rachel_the_managing_editor's review against another edition
3.0
3.62 stars
A quiet collection of images and memories of images, that although at times intriguing or lovely, often felt rather dulled by time. It's hard to feel nostalgic for the fragments of another mind, at least rendered in this way largely devoid of feeling.
"After I had failed to see what I had hoped to see, I allowed my eyes to pass again from lighted patch to lighted patch."
A quiet collection of images and memories of images, that although at times intriguing or lovely, often felt rather dulled by time. It's hard to feel nostalgic for the fragments of another mind, at least rendered in this way largely devoid of feeling.
"After I had failed to see what I had hoped to see, I allowed my eyes to pass again from lighted patch to lighted patch."
sirfrankiecrisp's review against another edition
Meditation on colour and image-events that form life itself.
'Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity.'
'Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity.'
lindsrobking's review against another edition
4.0
Smart and reflexive Grandpa writes complex lines about glass, photographs, and other stuff he sees.
lookhome's review against another edition
4.0
Murnane's Border Districts could also be considered anti-narrative. Its concerns Murnane as he actively tries to keep track and describe a few months in his life, stimulated by an initial encounter with a stain glass window near his home.
As the novel progresses, it becomes more descriptive and all-together more involved in its deconstruction of the writing process. Example: 'I forget almost all of the thousands of words that I spoke to the person who had seemed to me ore a listener than a chatterer, but I recall some of what I felt while I spoke the words. Perhaps I should have written just then that I seem to recall not certain feelings but, rather, the fact of my having once felt these feelings.'
Other memorable lines:
-'And yet I still recalled one item from all that the boy had heard from the wind. She had assured him that no yesterday had ever been and that no tomorrow would ever arrive'
-'What we call time is no more than our awareness of place after place as we move continuously through endless space.'
-'I was a young man, not yet thirty years of age, who would not learn for many years that he could not help but remember most of what he might later have need of'
-'I stared because I felt as though something of value might appear to me as a result of my staring. I tried to stare at the image of the face of the young woman with the same intense stare that the original young woman had once directed at something visible, or perhaps invisible, on the far side of the light that picked out the prominences of her face. I tried to stare as though something of meaning might appear to me only if I could turn aside from, or see beyond, all extraneous objects of sight; if only I could see truly without distraction.'
Overall, Murnane speaks humanly of memory and experience, of place and revisitations, of family homes and nostalgia.
A strong recommendation, enjoyable in process but not riveting in terms of an arc.
More about the 'journey than the destination' type of read.
It's also got a wonderful paragraph on marbles.
As the novel progresses, it becomes more descriptive and all-together more involved in its deconstruction of the writing process. Example: 'I forget almost all of the thousands of words that I spoke to the person who had seemed to me ore a listener than a chatterer, but I recall some of what I felt while I spoke the words. Perhaps I should have written just then that I seem to recall not certain feelings but, rather, the fact of my having once felt these feelings.'
Other memorable lines:
-'And yet I still recalled one item from all that the boy had heard from the wind. She had assured him that no yesterday had ever been and that no tomorrow would ever arrive'
-'What we call time is no more than our awareness of place after place as we move continuously through endless space.'
-'I was a young man, not yet thirty years of age, who would not learn for many years that he could not help but remember most of what he might later have need of'
-'I stared because I felt as though something of value might appear to me as a result of my staring. I tried to stare at the image of the face of the young woman with the same intense stare that the original young woman had once directed at something visible, or perhaps invisible, on the far side of the light that picked out the prominences of her face. I tried to stare as though something of meaning might appear to me only if I could turn aside from, or see beyond, all extraneous objects of sight; if only I could see truly without distraction.'
Overall, Murnane speaks humanly of memory and experience, of place and revisitations, of family homes and nostalgia.
A strong recommendation, enjoyable in process but not riveting in terms of an arc.
More about the 'journey than the destination' type of read.
It's also got a wonderful paragraph on marbles.
natashak1's review
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
1.5
He talks about another author being self indulgent, and perhaps he is, but after reading this it's hard to sympathise with that view when the book istelf is exactly that too. Maybe more enjoyable if you're very into Murnanes other stuff, but I am sadly not.
lightfoxing's review against another edition
2.0
I mean...bleh? Blah? Meh? This wasn't exciting. It wasn't awful - the writing itself is nice, but nothing happens, in the worst sense of the phrase. It was just very, very boring.
jocelyn_sp's review against another edition
3.0
"However, I have never cared to listen to persons merely talking about a work of fiction or about any sort of book as though it consists of subject-matter or ideas or topics to be talked about rather than words and sentences waiting to be read"
Odd, quiet book of indirect phrases that aim for a strange precision. Describing the formation of mental images of the narrator, often in a highly conditional sense. I liked it, was intrigued and amused and prompted to meditate on mental images, although I can imagine a Jocelyn not very different from the character typing these words who would be baffled and bored.
Odd, quiet book of indirect phrases that aim for a strange precision. Describing the formation of mental images of the narrator, often in a highly conditional sense. I liked it, was intrigued and amused and prompted to meditate on mental images, although I can imagine a Jocelyn not very different from the character typing these words who would be baffled and bored.
ash_hsu's review against another edition
3.0
Prose at times fluent and insightful, but at times seems to be going no where.
largo's review against another edition
3.0
A monologue of memory and imagination written in a distinct, precise style with occasionally beautiful, descriptive passages, thematically connected by the narrator's fascination with stained glass. Without anything dramatic to maintain my interest, I persevered to the end because of the language and manner of writing, not the subject matter. Anna Burns employs a similar style in 'Milkman' to much greater effect. 4 stars for the writing, 2 for content.
captainfez's review against another edition
3.0
So, this is Gerald Murnane's final book. Depending on how well you sit with his writing style, you may well find that cause for celebration. I'm not that critical, but I must admit that Murnane is an author whose work requires reading at the appropriate time. And while I didn't hate Border Districts, I didn't particularly love it, either.
Though it's described as a fiction, the book reads as a memoir. The nameless narrator has journeyed to a small border town of his home state, ostensibly to live out his final years. Of course, Murnane's life parallels this - he lives in such an area, and has never left his home state - so readers armed with that knowledge cannot help but read the book as something of an autobiography, even though that area of literary endeavour is shitcanned in the work.
Meticulously, Murnane's 'report' rakes over memory and experience, poking and prodding at the past and examining it, each instant a marble in a bag, containing multitudes at its core. Childhood and adolecence, the drive to write and a love of the horses all figure, though increasingly it's the sense of death and permanence that figure, even if death itself is only mentioned in relation to others. It's the elephant in the room: though the book may not be about that final act itself, it certainly seems to be about the end of life; the running down of the clock.
The sense of mystery that's key to his works is amplified here. There's the insistence on not naming locales - we hear about places in "the Commonwealth", and of eastern states, or of topographical features of a location rather than something so prosaic as an actual name - which serves to destabilise a sense of security in the narrative. But this is assisted by the presence of, if not religion, then the trappings thereof. Murnane spends a lot of time in the book discussing the totems of religion - holy cards, portraits of Mary, habits of brothers - and the whole affair is suffused in light seen through stained glass, whether Christian or civilian.
It's difficult to describe what kind of a book Border Districts is, let alone figure who it is for, because the feeling conveyed is unbearably personal - you're riding in the dickey seat of someone's mind, eavesdropping on afternoon-sun recollections of decades past, even though there's still a sense of guardedness, even at such close quarters. There's a meandering aspect to the book - Chapters? Fuck chapters! I ramble! - that can make it tough going, but it works here.
I kept waiting for revelations beyond a dislike of Byron and a love of the races, but Murnane and his narrator steadfastly refuse to provide them. Beyond two lines of Shelley, there's little on offer to let you into the core of the private world portrayed here, and that's maybe the point: interpretation and memory are all we have, and the meaning you take is your own, incommunicable.
Though it's described as a fiction, the book reads as a memoir. The nameless narrator has journeyed to a small border town of his home state, ostensibly to live out his final years. Of course, Murnane's life parallels this - he lives in such an area, and has never left his home state - so readers armed with that knowledge cannot help but read the book as something of an autobiography, even though that area of literary endeavour is shitcanned in the work.
Meticulously, Murnane's 'report' rakes over memory and experience, poking and prodding at the past and examining it, each instant a marble in a bag, containing multitudes at its core. Childhood and adolecence, the drive to write and a love of the horses all figure, though increasingly it's the sense of death and permanence that figure, even if death itself is only mentioned in relation to others. It's the elephant in the room: though the book may not be about that final act itself, it certainly seems to be about the end of life; the running down of the clock.
The sense of mystery that's key to his works is amplified here. There's the insistence on not naming locales - we hear about places in "the Commonwealth", and of eastern states, or of topographical features of a location rather than something so prosaic as an actual name - which serves to destabilise a sense of security in the narrative. But this is assisted by the presence of, if not religion, then the trappings thereof. Murnane spends a lot of time in the book discussing the totems of religion - holy cards, portraits of Mary, habits of brothers - and the whole affair is suffused in light seen through stained glass, whether Christian or civilian.
It's difficult to describe what kind of a book Border Districts is, let alone figure who it is for, because the feeling conveyed is unbearably personal - you're riding in the dickey seat of someone's mind, eavesdropping on afternoon-sun recollections of decades past, even though there's still a sense of guardedness, even at such close quarters. There's a meandering aspect to the book - Chapters? Fuck chapters! I ramble! - that can make it tough going, but it works here.
I kept waiting for revelations beyond a dislike of Byron and a love of the races, but Murnane and his narrator steadfastly refuse to provide them. Beyond two lines of Shelley, there's little on offer to let you into the core of the private world portrayed here, and that's maybe the point: interpretation and memory are all we have, and the meaning you take is your own, incommunicable.