JULY TO DECEMBER 2023

 

dUCKS, NEWSBURY PORT

lUCY ELLMANN

The fact that I’m trying to write this review in the style in which the book is written is ridiculous, the fact that I lack the writer’s skill and depth, and determination, the fact that I’m sure she spent much more time than I do, time lapse, lap dance, dancing queen, queen of hearts, the fact that I feel ridiculous.

 You get the picture. All of 1,000 pages (literally! Not a hyperbole!) are written like this. We meet the main character, a housewife with four children, as she bakes pies to supplement their income, ferries the children to school, delivers pies and whatever else she does in the course of the day. 

 We are privy to her musings, worries, deliberations, and everything else that comes to mind, including pieces of songs, dreams, images from movies, references to various books, as well as a lot of random words, phrases, acronyms. 

 The stream of consciousness is interrupted every now and then with a passage told from the perspective of a mountain lioness. 

 The two stories intersect briefly toward the end of the book. 

 This is definitely not a book for everyone. It requires a persistent reader who is willing to sift through the main character’s mind to get to the point. 

 (I took a break after 500 pages and came back to it refreshed a couple of months later.)

 And the point is that there is no point. It’s not nihilistic, and a lot of things happen in the present (a flood, a daughter running away, a roaming lion, a near-shooting) with a lot of things happening in the past (a terminally ill mother, a heart operation, cancer and chemo, a failed marriage) but I am sure that the main point is that this is just the detritus of daily life. Equal parts drama, tragedy, existentialism and humour. The humour is absolutely delicious. 

 Kind of like Joyce but done better, I’d say. 

 It could be about 400 pages shorter if she deleted all the ‘the fact that’ phrases, and another 100 pages if she deleted all the random strings of words. 

 But then it wouldn’t be stream-of- consciousness. 

 Actually, the fact is that after a while you don’t notice the ‘the fact that.’

 Move over, James Joyce, there’s a new kid in town, and her name is Lucy Ellmann. 

 (and once you’ve read the book, you’ll understand why it is in a pan in my photo)

SINOVI, KCERI

IVANA BODROZIC

It’s August, still four months to go, but I know I’ve just read the best book I’ll read this year. 

 If you are not from the territory of the Former Yugoslavia, fear not. Ivana Bodrozic’s book has been translated into English, and is available on kindle with the titel ‘Sons, Daughters.’

 The book is told from the perspective of three people - a young woman with locked-in syndrome (after an accident, she can only move her eyes and eyelids), her lover (a transgender person trying to gain acceptance in society, i.e. live a normal life) and the woman’s mother (a deeply unhappy woman whose husband committed suicide after being forced by his parents to participate in the Croatian War and whose selfish son has turned into a preacher bully). 

 The novel takes place in the present when the young woman is already disabled in hospital. The flashbacks of all three focus mostly on the same events told from their perspective. 

 Bodrozic’s skills are manifold. She manages to make each character unique, making the same event sound completely new, different, almost unrecognisable as the perspective changes. 

 The events may seem ordinary but she manages to show several layers of complexity of life. 

The locked-in syndrome is literal as well as metaphorical: we are locked in by society, our upbringing and, yes, our bodies. 

 She manages in the most lyrical manner, most gorgeous way, to present our need for acceptance, the unbreakable mother-child bond, domestic violence, intergenerational violence and trauma, sorrow and delight. 

I am in awe at what can be done with words.

 

Detail 3

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Detail 4

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