@BarbaraJean on Litsy

Audition | Katie Kitamura

Um… I… hmm. Okay.

I appreciate what the author is doing here, but I didn‘t so much enjoy reading it. I like how the book mirrors the play at the center of the book, but in the end I‘m not satisfied with what she did include (or rather, what she left out). Two contradictory halves that play with the concepts of perception, reality, and performance—and kind of rely on the reader to make meaning of it all—left me frustrated. I read for characters, ⬇

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d - 1/7) …story, and ideas, but also for meaning—and this was interesting but felt hollow (and honestly—a little lazy!). I don‘t regret reading it (partly because it‘s short enough that I read it in two afternoons), and am glad it was part of #CampLitsy25 even if I came to the discussion late due to uncooperative library holds. For me, this is a better book for discussion than enjoyment! Further thoughts under (many) spoiler tags below: ⬇ 18h

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d - 2/7) I read this as the author setting up the play within the narrative as a mirror to the book, especially with that central scene, which the narrator cannot get a hold on. She says: “that scene continued to resist me, it was the one thing I couldn‘t fully parse, and without it I was unable to make sense of the part as a whole.” I felt like this about the book as a whole. The author left out the center that would have allowed ⬇ (edited) 18h

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d - 3/7) …the reader to make sense of the whole. There were a bunch of clues scattered throughout that, to me, indicated that the author intended this close mirroring, leaving the center and the interpretation to the reader. But I feel like it‘s a lazy choice to make on the part of the author: to ask the reader to create the center of the work, which the author herself didn‘t include. In the quote I cited above, the narrator goes on: ⬇ (edited) 18h

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BarbaraJean (Cont‘d - 4/7) “I had begun to wonder if in fact there was some hollowness in the construction of the scene itself. The structure and the narrative of the play demanded that the scene contain a process of transformation, a moment of alchemy and transition, but in truth I couldn‘t find the basis for that metamorphosis in what had been written on the page.” Similarly, I couldn‘t find within the text the basis for a center that would hold together ⬇ (edited) 18h

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d - 5/7) …the two halves.

I was fascinated by several passages in the second half that indicated a dual reality: “…when I looked back on his childhood, he [Xavier] was at once there but also not there.”
“I thought about my relationship with Xavier, when I looked back upon it, my memory was alarmingly inconsistent and full of gaps, so that I could not really say how it had been, at various stages of his life, his childhood and adolescence.”⬇ (edited) 18h

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d - 6/7) But again, the book seemed to lack the transitional piece that would have made sense of that dual reality or provided a frame for the disconnection and contradictory narratives. It seemed the author was relying on the reader to supply that, and while I respect that choice, it felt lazy to me to withhold it, expecting the reader to do the work of making the narrative hang together. ⬇ (edited) 18h

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d - 7/7) To reference a future #CampLitsy25 book, my reaction to this book reminded me of Zelu‘s criticism of her students‘ work in Death of the Author! Now to read part 2 of the Camp Litsy discussion and hear everyone else‘s interpretations of this book…

@squirrelbrain @Megabooks @BarbaraBB 18h

BkClubCare Very nice commentary 👏 18h

BarbaraJean (Cont'd 8/7 😂) And another thing! So many people have talked about an unreliable narrator here... and I disagree. I didn't feel the narrator was unreliable, but I felt that the *author* was unreliable. I think that's why this book was so frustrating to me. 17h

BarbaraJean @BkClubCare Thank you!! I had a lot to say about a short book I didn't really enjoy... 😂 😂 17h

AnnCrystal Thank you for this review, I've read mixed reviews, and I've been wondering about this one. 👏🏼☺️📚💝. 14h

BkClubCare @BarbaraJean - I especially was struck by “better book for discussion than enjoyment”; good thing it was a camp book! 🏕️ 13h

squirrelbrain I agree with @BkClubCare - a perfect description of this book. I enjoyed our discussions far more than the actual book itself! 10h

CarolynM You make some excellent points. I enjoyed it anyway 😊 9h

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BarbaraJean

Joined May 2016