Hello and hi! I hope you're starting a great and sunny week. I have been reading older stuff these past weeks, like Donoso's The Obscene Bird of Night, that has been beleaguering my tbr for years, or 'Pemi Aguda's Ghostroots that I wanted to read ever since its publication a couple of years ago. I'm always proud of myself when I can cross titles out of my backlist, so consider this post a success! I hope you enjoy it too and find something you'd like to read, even if it's not brand new.
The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso
What is for sure is that there is a house full of older women, maybe a retirement home or maybe a monastery, but also a group of orphans, there are one or two younger female characters, one of which is constantly pregnant, but sometimes there is already a baby boy born, but sometimes not. The main character is a mute and deformed person who is being mistreated by everybody, someone who doesn’t exist, but the main character is also one of the older women, or the house owner who got the woman pregnant, or the baby boy being “prepared” for life by the older women.
While reading I had the impression that all of this is some kind of symbol, some allegory for art, or oral literature, specifically the inner working of an author’s mind while writing, as it’s as if Donoso takes all these archetypes and juggles with them, plays around. At each telling the core story changes a little bit. The result is profoundly weird. It's a very shapeless story, maybe a little like the imbunche himself. I think I’d be open to read this book with someone who knows more about it or has a better or different understanding of what goes on, though I suspect there’s no fixed “right” or “wrong” here.
Die Holländerinnen by Dorothee Elmiger
This is a book that was a gift to me by an immensely nice colleague at work and since it won the German Book Prize last year, I was curious about it anyway.
It follows a woman, an author, who is invited to join a theater project in South America, conducted by an interesting director. The novel jumps from one person to another in a kaleidoscopic bid to puzzle together what this project is, and what happened to the titular two Dutch women, told from the points of view of many witnesses or from hearsay.
The book is written entirely in the conjunctive tense which turns jarring after a while, and although an uncanny undertone dominates the narration, it never leads to anything, it teases, but doesn't deliver. It feels pointless and I can't confirm the comparisons to Heart of Darkness at all.
Patchwork Dolls by Ysabelle Cheung
Patchwork Dolls is one of the two short story debuts that I'll be reviewing in this post.
Cheung's story collection is generally rather speculative fiction than bleak horror, but the way from SF to the uncanny, as both deal with the unknown, the alien, is not far anyway. This is one of the rare cases where the book cover perfectly reflects the dreamy atmosphere of the author's prose style and both are mesmerizing. The prevalent themes were uncanny futuristic technologies, immigration and ecology, AI, generational bonds and digitization, served in a very personal, very haunting tone that makes for a neat contrast.
My highlights were the titular Patchwork Dolls, in which we follow a novel technology for women of color to sell their facial features to rich clients who think it's cool to have an ethnic touch, and Galatea, which deals with the theme of artificial intelligence in a very humane way. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection.
Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir
Dead Weight is a very short book in the series of Icelandic horror literature found and translated by Mary Robinette Kowal. It is in fact so short that I won't even give a synopsis as it's best to explore that part.
I can only say that it's about two neighbors meeting under unusual circumstances and a smart cat, and that's all.
I like stories like these that almost feel like an excerpt in the life of one or two persons, especially if they have a strong message like Dead Weight has. Feminist, heart-warming, feline. I prefer this one to Knútsdóttir's last novella.
Ghostroots: Stories by 'Pemi Aguda
The second debut short story collection I'll be discussing is 'Pemi Aguda's Ghostroots that apparently reimagines known Nigerian characters in different settings.
Ties to ancestors, family connections, living houses, an epidemic that targets only boys, or a woman who learns the hard way that magic is very real indeed - Fantastic kind of meshing of reality with the supernatural, sometimes cruel, sometimes playful, but these stories always leave an impression.
My favorite stories were The Hollow, the story of a vengeful house ("What is a house but a large handbag with many hidden zippers and pockets?"), Things Boys Do, is an account of three young fathers not really coping with their new born baby sons, Birdwoman which follows Felicity who, as a treat to herself on her birthday, lets a street magician do his trick on her with fatal consequences, and finally Girlie, the story of a maid, a young child of fifteen who needed to leave her house to go work, but is kidnapped by a merchant woman who wants to take better care of her.
The stories were generally fantastic and I do want to re-read this book at some point to soak in all the rich impressions and feelings.
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