Day 137.1: All Things Cease To Appear
Sep. 30th, 2024 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunshowerdandelionA very ambitious book, very competent, very artful, deliberately vague at times. A lack of quotes for dialogue so the 'feel' of the book is just that much more desolate. Also, the author has a thing for starting chapters with unattributed 'she's and 'he's, and I think she's trying to do something very nifty, but if she did that then it flew right over my head. I don't usually read books like these because I am not very good at switching perspectives (I have to mentally 'pack up and leave' from the previous character and it's disorienting), and I have to admit that the dizzying, rapid switches in perspectives rather impeded my ability to empathize with the characters, since I was always packing up, unpacking, packing up again, since some perspectives only stay for half a page or two pages or so. Funny that I take issue with this and not with, say, Munro's dizzying time-shifts. I guess it's easier for me to shift back and forth within the same character rather than sideways.
I began reading it because of course it's Halloween already and I wanted to scare myself. The book's rather thick as far as literary things go. The prose is very kinetic, but I think needs a little more sentiment injected into it.
Best described as a story about a small community, I think: Chosen, a farming town gutted by the beginning of the U.S. farm crisis, with rich townies buying up farmhouses for their weekend getaways. Lots of characters whose marriages melt and decay during the course of the book, which I thought was neat. Maybe echoes of Tolstoy? The crime bits resemble Joyce Carol Oates excellent Because it is Bitter, and Because it is My Heart, but honestly the crime makes too much sense. I like how things resolve because that's how they usually resolve, I think, but the crime itself is too straightforward.
I read about 100 pages before I realized that ghosts wouldn't quite be a part of the novel. They're there, yes, and the house has a presence, yes, but... I don't know, I expected more ghosts. There's hints of all those good gothic tropes and George is a blaring, staring gothic man, but the book didn't feel gothic. Also definitely echoes of The Shining, although, mild spoilers, this is that novel in reverse.
I liked the characters when they weren't jumping off the slippery slope. Everyone's miserable, or becomes so, and some of the storylines rhyme with each other, but I'm a sucker for misery and especially for people digging themselves deeper, so if you enjoy that, and enjoy reading about (and being reminded about) the ways we fail each other, you'll enjoy parts of this book. Unfortunately, I think a main character during the last third of the book takes a flying leap off the slippery slope and smashes headfirst into melodramatic villainy so I didn't enjoy those parts at all.
I would've really, really liked more insight into what the characters do when they aren't screwing with each other, or thinking about screwing with each other. Catherine especially becomes very interesting during the last third but I don't know, maybe the author wants to portray this in a Rashomon multiple perspectives sort of way I suppose? Whatever the intention, I missed the parts where she undergoes a Munroesque reinvention, and the novel only tells us what happens secondhand.
I felt like the Hale boys walked off from a different book altogether. Maybe something by Kent Haruf. I didn't like their bits.
So, is it any good? I think so, but you'll have to be very patient.
I began reading it because of course it's Halloween already and I wanted to scare myself. The book's rather thick as far as literary things go. The prose is very kinetic, but I think needs a little more sentiment injected into it.
Best described as a story about a small community, I think: Chosen, a farming town gutted by the beginning of the U.S. farm crisis, with rich townies buying up farmhouses for their weekend getaways. Lots of characters whose marriages melt and decay during the course of the book, which I thought was neat. Maybe echoes of Tolstoy? The crime bits resemble Joyce Carol Oates excellent Because it is Bitter, and Because it is My Heart, but honestly the crime makes too much sense. I like how things resolve because that's how they usually resolve, I think, but the crime itself is too straightforward.
I read about 100 pages before I realized that ghosts wouldn't quite be a part of the novel. They're there, yes, and the house has a presence, yes, but... I don't know, I expected more ghosts. There's hints of all those good gothic tropes and George is a blaring, staring gothic man, but the book didn't feel gothic. Also definitely echoes of The Shining, although, mild spoilers, this is that novel in reverse.
I liked the characters when they weren't jumping off the slippery slope. Everyone's miserable, or becomes so, and some of the storylines rhyme with each other, but I'm a sucker for misery and especially for people digging themselves deeper, so if you enjoy that, and enjoy reading about (and being reminded about) the ways we fail each other, you'll enjoy parts of this book. Unfortunately, I think a main character during the last third of the book takes a flying leap off the slippery slope and smashes headfirst into melodramatic villainy so I didn't enjoy those parts at all.
I would've really, really liked more insight into what the characters do when they aren't screwing with each other, or thinking about screwing with each other. Catherine especially becomes very interesting during the last third but I don't know, maybe the author wants to portray this in a Rashomon multiple perspectives sort of way I suppose? Whatever the intention, I missed the parts where she undergoes a Munroesque reinvention, and the novel only tells us what happens secondhand.
I felt like the Hale boys walked off from a different book altogether. Maybe something by Kent Haruf. I didn't like their bits.
So, is it any good? I think so, but you'll have to be very patient.
