The latest short reviews are here, finally - enjoy!
Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda
Jawbone revolves around three people, one teacher and two students of the Delta Bilingual Academy, Highschool for Girls – Clara, Fernanda and Annelise. Clara, a literature and language teacher, is heavily marked by her late mother who had a spinal cord disorder. Fernanda and Annelise are sort of inseparable and the leaders of a girl gang of six who keep on testing the limits of the acceptable in almost all they do, whereby Annelise is the real alpha, who has also created a sort of cult, a new branch of horror called White Horror, to which most her games are connected. These games are beyond everything a healthy psyche could take and often borders on the unbearable.
The story kicks off with a sort of backwards puzzle situation in which, Fernanda is kidnapped and wakes up tied to a chair in the house of her literature teacher. From here things will unfold and untangle through loads of backflashes, point of view switches, transcriptions of conversations Fernanda conducts with her psychiatrist Dr. Aguilar, dialogues in which Annelise and Fernanda complement each other’s strain of thoughts as to emphasize their meshing identities, and finally a letter Annelise writes to Clara (which reminded me of the “Slasher 101” chapters in My Heart is a Chainsaw).
There is a lot going on in this book; a playful and cruel look at the relations between women in different roles, especially between mothers and their daughters; an interesting and convoluted look at Lovecraftian horror; a quite depraved game, told in dense language. I personally enjoyed reading about Clara, she kept my undivided attention with her interesting inner world and her obsession with her mom. In particular the glance at Lovecraft comes across as a little didactic and spoon-fed, but other than that I thought this was a pretty good read I enjoyed.
The Tunnel by Ernesto Sábato
I hope to never say that I can understand, that I possibly have something in common with a stalking murderer, but that hope was smashed the moment I read The Tunnel by Ernesto Sábato.
Do you like art?
The story of Juan Pablo Castel, the introverted and misanthropic painter turned murderer, meeting at one of his art exhibitions a woman with whom he swiftly becomes obsessed, is interestingly equally terrifying as it is hilarious.
As comedic as especially his initial reactions to this new situation of being in love turn out to be, they more than serve the purpose of building a connection between reader and this problematic, sick character. That feeling of being connected, of rooting for a protagonist undergoes a quick metamorphosis which leaves us oscillating between terrified and highly amused, as Castel’s feelings descent into furious and dangerous misogyny the more they transcend his passionate love. Said connection becomes interrupted, if not completely destroyed once the direction of his dark delirium is set.
… after all there was only one tunnel, dark and solitary: mine…
If nothing else, Castel is at least brutally honest to us, right from the first sentence. And what the novel starts with is what is left in the end too - a deeply sad man, petrified by his own solitude into which he sinks the more he tries to get away.
This was very touching in a dark way, I needed to let it sink in too.
Linghun by Ai Jiang
Sometimes, when reading a book which is so substantial, the weight of its topic so heavy that in order to convey that graveness, my mind blends everything else out, and all I can imagine is a white background, a blankness very much like when Neo and Morpheus meet in the White Room in the Matrix, and I can only see characters in front of my mind’s eye, and their state of mind. This happened to me while reading Linghun, the story of three people, the girl Wenqi, her friend Liam and a separate person named Mrs., whose lives will intersect in a place called HOME.
The interesting thing is that this book is very much about a place. HOME is a place you move in when you mourn, you grief for someone and here you have the opportunity to live with them, albeit in seemingly different spheres of reality. It is not very easy to receive a place here, so there are lingerers which camp in front and around the houses, waiting for their chance to move in. Thus, the atmosphere is marked, is drenched by grief - it is in the air, in people’s heads, in their hearts and the lengths to which they will go to keep it, to hold on to their lost ones is so much significant, that everything else faded out and it was hard for me to imagine anything else than that feeling. Not even a setting.
I enjoyed the meandering points of view and identities, how the lives of our three characters meet in almost ironic, but always sad and melancholy ways.
A Ramble on Di Fu Ling&Death
When we think about grief and spirits, we mostly think about people and the dead. But I think grief can be tied not only people but to places, memories, cultures, languages, and identity.
The novella Linghun is followed by shorter pieces of writing, almost like little footnotes, afterthoughts on grief and death as well as how we who live react to and deal with them.
Di Fu Ling are earthbound spirits, ghosts who cannot go. The reflections in this one hit close to home.
Yǒngshí
Plotwise, I liked this most. It is the story of the deadly ill Yǒngshí who asks for more time for herself to live so she can work and pay for her mother’s grave, told by an interesting point of view.
Finally, Teeter Totter in which Xixi, a witch with no child, and her relation to Death is being told.
These little writings are light to read, but they will make you think, make you sad, touch you in memorable ways.Chlorine by Jade Song
Chlorine is a dark coming-of-age narrative about Ren Yu who is in the swimming team in her school and that team makes up all of her world, she doesn't really have anything else going on to her. She is wildly ambitious to be the best and her family and coach fuel that ambition and don't really realize what kind of mental disorder they have been creating and feeding. The book touches upon many weighty subjects such as immigration, the pressure and expectations put on young women's bodies, sapphic longing, and of course, transformation, which enrichens the reading experience, though the plot is predictable. That predictability ultimately wasn’t really a problem for me, I enjoyed reading this anyway. The dual narration split between Ren's and her teammate Cathy's points of view was actually well done and furthers the pace nicely.
A shocking surprise for me was that I actually really enjoyed reading a story about a bunch of teenagers in a sport environment, eating a lot of food so they have the energy to maintain their athletic levels and going through hormonal changes. Congratulations Jade Song, that's quite the achievement, I would say.
XCRMNTMNTN by Andrew Hilbert
Where do I start with this...
Maybe with the gigantic pile of cosmic shit that comes out of nowhere, but maybe not nowhere exactly, since God took a dump? Or the hourly cum showers? Or the film crew who happened to shoot their “arthouse” film nearby and decide to climb this xcrmntmntn for their flic?
Whichever way you look, there is nothing conventional, justifiable or normal about this book, but hey, what is normal after all? Certainly not a giant heap of turd.
Yes, it's pretty disgusting, but kind of funny too? I don't know man, I don't know how to review this – just read and see if you can enjoy, make the best of it. It most definitely is original.
Based on the cover description my Goodreads friend MJ and I thought some word groups would make good band names and we'd wear their t-shirts if there were such bands. Here are all the good band names plus good song names or arthouse film titles I found in this text as a selection for MJ to choose her t-shirt motive from:
Pile of Shit from Space
Call to Arms Against Vowels
Croissant-Shaped Brains
Wet Cannoli
God is an Orgy
Sizzle With Puss
Get in the Coffin
Immortal in Death
Hostage Interviews Under Duress
Cacophony of Distressed Voices
Murdered On Tape
Demonic Intellect
Angelic Happenstance
Deep and Microtonal
Lactose Liquid
Octopus Baby
Roadkill Corpses
Flaming Skeleton Director
Cum Mustache
Ultimately Killable
You Destroy Meaning – yes, Andrew Hilbert certainly does that.
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