Monday, August 29, 2022

briefer book reviews

the return of my book reviews was a smash hit. this is the rushed, sophomoric slump post. we got a new producer and everything. 6.2 on pitchfork ass post.


Love by Hanne Orstavik -  when i sent christian utigard some books, he sent me some uk-published translations of norwegian books, including this one. it's a a split narrative following a single mother and 9 year old son, taking place over the course of about six hours. it's bleak - everyone has problems, it's cold and icy, etc. the split in perspective happens randomly, paragraph by paragraph, introducing some intentional ambiguity at times, i think to create additional tension. felt interested in the internal thoughts of each character, both seeming very realistic - a mix of self-doubt, intrusive thoughts, strange memories, speculations. i don't remember reading many books with a child protagonist that feels so relatable and realistic. felt like there was an artificial amount of thriller-adjacent tension which was unneeded, but i enjoyed most the daily artifacts of life in a small norwegian village, like people eating liver paste on bread and watching music videos on tv. didn't predict the ending and thought it was just good, as an ending. but overall felt like the book went slowly, in spite of its short length. curious about orstavik's first novel (this one seems more acclaimed and is probably, to me, based on this and what i know about myself, the worse of the two).

Zero by Gine Cornelia Pederson (Nordisk books) - bought this without knowing anything about it because i liked a different book in translation from nordisk. published originally in 2013, translated in 2018. this is a book-lengthed poem, split into chapters, about a teenager/young woman slowly getting into drugs and going clinically insane. started out slow and melodramatic but then quickly pivoted to ridiculous, slapstick/comedic, and very dark in a fun way that made me laugh out loud and share passages with others. reminds me of alt lit in a good way, but cranks up the action and is less self-referential, or something - leans into being fiction and not autofiction. i enjoyed the consistent emphasis on her being selfish, misanthropic, and uninterested in others in spite of much of the plot revolving around intense feelings of love and desire, often to great comedic effect. the poem form allows/encourages some moments of obscuring what's happening with more impressionistic/staccato lines especially toward the end, which i wasn't as interested in, but i 'got' it as an effect. thought i wouldn't like the end as it was happening, but then i did. would recommend; keep thinking of it as a 'romp.'

Modern Massacres by Timothy Willis Sanders (Publishing Genius) - i liked TWS's novel Matt Meets Vik and random stuff i've read online. this is a very short collection of mostly very short stories. most seem/appear autofictional and mostly focus on social anxiety; there's a big theme of overthinking and being distracted during interesting social situations. similar to Matt Meets Vik, I really like his tendency to emphasize the disconnect between what people think vs. what people say; several of these scenes made me laugh throughout the book. some of the stories do that fragmented/shuffled up cnf thing that doesn't appeal to me much, and it felt like the sequencing and content was imbalanced; i think most of the stories follow tws-like protagonists except one toward the end. felt like, because of its length, it could have fully committed to either just autofiction or a wider mix of perspectives. would have also enjoyed more/longer stories - i found all the stories compelling and enjoyed reading them. would vote for an elected official whose platform includes the publication of modern massacres 2.

I'm Not Hungry but I Could Eat by Christopher Gonzalez (sante fe writer's project): vaguely knew about this from online, bought it at a local shop. liked it a lot more than i expected to; i had assumed it would be mostly melodramatic 'normie' litfic kind of stuff, but i found it overall engaging and unpretentious. all the stories focus on being insecure and bisexual - some trauma-from-being-closeted/coming-out stories, some cynical 'love is hard to find' stories, some more 'plays-with-form' stories. i liked the emphasis on food and the straightforward narrative structure of most of the stories, but felt like some of the endings were 'mfa-style' with shoehorned in setups and at times relied on 'lazy' caricatures as an attempt at humor/levity. repeatedly thought that i would have enjoyed more long stories - i enjoyed 'inhabiting his world' and felt like he doesn't need the 'punchiness' of flash-lengthed stories to keep you interested. unrelated to the stories, i felt that the cover is terrible and looks like a bad cook book/chef memoir. also noticed all the blurbs try to make metaphors/similes comparing the stories to eating food, which feels embarrassing for chris.

Finding Your Way Without Map or Compass by Harold Gatty - a nonfiction book from the 50s, i think, about 'pathfinding'. mix of practical navigation tips (of varying levels of stupidity, such as 'follow your nose: cities smell like factories, and farms smell like cow shit'), belligerently confident speculation (author is convinced that people naturally walk in wide circles because of having differently lengthed legs; no idea what is true explanation but i assume this isn't the reason), complex math problems (calculating the day of the month based on some tables you're supposed to memorize), and legitimately interesting history, anthropology, biology (specifically the chapters about bird migration patterns and how some pacific island nations navigated by stars, thinking of the sky in terms of a dome with bands of stars). skipped some of the dumber-seeming passages. enjoyed various scientific fun facts i've since forgotten. unsure i learned anything practical. biggest takeaway was thinking of moon phases as they relate to the moon's spatial opposition to the sun in the sky - a full moon rises as the sun sets, for example.

 

2 comments:

  1. You're right about that book cover. Yeesh!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lmao i can't get over it. i look at it and think 'chef memoir. chef memoir. chef memoir'. and apparently it's the second take at a cover bc the first one looked too much like another book (with a very similar title, too).

      Delete