Function of magic: Magic and trauma both start in disbelief, transformation; magic and fantasy; history and reality as imagination Mixture of genres Memoir and cultural criticism Kurt Cobain, Selena, video games and music videos...more
SO. MUCH. FUN. In her brand new novel, Senna tells the story of a biracial writer named Jane who is married with children to a Black painter (the factSO. MUCH. FUN. In her brand new novel, Senna tells the story of a biracial writer named Jane who is married with children to a Black painter (the fact that biracial Danzy Senna is married with children to Black author Percival Everett makes the whole book even funnier). The couple is short on money, but Jane trusts that her latest novel which she spent a decade crafting will catapult them into comfortable middle-class life - until it gets rejected and she gets told to not always write about biracial people and find another subject (Senna, you guessed it, always writes about mixed-race people). Now Jane tries to change direction and become a TV writer...
I love books about the art scene, and "Colored Television" finds hilarious ways to show an artistic bohème with bills to pay that has pledged allegiance to high art, but also wants to live in a nice house - of course, that's a problem that transcends the milieu, because it's easy to be a snobby purist when you're 17 and daddy buys your food, but it's harder to be righteous when you are over 30 and carry responsibilities yourself. Jane is a messy, three-dimensional female breadwinner with a husband making basically no real income and obsessing over Japan, while she is trying to stir the ship. While they are house-sitting for a rich friend, ogling his nice belongings, she wants to find a way to ascend to the financial class she is now cosplaying to belong to.
And Senna is also very witty when it comes to satirizing the marketability of identities and minorities. There are some very sharp sentences about creating art that sells, and about audiences eating up trendy discourse. It's very suitable as an audio book, as the structure of the plot and the construction of the sentences are not particularly complicated, but there are many surprising metaphors and comparisons as well as detailed descriptions that just work with the whole concept.
Sure, the ending could have been better, but hell, this is very smart fun....more
Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2024 Nominated for the National Book Award 2024 Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024 Let's gooo!Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2024 Nominated for the National Book Award 2024 Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024 Let's gooo!...more
Nominated for the National Book Award 2024 The Booker shortlist currently features two novels with a lyrical approach (Held and Orbital) that gave me Nominated for the National Book Award 2024 The Booker shortlist currently features two novels with a lyrical approach (Held and Orbital) that gave me nothing, as I found them rather pretentious and frequently esoteric. Sam Sax shows that poetic novel-writing can be in-your-face and forceful as well: "Yr Dead" starts with the protagonist, 27-year-old queer non-binary Jewish bookseller Ezra, setting themselves on fire in New York City. Then, we get numerous flashbacks into their past life experiences, some metaphorical stories and text conversations with their friend Ericka, plus some impressions of the ride to the hospital after the incident - a lot of the text is an exploration from beyond the grave though, adding a frame of Gothic horror to the experience of feeling like an outsider.
Sax dives into a lot of themes, from Ezra's Jewish ancestry to their mother abandoning them, their sexuality, their desperation because social and environmental protests seem to lead nowhere, their complicated love life, surviving domestic abuse and the repercussions of living in a world that is chronically online but lacks human connection. Ezra's forefathers get voices that are rendered as fiction-within-fiction, the parents merge and shift like ghosts through the lines and through Ezra's consciousness.
This author aims high and has no interest in playing it safe, and I appreciate it - this reads like a more high-risk version of Ocean Vuong, with a very distinct artistic vision. Kudos to the National Book Award for recognizing some daring new fiction....more
We need more women in politics kicking ass, so I'm super interested in how Nancy Pelosi broke the glass ceiling and developed her own style of power pWe need more women in politics kicking ass, so I'm super interested in how Nancy Pelosi broke the glass ceiling and developed her own style of power politics- which, let's face it, is of course necessary to play the game successfully, and which is particularly difficult for women as in vast parts of the court of public opinion, the "assertive" male equals the female "bitch". And Pelosi gives us some captivating behind-the-curtain info on, e.g., the Iraq war, the Affordable Care Act, and the attempted coup encouraged by Trump. She also adds some personal aspects, for instance, the book opens with the attack on Pelosi's husband and the repercussions.
But all in all, a political memoir gets intriguing when a politician allows themselves to be messy or openly ponder failure. I will never forget the scene in which Madeleine K. Albright descends the stairs shortly before her divorce in Madam Secretary: A Memoir - everything around it was highly enlightening regarding the expectations for women in the past and present. Pelosi is still a member of the House, and maybe she should have waited until after her retirement and then write a "I have no fucks left to give" text that also includes more things that went wrong and interpersonal stories about her feelings and experiences beyond what's fit to print in an election pamphlet. Not because I like tea (okay, I DO like to hear the tea), but because these personal aspects are crucial to understand a person and the political system.
A memoir is the chance to be relatable because of one's complicated humanity, and Pelosi hasn't yet taken the chance to tell her story with little constraint. But maybe one day, we'll get her A Promised Land. I'd read it. Until then, "The Art of Power" certainly is an interesting book about American politics....more
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024 Listen, this could have been a great novel about the intergenerational effects of colonization, mainly the feelingLonglisted for the Booker Prize 2024 Listen, this could have been a great novel about the intergenerational effects of colonization, mainly the feeling of alienation and rootlessness that just follows wherever the characters go, but alas, it's just a thematically unfocused family saga full of rather lifeless literary personnel. The text revolves around the Cassars, a family of pieds-noirs, so of ethnically French people born in Algeria during the colonial rule. We meet them during WW II, follow them through Algerian independence that basically loses them a homeland that was never theirs to begin with, then follow the three generations chapter after chapter of moving through France, Australia, the US, Canada, and Argentina. The whole thing is mostly told chronologically, but with slight time jumps between the seven parts (see the seven ages of man in As You Like It).
The problem here is that the structure with the movement between places is set up to make aforementioned point about colonialism and the lack of a home/center, while the characters are occupied with a plethora of often unrelated things - that isn't to say that they should be fully defined by their heritage, but if they struggle with unfulfilled dreams of becoming a writer or their sexuality or a strained marriage, those things shouldn't be listed, they need to be narrated in an engaging way. I felt with no one in this book, because the people remain narrative ideas, human-shaped plot points.
This is all so timid and held-back, and it wanders off in all directions without really telling me why the individual parts are important to the whole, or should be interesting as a vignette. Messud, whose fraternal grandparents are Algerian, has apparently read an account of over 1,000 pages by a family member that inspired her to write this, and Chloe, the only character that speaks from her own point of view instead of being narrated by an omniscient voice, seems to be tethered to the author. The result though is a novel that comes off as an agglomeration of individual life events of people, a text that lacks stringency and depth. I really struggled to finish this.
Everyone talks about the divide between the left and the right, but more people should talk about the multiple divides within the American left, the rEveryone talks about the divide between the left and the right, but more people should talk about the multiple divides within the American left, the rifts that stem from quasi-religious fervor, from a vain race to out-virtue-signal each other, the inability or unwillingness to deal with differing standpoints - and that's where the discussion around Bill Maher comes in. I listened to the whole 13 hours of this, his latest work, and there is no reasonable ground for the demonization this guy is experiencing in some circles. Do I agree with everything he says? Nope. Do I think he is a progressive mind genuinely interested in discussing important issues and advancing civil and human rights causes? Yes, I do think so.
And having the same objective while disagreeing on particular subjects is a good thing, because that's how you consider different aspects and viewpoints, and maybe sometimes you just have to deal with the fact that others don't see the world the same way you do, even if you believe they are wrong. I, for once, think it's an outrageous take to qualify the denial of the Holocaust under free speech, to make it an issue in the marketplace of ideas: Whether a genocide happened or not is not up for debate, which is why people around these parts will go to jail if they claim it never happened, and I support that. I'm also rather annoyed by Maher's silly arguments regarding religion, it makes me want to explain to him what a parable is, a fable, or even a metaphor. But then again, I'm a Catholic from a secular country, and he's an atheist from a country where religious nutjobs are quite powerful, so you do you, Bill (I'm also here for you to explain the revolution of '68 that the German pope was referring to, German history is apparently not your forte). His remarks about marriage are also only mildly funny, and I'm saying that as someone who 100 % gets his point. And I could go on and on.
But then, many reviews, also here on GR, prove him right: I don't like his reasoning, so he's an elitist and all about his ego (when in fact, he talks a lot about how the left is entangled in theoretical discussions instead of actually improving things). He invites Milo Yiannopoulos and makes him seem reasonable (have you seen this interview? Milo looks like the absolute lunatic he is). He is critical of anti-Israeli protests getting entangled with pro-Hamas (so-pro-terrorist) stances, and that's bad (in Germany, Maher's is a mainstream opinion, btw). Much like Maher is dumbing down some issues which hurts his credibility, these takes do as well.
Maybe we should all do something super painful: Dealing with differing opinions instead of shutting them out, and only morally condemning them in extreme cases. Maher engages in debate and puts his opinions out there, fully knowing that some people will not only disagree, but try to verbally crucify him. And he's not the enemy, especially not in Trump country....more
Yeah, that's what I need: A novel about a cursed film, because I don't encounter enough cursed crap on a daily basis! :-)Yeah, that's what I need: A novel about a cursed film, because I don't encounter enough cursed crap on a daily basis! :-)...more
Part two of Angels in America, "Perestroika", strongly focuses on the idea that change for the better is possible, which, considering that the main chPart two of Angels in America, "Perestroika", strongly focuses on the idea that change for the better is possible, which, considering that the main character Prior is suffering from AIDS in the 1980's, is quite the strong message (this second part premiered in 1992). Sure, it's messier than part 1, Millennium Approaches, but considering that at the grim time the play was first produced, AIDS-patients came to see how Prior wrestles the angels in order to be allowed to stay on earth and witness a re-structuring of society (which is what Perestroika means and what happened at the time in the former Soviet Union), these are minor flaws. (FYI: Putin is of course ignoring the AIDS pandemic, so much for the motherland of the political Perestroika.)
This first part of Angels in America lives up to its reputation: The Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play is a captivating illustration of the AIDS crisis This first part of Angels in America lives up to its reputation: The Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play is a captivating illustration of the AIDS crisis in the 1980's. Main character Prior hails from an old American family. When his health deteriorates due to his AIDS diagnosis, his lover Louis abandons him. Louis, who comes from a Jewish family, then starts a relationship with Joe, a Mormon and Republican who has a Valium-addicted wife and works for lawyer Roy Cohn (a real historical figure who worked for McCarthy and Trump and died of AIDS).
Kushner plays with ideas of transcendence and paranoia when he shows his characters driven to the edge because of fear, shame and anger. Dying Prior, pushed aside by both his lover and society at large, has visions of his ancestors and an angel; Louis wrestles with his guilt and spirals; closeted Joe outwardly submits to his religious and political affiliations while hurting his loved ones and himself, which puts him in constant psychological limbo; Joe's wife, who senses that something is wrong, lives in a Valium-induced haze; and Cohn is haunted by his own ruthlessness: Closeted and unwilling to admit that he has AIDS, he has visions of Ethel Rosenberg, a woman who was, along with her husband, executed for espionage at Cohn's recommendation.
Cooper is a well-known proponent of and participant in zine culture and a supporter of small presses, so if you don't live in the UK or the US, you neCooper is a well-known proponent of and participant in zine culture and a supporter of small presses, so if you don't live in the UK or the US, you need to be really motivated to get your hands on a copy of "Flunker": I had to order it from a small press in the US which distributes in the UK over a small record label, then I had it shipped to Germany, then I had to pick it up from the customs office (thanks, Brexit), all while Cooper lives literally less than two hours away from me in France - it's nuts. Zut alors, Dennis!
Cooper himself called the anthology a collection of B-sides, which is certainly true for most of the six texts. This is not a suitable starting point for Cooper newbies, nor is it his best work, but it's interesting for people who are following the evolution of his writing. And then there is "From Here On", which is, together with My Mark, one of the best short stories the man has ever written - and with its counterpart "Gold", these two entries demonstrate the two main motors of Cooper's writing: Melancholic love and extreme transgression. Let's look at the texts individually:
Face Eraser This text is what the internet did to the literary stream-of-consciousness: It now manifests as grammatically dubious digital ramblings that, make no mistake, develop their own zeitgeisty artsiness. This piece reads like a wicked self-presentation on a dating app, and is thus related to Cooper's most popular novel, The Sluts (which, in case you're a Cooper newbie, should be your starting point).
From Here On An intriguing autofictional piece about the beginning of the friendship between Cooper and George Miles (who inspired the George Miles Cycle and I Wished). This text shows that Cooper, apart from all the transgressive antics and the shock value that is frequently an inherent part of his art, is a fantastic writer in the most classic sense, rendering intense scenes and psychologically deep characters in vivid vignettes.
Corpse and Hand Puppet Early versions of this were included in a collaborative installation with Gisèle Vienne. Rendered as a discussion between the title-giving, ähem, entities, it's a meditation on control that mostly left me unaffected, tbh.
Trou Français Apparently an outtake from The Marbled Swarm, and what can I say: French cannibals should be more fun than this. "The Marbled Swarm" certainly deserves praise for its experimental approach, but I couldn't get through it (yet), although I'm well on my way to become a Cooper completist.
Gold The George Miles Cycle meets "A Serbian Film" and critiques the criminal antics of the Kremlin - yes, you read that right. The title-giving Gold is a Russian former popstar who got abused and becomes an abuser and killer, all staged and recorded as a NSFL multi-media spectacle with the help (?) of a KGB hitman. By far the most transgressive piece in here.
Start Similar approach as in the first story, "Face Eraser", but add some William S. Burroughs-style cut-up and Cooper-esque ideas of death, sex and illness - voilà, here you go.
This is pushed to four stars by "From Here On", which should have been part of I Wished....more
An almost eight-hour-long play about the AIDS crisis in 80's New York? Yes, please, if it's written like that! The Pulitzer- and Tony-winning text/proAn almost eight-hour-long play about the AIDS crisis in 80's New York? Yes, please, if it's written like that! The Pulitzer- and Tony-winning text/production is a captivating illustration of the time, rendered in a deep, moving, and frequently very funny tone. Part 1, Millennium Approaches, introduces main character Prior who hails from an old American family. When his health deteriorates due to his AIDS diagnosis, his lover Louis abandons him. Louis, who comes from a Jewish family, then starts a relationship with Joe, a Mormon and Republican who has a Valium-addicted wife and works for lawyer Roy Cohn (a real historical figure who worked for McCarthy and Trump and died of AIDS).
Kushner plays with ideas of transcendence and paranoia when he shows his characters driven to the edge because of fear, shame and anger. Dying Prior, pushed aside by both his lover and society at large, has visions of his ancestors and an angel; Louis wrestles with his guilt and spirals; closeted Joe outwardly submits to his religious and political affiliations while hurting his loved ones and himself, which puts him in constant psychological limbo; Joe's wife, who senses that something is wrong, lives in a Valium-induced haze; and Cohn is haunted by his own ruthlessness: Closeted and unwilling to admit that he has AIDS, he has visions of Ethel Rosenberg, a woman who was, along with her husband, executed for espionage at Cohn's recommendation.
Part 2, Perestroika, then strongly focuses on the idea that change for the better is possible, which, considering that the main character Prior is suffering from AIDS in the 1980's, is quite the strong message (this second part premiered in 1992). Sure, it's messier than part 1, but considering that at the grim time the play was first produced, AIDS-patients came to see how Prior wrestles the angels in order to be allowed to stay on earth and witness a re-structuring of society (which is what Perestroika means and what happened at the time in the former Soviet Union), these are minor flaws. (FYI: Putin is of course ignoring the AIDS pandemic, so much for the motherland of the political Perestroika.)
Keanu making his fanboy dreams come true: He got one of his favorite authors, sci-fi veteran China Miéville, to write out his ideas for a novel versioKeanu making his fanboy dreams come true: He got one of his favorite authors, sci-fi veteran China Miéville, to write out his ideas for a novel version of the BRZRKR comic series (of course currently in development for Netflix, starring Mr. Reeves himself). The main, Keanu-looking character is Unute, a 80,000-year-old man unable to die because he was born out of blue lightning (don't ask). His wounds heal themselves, and when his body is harmed beyond repair, he just hetches from a new egg, somewhere in the world (because, sure). But as life is given value by death, Unute longs for the potential to die, and he wants to achieve his goal by cooperating with a military operation doing research on him to craft the perfect soldier: An undying, super-humanly strong fighting machine (hello, toxic masculinity). And oh, Unute is also referred to as B, because he tends to go berserk à la Hulk, but ultra-violent AND cute, because: Keanu.
Sooooo, I will not pretend that I know anything about the well-regarded works of Miéville, about his ideas around "weird fiction" (fyi: Unute is haunted by an undying pig that holds a grudge against him, e.g.) or sci-fi in general. I also won't pretend that I will not be streaming the hell out of every new Keanu movie, because: Keanu. But: This is a kind of literature I struggle with, because all the supernatural stuff just bores me - take this with a grain of salt, I also hate Dune, super hero movies, and video games.
What I appreciate though is that Miéville has not taken the easy route, but aimed for a complex composition, starting out with a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke and then constantly jumping back to Unute's adventures in different time frames - these are partly even rendered in the second person singular, and they feature the likes of Freud and Marx. There are also very dark clues to themes in Reeves' life: The whole thing seems to be set in Lebanon (where Keanu was born), Unute only has stillborn children (as happened to Keanu and his girlfriend, who later tragically died herself), and death and grief play a major role, appearing as structuring forces in life. Also, the cults that worship Unute and the pig seem like parodies of the celebrity experience, as well as religion. There is a philosophical level here, but amped up with lots of genre-typical (I suppose) quirks. The whole plot seems rather convoluted to me, but then again, I'm aware that I've raved about much more complicated experimental novels in the past, and that this is just not my genre.
I'm certainly not the expert to rate this, but I found it interesting to tackle the ideas in here, even if overall, I struggled to get through. If you want to hear from Keanu himself, check out his interview with the fantastic Stephen Colbert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz8J6...
Palahniuk's "Haunted" is famous for its format - a short story collection embedded in a frame narrative that mocks the attention economy - and the firPalahniuk's "Haunted" is famous for its format - a short story collection embedded in a frame narrative that mocks the attention economy - and the first story-within-the-story, "Guts", about a freak masturbation accident (don't ask). But above anything, this book is: Looooooong. And listen, I'll readily admit that I'm not a short story aficionada in general, but the whole thing is just too silly and too forced to fulfill its horror ambitions as well.
Let's look at the composition for a sec: The narrative frame tells the story of 17 people who have signd up for a writers' retreat, but then get locked up by the organizer for three months in order to force them to produce super-great art. As these jaded, caricature-esque individuals know how the media and marketing work, they set out to produce extra drama and hardship, planning to sell their experiences afterwards - which of course gets out of control. In between, we get prose poems and 23 (!!) short stories presenting the individual participants in the retreat.
And while these stories are supposed to be told by different people, they all sound the same, and the whole shtick gets tired rather quickly. It's a mixture of disgusting and silly, involving a cast of over-the-top stock characters, which can be entertaining, but not with that page count and predictable frame narrative. Frankly, I don't quite get why this book is brought up again and again when it comes to American horror.
Absolutely loved this classic American novel: The lyrical, evocative writing, the sense of place and time post-Stonewall and pre-AIDS, the story and hAbsolutely loved this classic American novel: The lyrical, evocative writing, the sense of place and time post-Stonewall and pre-AIDS, the story and how Holleran plays with literary tropes. First published in 1978, "Dancer from the Dance" revolves around Anthony Malone, a blond young man born in the Midwest and brought up in Sri Lanka who starts a career as a lawyer, but feels alienated and alone - when he discovers / confronts his homosexuality, he leaves everything behind and goes to New York, where the older Andrew Sutherland introduces him to a world of sex, drugs, and parties.
Malone is the only fully fleshed out character, a young man who chases the romantic ideal and works as a callboy, becoming a part of a fragile, fast-moving scene that, as represented by Sutherland, perceives life as brutal and meaningless and thus fights reality with sexual and chemical pleasure, which produces another kind of emptiness than the one Malone fled, but still an emptiness. Malone tries to eradicate his former life, but then realizes he participates in another charade - in many ways, this is a novel that juxtaposes romantic ideals with harsh realities, as epitomized in the satire on the marriage plot that unfolds later in the story. Which of course brings up the question: Does the life Malone (and many others, no matter the sexual orientation) desires even exist, can it be willed into existence? All the while, Sutherland appears as almost enigmatic, having built a speed-saturated wall around himself, but he is also way more pragmatic than Malone.
What makes the narrative so clever is not the epistolary frame, unneccessarily presenting the main plot as an autofictional novel by a fictional writer, but the fact that Malone is always shown from the outside while the narrative voices change: From an omniscient narrator to several unnamed members of the queer scene depicted, sometimes even modulating into a lyrical we, like a Greek choir. It's beautiful and elegantly done, befitting to the theme of male beauty that runs through the text with its many depictions of bodies, erotic tension, and longing - which is then paralleled with age and disintegration.
The title is taken from William Butler Yeats' poem "Among School Children", and on a literal level, it certainly alludes to the many discos and dance parties depicted in the novel, but metaphorically, it also touches upon the ecstasy of getting lost in a pleasurable physical experience. The idea of almost spiritual reverence to love is reflected in the often religiously connotated language Holleran employs, which is rooted in Malone's past as a deeply religious boy who, as a grown-up, still needs something or someone to believe in.
(Fun fact, btw: I somehow got here after I disappeared in a Dennis Cooper rabbit hole, and I have no rational explanation for this progression! :-))...more
Kramer was the founder of the international ACT UP! movement (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an organization founded in 1987 to end AIDS, so his coKramer was the founder of the international ACT UP! movement (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an organization founded in 1987 to end AIDS, so his contributions to social change, also with his writing, can hardly be overstated - still, he caused a lot of outrage with "Faggots", so let's dive into the controversy and see what it says about the contenders and their arguments.
Plotwise, the novel is set in 1970's New York, so it was written before AIDS, and it loosely revolves around a gay protagonist named Fred, who is about to turn 40 and longing for a long-term romantic partnership, but mainly drifts through a panorama of sex, drugs and parties that do not lead to the fulfillment of his wishes. A huge cast of secondary characters further illustrates the promiscous, hedonistic lifestyle of the gay scene depicted here. While the tone is often satirical, frequently ridiculing Fred's romantic ambitions and the sexual and substance-induced shenanigans around him, there is also a sadness running through the text, juxtaposing abandon with a kind of spiritual emptiness.
So the question arises: Is "Faggots" a testament of conservative sex-negativity? That shortly after its publication, the world it shows disappeared because AIDS ended the very possibility of sexual carelessness gives the whole work an air of impending doom, but Kramer of course could not know: At the time of publication, many read it as a satirical critique of the lifestyle. Only with the spread of HIV/AIDS, it could be newly framed as an account of gay sexual abandon that has now become equivalent to a death wish due to the AIDS pandemic (of course, this is true for all sex that can lead to HIV transmission, but Kramer writes specifically about gay men, a group that has been particularly affected and, for a long time, largely ignored in their plight).
So I should now probably say that I'm not only a cis heterosexual woman, but that I also have no conscious remembrance of the height of the AIDS pandemic, because I was a mere child. A pre-AIDS world is a world I never knew. For me, it's fascinating to research the reactions to Kramer's text, which vary widely, also among queer folks: Is "Faggots" showing a queer utopia, a cultural peak? Is it trashtalking the queer community, or is assuming that a version of harmful respectability politics? I can't say. I just think that Carmen Maria Machado is right when she says that queer people are not obliged to be model citizens in order to be accepted. And I feel like Kramer, who has written the protagonist as an alter ego to process a break-up with the dude appearing in the text as Dinky, was struggling with the divide between his wishes and what was available to him, which is very human: Neither of these options, the wish for romance or the wish for sexual abandon, are wrong, it's about what a person wants at that time. This nuance has gotten lost in some dissections of the text.
Still, I have to admit that the labyrinth of vignettes the novel is made up of became tiresome to me rather quickly, and that the language is not exactly what makes the reputation of "Faggots". IMHO, it is awfully long, but then again, it was published in 1978 and very scandalous for the time, while for today's readers, it's not particularly shocking, not even the sex scenes. All in all, this is now mostly a discussion piece, but a pretty interesting one....more
Perfection. First published as a stand-alone short story, then as a part of Cooper's first novel Safe and later in the short story collection Wrong, "Perfection. First published as a stand-alone short story, then as a part of Cooper's first novel Safe and later in the short story collection Wrong, "My Mark" is a stellar meditation on desire and strongly rooted in Cooper's earlier work as a lyrical poet. The narrator is a writer named Dennis (ha!), and he thinks back on his complex relationship with beautiful, young Mark Lewis, ruminating about his feelings and the psychological movements he has experienced. The text radiates melancholy and cooperesque imagery, especially in the sex scenes which ponder the attempt to explore consciousness and connection by crossing physical boundaries, thus blurring the concept of interiority. Beautifully written, and George Miles (who will later inspire the five-part George Miles Cycle as well as its coda I Wished) also makes an appearence (though not by name).
A fascinating piece, especially when read in context of Cooper's later work that ventures further into the transgressive....more
I know, I know: Blasphemy! But while I see the literary merit, I have to admit that I was bored out of my mind listening to the audio book (which in tI know, I know: Blasphemy! But while I see the literary merit, I have to admit that I was bored out of my mind listening to the audio book (which in this case is more a statement about me than about this classic novel). Jackson's mystery is told by mentally troubled 18-year-old Merricat Blackwood, who lives a secluded life in not-actually-a-castle, but a remote house in Vermont with her agoraphobic sister and her wheelchair-bound, often confused uncle. Merricat's parents, her younger brother and her aunt have been poisened, and the whodunnit is one part of the mystery plot here. The other part arrives with estranged cousin Charles: What is this guy up to?
The house is a fortress in which the surviving family have locked themselves away, suspiciously eying the outside world, and Charles represents the real world with its dubious intentions trying to destroy the counter-reality Merricat has created within these walls. This is less a haunted house story (although Merricat is trying to perform magic) and more a variation on The Fall of the House of Usher in as far as Merricat is turning the house into a physical manifestation of her mental state, thus possessing the building like a demon. The toxic, twisted love between the sisters is juxtaposed with the hostility of the outside villagers, but the question arises whether the family is othered or has consciously decided to take up the outsider role. This is particularly questionable in light of the mental troubles all three original family members display, and how the afflictions lead to interdependece and gaslighting.
I just could not get myself to care about any of this though, maybe I have read too much about horror houses already - this was published in 1962 and strongly influenced what followed, so if you now read Jackson relatively late, it tends to appear stale in a "been there, read that" kind of way. My favorite haunted house stories are still my beloved Poe and House of Leaves....more
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