ellehamp's review against another edition
Such odd exaggerations. I think it was maybe trying to be artistic or something else, but whatever it was I could't quite figure it out, nor did I like it very much.
bkish's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent excellent writer with a tremendous gift for describing people and events. It is written during Nazi horrors about people who left Vienna and about world of music. She can develop the most bizarre characters like where do they come from like the Rat or Anna and Felix and the Tolstoi Quartet. Extraordinary experience of reading!
lostinagoodread's review against another edition
2.0
This review and others can be found on Cozy Up With A Good Read
This book had a lot of potential for me, but in the end I really had a hard time enjoying the story. This was a truly difficult book to connect with and I felt that the story switched around characters that I could never get the feel for anyone. I felt lost as to what was happening a lot of the time in this story because it jumped around so much, from past to present and from character to character... I'm the type who likes a little more fluidity to my stories.
I will say I was interested in the idea of this family and all the other characters, trying to start a new life after many hardships and learning about the trials of actually getting out of Russia and how it has affected their families now. There isn't really too much I am able to say about this book, everything felt all over the place and there were quite a few disturbing sections that really made me reconsider finishing... in the end I am happy I did force myself to continue because there are some redeeming parts, as Maria (who I felt was older than 8 in the way she is written) gets to know her aunt, this mysterious creature who throws everyone for a loop when she unexpectedly arrives.
I just found it hard to connect everyone's stories together in this book, and to get past the unspeakable things that were happening. I felt like there was a point where things just seemed to go a little over the top for me and I couldn't concentrate on everything happening. Kathleen Spivack definitely has a special story here that I think many will enjoy, her writing transports you into the characters' world, but for me it just didn't work.
This book had a lot of potential for me, but in the end I really had a hard time enjoying the story. This was a truly difficult book to connect with and I felt that the story switched around characters that I could never get the feel for anyone. I felt lost as to what was happening a lot of the time in this story because it jumped around so much, from past to present and from character to character... I'm the type who likes a little more fluidity to my stories.
I will say I was interested in the idea of this family and all the other characters, trying to start a new life after many hardships and learning about the trials of actually getting out of Russia and how it has affected their families now. There isn't really too much I am able to say about this book, everything felt all over the place and there were quite a few disturbing sections that really made me reconsider finishing... in the end I am happy I did force myself to continue because there are some redeeming parts, as Maria (who I felt was older than 8 in the way she is written) gets to know her aunt, this mysterious creature who throws everyone for a loop when she unexpectedly arrives.
I just found it hard to connect everyone's stories together in this book, and to get past the unspeakable things that were happening. I felt like there was a point where things just seemed to go a little over the top for me and I couldn't concentrate on everything happening. Kathleen Spivack definitely has a special story here that I think many will enjoy, her writing transports you into the characters' world, but for me it just didn't work.
jaclynday's review against another edition
3.0
After finishing this, I felt the same sense of unease that I did when I turned the last page of Eileen by Ottesa Moshfegh last year. Unspeakable Things is billed as “wild, erotic.” Neither word seems to exactly fit this macabre and utterly unnerving book about European refugees fleeing the Nazi regime. There is a lot of literary imagination here—the disturbing secret nature of each of the characters serving as a foil for some bigger thing, some larger atrocity. As the story progresses, it becomes more surreal, more…weird. Spivack gives each character a backstory and a cross to bear—some known to the reader, some not—and then injects the entire plot with a connective thread, tying each of them together in some way. Once I thought of the book as fairy tale-like—a dark Grimm brothers kind, with PTSD—it made sense. It’s not a book easily recommended to others, and it’s incredibly dark and exhausting to read. But it stretched me: my imagination, my emotions.
ellehamp's review against another edition
Such odd exaggerations. I think it was maybe trying to be artistic or something else, but whatever it was I could't quite figure it out, nor did I like it very much.
irishannie's review against another edition
2.0
This book is well-written, but gross and confusing. What fascinated me was the story about Goebbel's changing the tuning of instruments. Here's what I found on the Internet, of course:
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1988/eirv15n35-19880902/eirv15n35-19880902_054-how_the_nazis_ruined_musical_tun.pdf
http://www.viewzone.com/432hertz.html
http://www.roelhollander.eu/en/tuning-frequency/goebbels-and-440/
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/music/rev_tuning_hist.html
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/1988/eirv15n35-19880902/eirv15n35-19880902_054-how_the_nazis_ruined_musical_tun.pdf
http://www.viewzone.com/432hertz.html
http://www.roelhollander.eu/en/tuning-frequency/goebbels-and-440/
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/music/rev_tuning_hist.html
lostinagoodread's review against another edition
2.0
This review and others can be found on Cozy Up With A Good Read
This book had a lot of potential for me, but in the end I really had a hard time enjoying the story. This was a truly difficult book to connect with and I felt that the story switched around characters that I could never get the feel for anyone. I felt lost as to what was happening a lot of the time in this story because it jumped around so much, from past to present and from character to character... I'm the type who likes a little more fluidity to my stories.
I will say I was interested in the idea of this family and all the other characters, trying to start a new life after many hardships and learning about the trials of actually getting out of Russia and how it has affected their families now. There isn't really too much I am able to say about this book, everything felt all over the place and there were quite a few disturbing sections that really made me reconsider finishing... in the end I am happy I did force myself to continue because there are some redeeming parts, as Maria (who I felt was older than 8 in the way she is written) gets to know her aunt, this mysterious creature who throws everyone for a loop when she unexpectedly arrives.
I just found it hard to connect everyone's stories together in this book, and to get past the unspeakable things that were happening. I felt like there was a point where things just seemed to go a little over the top for me and I couldn't concentrate on everything happening. Kathleen Spivack definitely has a special story here that I think many will enjoy, her writing transports you into the characters' world, but for me it just didn't work.
This book had a lot of potential for me, but in the end I really had a hard time enjoying the story. This was a truly difficult book to connect with and I felt that the story switched around characters that I could never get the feel for anyone. I felt lost as to what was happening a lot of the time in this story because it jumped around so much, from past to present and from character to character... I'm the type who likes a little more fluidity to my stories.
I will say I was interested in the idea of this family and all the other characters, trying to start a new life after many hardships and learning about the trials of actually getting out of Russia and how it has affected their families now. There isn't really too much I am able to say about this book, everything felt all over the place and there were quite a few disturbing sections that really made me reconsider finishing... in the end I am happy I did force myself to continue because there are some redeeming parts, as Maria (who I felt was older than 8 in the way she is written) gets to know her aunt, this mysterious creature who throws everyone for a loop when she unexpectedly arrives.
I just found it hard to connect everyone's stories together in this book, and to get past the unspeakable things that were happening. I felt like there was a point where things just seemed to go a little over the top for me and I couldn't concentrate on everything happening. Kathleen Spivack definitely has a special story here that I think many will enjoy, her writing transports you into the characters' world, but for me it just didn't work.
scarpuccia's review against another edition
4.0
This novel has an average rating here of 2.83. I don't think I've ever seen a book with a lower average rating. I'm baffled why. True, it's acid trip magical realism alienated me a bit at times but on the whole it's a beautifully written novel with lots of humour and insight into the human condition, especially regarding bereavement, displacement and female struggles with self-esteem.
It's a poetic novel about a family of refugees who have escaped from war torn Vienna to New York. They have left a dead son behind who was killed by the Nazis. The author is especially good at imbuing the present with the past. The past is what everyone is struggling to overcome in their new alien environment. The family are joined by three bizarre characters. There's a deformed character called The Rat whose lover, Rasputin, has left his handprints on her thighs; a Nazi doctor who is a quintessence of Nazi scientific delusion and mania. He keeps animate body parts in jars, including the pinkies of the Tolstoi Quartet, four elderly musicians who lost their fingers for playing inappropriate music in Nazi occupied Vienna.
A comic fable about the Holocaust is perhaps going to alienate some readers. Add to that, it broaches paedophilia in a sometimes discomforting manner. But I often found it illuminating and stirringly mischievous and it's very wise about the struggle to achieve mental health.
It's a poetic novel about a family of refugees who have escaped from war torn Vienna to New York. They have left a dead son behind who was killed by the Nazis. The author is especially good at imbuing the present with the past. The past is what everyone is struggling to overcome in their new alien environment. The family are joined by three bizarre characters. There's a deformed character called The Rat whose lover, Rasputin, has left his handprints on her thighs; a Nazi doctor who is a quintessence of Nazi scientific delusion and mania. He keeps animate body parts in jars, including the pinkies of the Tolstoi Quartet, four elderly musicians who lost their fingers for playing inappropriate music in Nazi occupied Vienna.
A comic fable about the Holocaust is perhaps going to alienate some readers. Add to that, it broaches paedophilia in a sometimes discomforting manner. But I often found it illuminating and stirringly mischievous and it's very wise about the struggle to achieve mental health.
riversong222's review against another edition
5.0
I do not know how to review this. The writing was exquisite. The concepts mind blowing and executed beautifully. It is a strange and beautiful book. There are moments of grittiness that might not appeal to everyone, but it is woven into a tale so rare and strange, it all seems perfect.
Her writing about music and the Quartet is some of the finest I have ever read, albeit some of the weirdest as well.
READ THIS BOOK.
Her writing about music and the Quartet is some of the finest I have ever read, albeit some of the weirdest as well.
READ THIS BOOK.
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