micdaba's review
4.0
This was weird, and only got progressively more weird and more complicated and more fun and I liked it a lot.
daviddavidkatzman's review
4.0
The Shimmering Go-Between is one weird-ass book. Some literary novels are finicky when it comes to genre. Great authors don't care about genre. Genre is an aftereffect, something that the reader or critic uses to categorize what they are reading. I believe great authors don't write for an audience they write for the story itself. As I got into The Shimmering Beyond, I was trying to put it in a category, a genre, to help me wrap my head around what I was reading. Initially, I found several aspects of it disturbing and creepy, so I thought it was close to Bizarro fiction. However, it doesn't have that hyper energy of most Bizarro. It's actually rather relaxed and comfortable in style. After I got deeper into the book, I realized it was more closely related to magical realism such as that by Gabriel García Márquez. Real normal(ish) people living with magical, inexplicable events.
In this case, several key magical elements of the story relate to sexual behavior and sexual habits. A lot revolves around sex. There is strange sex, and strange things result from the sex. There was a degree of tension about sex in the book, symbolic representations of the unexpected or undesirable consequences that can occur as a result. Sex is not always free of entanglements. But sex is complicated and the result can also be happiness or a positive relationship in some form. And fetishes are often an outcome of various unrequited emotional needs, starting in childhood and affected by both family, friends and culture.
It wasn't obvious to me the meaning or purpose of the magical elements of the story, but that didn't detract from the enjoyment of them. These odd occurrences did leave me with some thoughts to ponder. Are there perhaps worlds living within us, that we don't even know are there? Potentialities or personalities? Multiple personalities live inside each of us in our various roles as humans? There is often talk of consciousness as not a coherent singular self, but a multitude of vying impulses that are amalgamated into an illusory identity. Sometimes I wonder if that's not just linguistic gameplay. How is an illusory self any different from an actual self? I mean, not a soul, of course, but every thought is an illusion because it's an abstract representation of electrochemical reactions. From sight to smell to words and ideas, they are all just illusions. So...saying the self is an illusion, I say...sure...as much an illusion as anything in the brain, which includes everything you experience.
The Shimmering Go-Between also made me reflect on how every being we encounter leaves some mark on us, some remnant of themselves, whether it be a wisp or an evolution or a bludgeon. Art itself (and writing) is a form of delayed communication that can interact with numerous individuals and have this same effect on who you are. I think the oddity that is The Shimmering Go-Between will leave a lingering impression on you.
The Shimmering Go-Between is one weird-ass book. Some literary novels are finicky when it comes to genre. Great authors don't care about genre. Genre is an aftereffect, something that the reader or critic uses to categorize what they are reading. I believe great authors don't write for an audience they write for the story itself. As I got into The Shimmering Beyond, I was trying to put it in a category, a genre, to help me wrap my head around what I was reading. Initially, I found several aspects of it disturbing and creepy, so I thought it was close to Bizarro fiction. However, it doesn't have that hyper energy of most Bizarro. It's actually rather relaxed and comfortable in style. After I got deeper into the book, I realized it was more closely related to magical realism such as that by Gabriel García Márquez. Real normal(ish) people living with magical, inexplicable events.
In this case, several key magical elements of the story relate to sexual behavior and sexual habits. A lot revolves around sex. There is strange sex, and strange things result from the sex. There was a degree of tension about sex in the book, symbolic representations of the unexpected or undesirable consequences that can occur as a result. Sex is not always free of entanglements. But sex is complicated and the result can also be happiness or a positive relationship in some form. And fetishes are often an outcome of various unrequited emotional needs, starting in childhood and affected by both family, friends and culture.
It wasn't obvious to me the meaning or purpose of the magical elements of the story, but that didn't detract from the enjoyment of them. These odd occurrences did leave me with some thoughts to ponder. Are there perhaps worlds living within us, that we don't even know are there? Potentialities or personalities? Multiple personalities live inside each of us in our various roles as humans? There is often talk of consciousness as not a coherent singular self, but a multitude of vying impulses that are amalgamated into an illusory identity. Sometimes I wonder if that's not just linguistic gameplay. How is an illusory self any different from an actual self? I mean, not a soul, of course, but every thought is an illusion because it's an abstract representation of electrochemical reactions. From sight to smell to words and ideas, they are all just illusions. So...saying the self is an illusion, I say...sure...as much an illusion as anything in the brain, which includes everything you experience.
The Shimmering Go-Between also made me reflect on how every being we encounter leaves some mark on us, some remnant of themselves, whether it be a wisp or an evolution or a bludgeon. Art itself (and writing) is a form of delayed communication that can interact with numerous individuals and have this same effect on who you are. I think the oddity that is The Shimmering Go-Between will leave a lingering impression on you.
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