Welcome to Litsy!

This is a novel with a lot of secrets. There‘s a hint of Shirley Jackson and Poe to the unnerving atmosphere but it‘s missing the tension and drama for me. The prose is deliberately obtuse, the narrator unwilling or unable to speak directly, and the reader is left to decide much of what has happened for themselves. I like being challenged but the effort doesn‘t seem to pay off. I‘m not sure we are given enough to fully trust the author. 5/10

Definitely deep in the poetic stream. This does not always lend itself to the full story as I might have chosen to structure this differently- reserving the imagistic for the Vietnam segment so beautifully juxtaposed with the father‘s decline. Ultimately this is a beautiful story of love, family bonds, and events that shape us.

Another recently finished book. This one sits between a so-so and a pick for me. A difficult and challenging read, I suspect that I would glean more from it on a second read. Set in the present in a norther country, it is a story of historical injustices and the ways that communities avoid facing their past, and personal complicity in those injustices. Not a fun read, but I think there is something worth the difficulty here.

😳 I‘ve been bailing left & right on audiobooks, including the tagged novel, The Wren the Wren, two Toibin novels, among others.

I‘m in an audio drought. 🏜️🌵

On the #Booker2023 longlist

I've been reading the longlists since 2019 and this was a really good year in that small window. I gave five stars to four different books. I really liked that there was a lot of value given to poetic prose, not purple, but poetic and rhythmic, often personal and always generating reflection. Many of the authors are also published poets, and it shows.

I finished last week. My personal rankings are in the comments

I enjoyed this curiosity, found it wonderfully done, found the writing, which focuses so much on the sound, always interesting and terrific, with its own rhythm and life. And I say this even I didn't really get it. (I missed a lot, as I discovered afterwards reading online reviews) This maybe should have won the Booker (and I loved the winner, Prophet Song)

#ShadowGiller2024 @Lindy

She‘s like, “yeah, right” 🙄 But it‘s my next read and I‘m looking forward to it. #booker2023

I feel like there‘s a really excellent, moody, disturbing short story buried in this book. But as a novel, even a short one, it‘s a meandering mess. And yet it‘s a prize winner! Baffling. #tob24 longlist

The reminded me of 'Discomfort of evening' in its depiction of an unsettling narrator within an uncomfortable environment. It is a disconcerting read as we find ourselves possibly considering uncertain sibling abuse as well local folkloric belief in witchraft. The theme of the living with the sins of the holocaust also is implicit. A challenging read + I put it down, scratching my head but wanting to pick up again.