They both seem to be consuming each other at equal rates. Before the storm, we are languidly rotting in a moldy Eden, moving as if we’re in a trance but, when she is awoken to the true dangers of this place, Jo must act before it is too late. There is this sense of urgency and fear towards the end as we watch Jo try to escape the clutches of the brewery. “I kept going to lectures, and every time I left, it felt like I crossed a threshold between dream and reality, sleep and wakefulness.” I don’t know if I’d recommend this book to most people, but if you do read this book read it by yourself, in a dark room, between the wee hours of 12am and 5am. A time and space where you’re completely isolated from the outside world and anything can happen....more
"What's interesting about animals, my wife explained, is that even though a cat may be a cat, in the end, each individual has its own character."
Th "What's interesting about animals, my wife explained, is that even though a cat may be a cat, in the end, each individual has its own character."
The Guest Cat follows two writers who work from home as freelance editors as their neighbor's cat invites herself into their home. We watch as the cat, Chibi, begins to worm her way into their lives and hearts of this young couple. Takashi Hiraide really does something incredible in making the mundane enchanting. Chibi truly is such a prominent character in this book as we see her perfectly cat like interactions with everything throughout the days and weeks and months.
"I wonder where it all comes from - this need to go to the place where the body has been laid to rest. It's the need to reconfirm how precious someone was and how replaceable, and the desire to reconnect with them on a different plane.
The backdrop of this story is 1989/90 Tokyo, where the cost of living is exponentially increasing and, due to unforeseen circumstances, our main couple has to move out of their rental. We watch as they try their best to find somewhere near this cat that isn't theirs to take, but prices have raised so much that it's impossible to live much of anywhere - let alone nearby. We watch as two stories, one of a cat and her neighbors and the other of the natural areas of the world come to a close as houses are torn down to make room for expensive condominiums.
This is a simple yet poignant book about what it means to love and to lose. It is bittersweet and beautiful....more
In Notes From Underground we are reading the notes of our unnamed narrator, the Underground Man, as he lives "I am a sick man... I am a wicked man."
In Notes From Underground we are reading the notes of our unnamed narrator, the Underground Man, as he lives his life in solitude. We first see how this affects him through The Underground, where he writes and writes a bunch of contradictory theories that feel almost impossible to read at times. We see his inner thoughts and they are exhausting. We see how convoluted his thoughts get due to his hyperawareness as we seem him go in circles of thought that don't all make sense or work together. In the second part, we see how his hyperawareness literally prevents him from making any meaningful action or forward movement in his life. We watch him blame everyone but himself as this hyperawareness makes him seem stupid and chokes him out, showing that thought without action can be detrimental.
The Underground In the Underground, we see how the Underground Man spends his time theorizing and obsessing over everything. It's fairly obvious that he hasn't talked to anyone (at least about his theories) in a while, as you can tell that, while a lot of them sound nice on paper, they are not how the real world works.
"It will be ashamed of its fantasies, but all the same it will recall everything, go over everything, heap all sorts of figments on itself, under the pretext that they, too, could have happened, and forgive nothing." "But man is so partial to systems and abstract conclusions that he is ready intentionally to distort the truth, to turn a blind eye, and a deaf ear, only so as to justify his logic." "Two times two will be four even without my will. As if there were any will of one's own!"
Apropos of the Wet Snow In Apropos of the Wet Snow, the Underground Man recounts his life in his early 20's. We see up close and personal how his inaction and "spiritlessness" leads to his constant misery. He is constantly waiting or hoping for something to change yet cannot connect the dots that he is the only one with the power to make himself change.
"I was then already bearing the underground in my soul. I was terribly afraid of somehow being seen, met, recognized." "... in my soul I have never been a coward, though I constantly turned coward in reality..." "Either hero or mud, there is no in between. And that is what ruined me." "The chief martyr, of course, was myself, because I was fully conscious of all the loathsome baseness of my spiteful stupidity, and at the same time I simply could not restrain myself."
I don't know if I have ever cringed so much (at a book I've loved) as I have during this one. He wallows and wallows, then decides he is finally going to do something, then he chickens out and goes back to obsessing over what he would've done in his head. He mentions how people would see his genius if they could see inside his head, but life is built on actions not thoughts and he cannot seem to grasp that. Every time he does eventually act it is crazed and erratic as he has reached his breaking point and feels compelled to act immediately. That is the only way he seems to be able to do anything and it is incredibly painful to watch how he sabotages himself.
" 'It's as if you... as if it's from a book.' " His words and even actions are just that. Something an alienated person would think was normal based on reading books, but that takes away the nuance of life and often over dramatizes his life.
"We've all grown unaccustomed to life... I have merely carried to an extreme in my life what you have not dared to carry even halfway." At the end, the Underground Man turns to us, his imaginary readers, and tells us an ugly truth. We are all at least a little bit like the Underground Man. This is both a warning and a motivation. A wake up call to some. The Underground Man is who you become if you live inside your head, refusing to take action and carve a meaning out for ourselves.
This was beautifully done and left me with so much to think about. Easily jumped up to one of my favorites of all time....more
Vampires – especially queer ones – are my jam. There are so many topics that can be well discussed through a vampiric lens which makes them endlessly Vampires – especially queer ones – are my jam. There are so many topics that can be well discussed through a vampiric lens which makes them endlessly fascinating. This one primarily focuses on death.
In the first half of Thirst we follow an unnamed vampire as she tries to find her place in an ever-evolving world that is becoming increasingly hostile towards vampires. After a particularly brutal event during the beginning of the nineteenth century it becomes obvious that the hunters are finally becoming the hunted, so she immigrates from Europe to Buenos Aires with the hope of finding a place for herself as a vampire. With the urbanization of any city comes widespread epidemic, especially in the nineteenth century. Amidst outbreaks of The Yellow Fever, death thrives and so does the vampire, but as death starts to become less prevalent and the epidemics calm down, the vampire senses that her place is going to be disrupted again.
This part of the book is fast-paced and violent. There is an animalistic nature to our unnamed vampire that modern vampire stories tend to stray away from. The only thing that fuels her is her insatiable thirst for blood. There is no thought of anything except that thirst as she seduces her victims. I loved being in the mind of the vampire and found it so intriguing. Her mind is her urges, and she does some brutal things to satiate herself but is never satisfied. All of this occurs under the beautiful gothic backdrop of nineteenth century Buenos Aires. As decades pass by in a haze, the author introduces some interesting historical events and landmarks that show how the world is changing. This part is fast paced and spans decades. The ending is abrupt but makes sense and closes off the era of vampires well.
The second half takes place in modern day Buenos Aires and we follow a woman dealing with the grief of her mother’s terminal illness as she takes care of her young son. The juxtaposition of life and death along with the symbolism of the vampire was well done her. Death and rebirth is a major theme in this part and it’s a lot slower, told in diary entries spanning a few months. The difference between these parts is quite jarring and almost disorienting to the reader. The stench of death still reeks but in an incredibly different way as our narrator watches her mother lose control of her whole body, knowing the end is near. While it was clear how the stories would weave together, I found it done in a quite abrupt way that didn’t feel natural. The ending left me a bit empty and kind of upset, but in a “why did you do that?” way instead of a fun way. It is still an interesting study on death and grief and rebirth.
There is a very big distinction between these books in terms of tone and pacing, so much so that these could’ve easily been two separate books. While it is a bit jarring, it shows how disorienting it can be to be lurched into the twenty-first century. Overall, the vibes were there for this book but parts of it just felt a bit flat. It’s still an interesting one to pick up. I will say that while I saw this advertised as “sapphic vampires” that feels like mismarketing. This isn’t a romance, it is a literary fiction that studies death, don’t expect much in terms of any time of relationship.
This is Yuszczuk’s first book that has been translated into English and I will be interested to see what comes next.
Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the arc ...more
Well this was more than a little disappointing for me.
I love a good short story collection (arguably more than I love full length novels), but for soWell this was more than a little disappointing for me.
I love a good short story collection (arguably more than I love full length novels), but for some reason this just fell flat. While the writing was fine and the stories had interesting concepts, the themes felt a bit basic and like things I’ve heard a million times before.
"Besides, sometimes it's inevitable for the past to be forgotten, especially if the present is no less horrific."
Minor Detail is a small book broke "Besides, sometimes it's inevitable for the past to be forgotten, especially if the present is no less horrific."
Minor Detail is a small book broken up in two parts. In part I, we see the (true) story of a young Bedouin girl in 1950s Palestine being taken and raped, then murdered by Israeli soldiers. In part II, we follow a Palestinian journalist from Ramallah as she tries to learn more about this woman’s story.
Part I The first part of this book is written in a detached third person voice. It seems like it from the journal entries of the Israeli soldier who found and abused the Bedouin girl. The horrific story of this girl isn't even on this guy's priority list and the disconnected tone makes it all the more haunting as you see how this terrible act is nothing but a minor detail in the lives of these soldiers. I found this first part a little disjointed and very hard to get through, but that was the point. This part is sickening and it’s even more sickening that it was real.
Part II The second part of the book is written in the more personal first person, as we follow a young journalist who grows obsessed with this Bedouin girl's story solely because it happened 25 years before the day she was born. This story hits just as hard as we follow her in present day Palestine and observe all of the obstacles and dangers she faces when she is just trying to get a bit more information on something. We follow our main character as she goes from Ramallah to Tel Aviv and the many struggles she faces before she herself becomes a minor detail.
This book does exactly what it sets out to do perfectly. It is an exemplary example of how reading and writing is resistance. This book can also be read in about a day and I would implore everyone to give it a go. It's a hard read, but it is so important. Despite it's size, this is a book that will stick with me for a long time.
I would highly recommend to anyone based on the contents alone, but the fact that the author has been censured and unable to receive her reward at the Frankfurt Book Fair because of what is going on in Palestine makes it an incredibly important read right now....more
highly recommend the audiobook I respect what Saramago was doing with this book, it just didn’t hit the mark for me for a variety of (spoilery) reasonhighly recommend the audiobook I respect what Saramago was doing with this book, it just didn’t hit the mark for me for a variety of (spoilery) reasons. ...more
Anna Karenina is a bit of a deceiving name for this book as there are two main characters of this book. Anna, who is going through quite a lot all of Anna Karenina is a bit of a deceiving name for this book as there are two main characters of this book. Anna, who is going through quite a lot all of the time, who we follow for about 40% of the book, and Levin, who is trying to find meaning in life and really really loves farming, who we follow for about 60% of the book. While Anna's side of the story is fast paced and interesting, Levin's is a lot of... farming. (This book took me 9 months because it was torture to get through Levin's chapters the majority of the time). My favorite thing about this book is how it is a window into aristocratic life in 1800s Russia. It is very well written and the setting was brought to life.
The main point of this book is to show different marriages, two unhappy and one happy. In the first, we follow Dolly and Oblonsky. At the beginning of the book, Oblonsky has cheated on Dolly and brings his sister, Anna Karenina, in to try to convince Dolly not to divorce her, thus setting off the entire book. I thought this storyline was really well done. I was very nervous as to where it would end up, as there were a lot of differences in the way society treated Oblonsky vs. Anna after their affairs, but I was ultimately very happy. It was a frustrating ride, but I have no notes. This is a clear cut case of a very unhappy marriage.
In our second union, we follow Anna, her husband (Karenin), and her lover (Count Vronsky). Anna and Karenin have been in a very tepid relationship since Anna was 18. It's very clear that they have no romantic love for each other, but they are well off, have a son that Anna loves, and are "content". When Anna goes to see her brother, Oblonsky, she meets and is tempted by Vronsky with the promise of something more fiery than lukewarm love. A lot of events happen that mainly show that, once Anna has given in to temptation, she is given multiple chances to turn away and repent, yet makes the 'evil' decision to keep the affair going. We watch as Anna rapidly deteriorates mentally due to the price of her sin. I think Anna and her entire story is fascinating, especially in part 7 when everything aggressively hits the fan, but I don't necessarily agree with the message that it feels like Tolstoy is trying to tell us with this one. I know its a societal, religious, and time thing, but the fact that Anna is never truly seen as a victim to the constraints she has in life as a woman in her time is a little frustrating.
As our story comes to a close in Part 8, we see a quick overview on how everything has worked out as it should, then focus our attentions more closely on Levin and Kitty, who are just living a content life while everything else is in shambles. My absolute favorite thing about Levin in the entire book is how he has canonically come to beekeeping age and y'all know what that means (he's a hot dilf). I really enjoyed the ending of the book, like I literally laughed out loud at where some people ended up; however, I found the last few chapters to be a bit too preachy for my tastes.
"All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I am called back to this iconic first line as we close out our story. It is obvious that Levin & Kitty are meant to be the only truly happy family we have followed, yet there are so many points in the book where it feels obvious that Levin does not view Kitty as an equal, or even a human sometimes. I cannot help but wonder, since Levin is so obviously a self-insert for Tolstoy, if Levin & Kitty are based off Tolstoy and his wife, a famous marriage where the wife was supremely unhappy. I feel as though the topic of this book would've been significantly more interesting and nuanced if it was written by a woman. Details such as Kitty's perspective and what drives Anna to cheat and how her & Karenin's own marriage felt like a cage for her would've been incredibly interesting to explore. Instead it is clear that Tolstoy doesn't seem to consider that Kitty is a three-dimensional person that doesn't exist just for Levin and doesn't even think to go into the reasons why Anna would've cheated in a loveless marriage, making it clear her downfall is all her own, instead of partially a product of the society she was born into.
This book was good, but I would've really liked for Levin's parts to be shorter. I truly disliked Levin as a human being (he was my nemesis while reading this, he's grown on me a little though), and I think that this is a situation where I just have to accept that I really just don't see eye to eye with Tolstoy on pretty much anything so I probably won't like a character that is a self insert.
This book has been a constant in my life for almost 9 months and, despite my qualms, I feel an emptiness as I prepare to leave these characters for good.
will probably do a part by part review soon bc i put 9 months into this book
I think when I first read this book I thought it was about how children are superior to grownups, but now I see that the author is saying that childreI think when I first read this book I thought it was about how children are superior to grownups, but now I see that the author is saying that children see the world in a way that is hard for adults - they don’t let stress burden them, and do the tasks they need to do and live a happy life. ...more