Whatcha readin'? Weeks 17-18
- May 5, 2019
- 5 min read
Hi Nerds! I'm back after a two-week holiday and... I don't have a lot to show for it. Let's blame it on Game of Thrones being back on.
Anyway, today's menu is:
- 19th-century Philipino tribes at war,
- 17th-century British teens being possessed by ghosts, more or less on purpose,
- a middle-aged woman revenge-cat-fishing her awful boyfriend's best friend... Or is she?
Let's get right into it!
Bone Talk
[Fiction (novel), Lang.: English]
Candy Gourlay. David Fickling Books, 2018. 252 p.
This is homework-reading for my English bookclub.
Bone Talk has an interesting setting: the story takes place in “the mountain people’s village” in 19th-century Philippines, as the islands were being colonized by the United States and war was raging between mountain tribes.
The style is a bit too descriptive and clunky for my taste, but the way in which the spiritual beliefs are presented is not heavy-handed, and we come to understand the importance of some of the rituals which at first seem bit strange.
The way the colonization is perceived through the eyes of a tribal boy reminded me of the first chapter of Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, as the reality of the situation slowly dawns on him. However, it was a bit unrealistic and frustrating to see the Ancients fall for all the tricks and behave like children, while only the hero was able to see through their schemes.
A Skinful of Shadows
[Fiction (novel/Fantastic), Lang.: English]
Frances Hardinge. Amulet Books, 2017. 416 p.
Again, homework-reading for my English bookclub.
So. I expected to dislike this with a passion, since I had been really disappointed in The Lie Tree. But, oh oh, Ms. Hardinge surprised me.
The setting is original. We are literally plunged into the mind of a serving girl whose story begins at the outbreak of the English Civil War, as she finds out that her mind can host the ghosts of people who believe that they will become ghosts when they die (the logistics of it are a bit complicated).
This novel was a bit long but I was very pleasantly surprised by the style, particularly the use of metaphors, for which, of course, I forgot to write down examples. You’ll just have to trust me on this!
To me, this is a strong contender for the Carnegie Medal, it has the literary qualities of a winner!
Other random things I liked about it:
- The cohabitation of the heroin’s psyche and an animal’s mind are reminiscent of Robin Hobb’s The Assassin’s Apprentice after Fitz has spent some time in wolf form. Pretty cool!
- This is first and foremost an adventure, and I appreciated that the plot twists were realistic, especially when it comes to the survival skills of the protagonist and her many escape plans.
- Frances Hardinge pulled some J.K. Rowling-worthy heart-wrenching plot twists.
One of my favorites from the shortlist so far!
Celle que vous croyez
[Fiction (novel), Lang.: French]
Camille Laurens. Gallimard, 2016. 192 p.
Disclaimer: This is not YA, but it reminded me a lot of Annie Ernaux’s books, which were an obsession of mine back in High School, and which my students love as well. I would say that this is appropriate for 16+.
This is also homework, of sorts. I will be attending a talk that the author is giving at the BnF next week, and I want to look like I somewhat know what people are talking about.
So, with the intention of looking every bit the Parisian intellectual that I’m not, I picked up the only book of hers that my local bookstore had in stock. And woman, I WAS BLOWN AWAY. I loved this so much. It messed with my brain and I didn’t know what to do with myself for a good 24 hours after I was done with it. I am tempted to watch the film adaptation with Juliette Binoche that came out a couple of months ago but I don’t see how a film can do this justice.
Sidenote: it’s been translated into English, but I don’t think the English title Who you think I am is all that great, because we lose the double entendre of Celle que vous Croyez = Je ne suis pas celle que vous croyez + Celle dont vous croyez les paroles. I think we lose the hint to the fact that we never know whether the narrators are reliable or not.
What is this book about?
The first part is about what is means for a woman to turn 50, or maybe just what it means to be a woman. I’m reading The Mother of All Questions in parallel, and the echoes are quite fascinating. When we meet the protagonist, she is in a mental hospital, recounting how she catfished her (much younger) boyfriend’s best friend, pretending to be a young woman, in order to get revenge on him for telling her to “just go kill [her]self”.
At least that’s what we think at first, but then as the story is retold differently, by herself in an therapy exercise, by someone else in her therapy group, by the author’s double pretending to be leading the therapy group’s writing club, by her husband… We end up not knowing which way is up, very Inception-like. But this is not an exercice de style, and the plot twists are not gratuitous, as they serve a larger reflection on the place that middle-age women are allowed to occupy in our society.
Why you should give it a try:
1) Because one cannot help but be reminded of Annie Ernaux, if not in form then in spirit.
It is similar in spirit and subject matter (I’m thinking of Passion Simple for instance), even though Ernaux’s style gives the impression of a much more instinctive writing process. Ernaux also does not separate the writing of the story from the account of her research and writing process (another good example of this would be Laurent Binet’s HhHH). This is not the case here, however, as this is not an attempt at an autobiography (Ernaux) or a historical novel (Binet).
2) Because the style is smart and fun.
It’s literary, yet playful, with beautiful metaphors and intelligent insights into the psyche of middle-age women.
The slang is sometimes off though, as well as the tentative use of English, which looks like it’s included to sound ‘hip’ but rubs me the wrong way. That would be my only complaint.
3) Because who doesn’t love a good shift in focalization?
The shifts are the part that messed with my brain, because the story is retold in different ways, as we blend fiction with a ‘fiction within fiction’ and ‘a fiction within fiction within fiction’ [Edit: during the interview, she said that she can only write this way because she feels that there are always several sides to every story].
The retelling of the tragic storyline in different ways, with changes big and small, helps us grieve with the protagonist.
We also come out of this with the impression that the narrators are grasping at straws, desperately trying to define love, as if this were the answer to finding meaning and setting their lives back on track.
The characters cling to quotes about love saying love is this, love is that, which gives the impression that they are desperate to find reassurance in other people’s words. Every quote is presented as an epiphany, like the character has finally, finally found a compass to navigate her life by, but the accumulation of these (sometimes contradictory) quotes actually emphasize the growing impression that the character – and the reader by association – is getting more and more confused and spinning out of control.
4) Because autofiction is the best:
Maybe it’s because there is a voyeuristic creep in all of us and we can’t help but try and figure out which parts really happened in real life, as Laurens blurs the lines on purpose, and prompts a reflection on how we fictionalize our lives, all the more so now that we use social media.
Un chef d’œuvre!
Camille Laurens' low-key mic-drop (May 8th, 2019).
Aiiight, that’s all for now! Happy readin’!
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