pickWhat an interesting book. I‘ll have to reread this. It‘s a splintered narrative and I tried to focus on where and when and who, enjoying the romantic touches and the drifty feel, overlooking the mechanical and scientific commentary … until I saw two chapters titled “River Orwell…1984”. Then I started to look for something dark. It‘s a little buried and quiet, but pieces line up. A striking condemnation of our destructive society is built in here.
Graywacke #booker #booker2024 #longlist #shortlist 1mo
Graywacke @rmaclean4 @squirrelbrain @Leniverse @JamieArc @BarbaraBB @jlhammar @AnnaCecilie @JenP @TheKidUpstairs @charl08 @BookishTrish @Suet624 1mo
BarbaraBB Another great review. It is an exceptional Booker year don‘t you think? 1mo
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Suet624 My goodness. You‘ve made it sound quite intriguing 1mo
Graywacke @BarbaraBB thanks… but no, I don‘t think it‘s a good longlist 🙈 I feel i read several meh books and all soft or imperfect prose. But i like that my four favorites are on the shortlist - this, Held, James, and SYD. 1mo
Graywacke @Suet624 it is intriguing! 🙂 1mo
BarbaraBB @Graywacke I haven‘t read the whole longlist but I really love the shortlist except for the Kushner that I haven‘t read 1mo
Graywacke @BarbaraBB i have three on the longlist to go - Playground, Wild Houses and Headshot. I was mixed on CL 1mo
squirrelbrain I‘m going to start Playground soon too…. 1mo
Leniverse I didn't even notice the Orwell reference 🤦🏻♀️ I was so frustrated and bored by that point. This one just didn't work for me. 1mo
Graywacke @Leniverse what part do you think made it boring or frustrating? 1mo
Leniverse It was just too disjointed for me. The ghost thing was frustrating because it was introduced and then abandoned except for some woo woo musings by later characters. Because we jumped around so much I had trouble working out how some of the characters were connected, and I didn't feel invested enough to put effort into it. ⤵️ 1mo
Leniverse I get that the whole thing was snapshots from a family album, and that ties in with the photographer theme, and it's all very clever, I'm sure. I think if the book works for you, you probably get a lot from it. I can recognise that. But to me it was just paragraphs, polished to be very pretty with overblown language, and no connecting matter. 1mo
Graywacke @Leniverse Thank you for sharing. Very interesting. i‘m still pondering the ghost thing. My thought at the time was that it‘s kind of silly. Or that his assistant was doing it. But it might have a good reason to be there. I didn‘t think of the photo album relationship. I like that idea. I was thinking she was jumping around to create reader detachment (from our real world) and to create associations. 1mo
Leniverse There was a thread of mysticism and lingering ancestors throughout that made me think the ghost photos were real (but probably also allegorical in some way), and because they're highlighted in the blurb I didn't expect that whole narrative thread to be abandoned. I felt detached, alright, but from the story. After we left photographer John I only felt invested once - the story where the woman goes back to a war zone and her father & husband wait. 1mo
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