hsienhsien27's review against another edition
4.0
This was received for an honest review
When Gransden told me about her novella, we were talking about writing stuffs, she told me or maybe Leo did, I don’t remember, that she was releasing a novella. And the novella is called anemogram. and when I saw her blog, I realized just like the short story she sent me, that she was one of those abstract writers. Abstract as in, everything is a sort of mystery that can only be solved by inconsistent dreams that have come to you during the restless nights in small visions and it will maybe take you months to piece them together. It’s not a bad thing, it’s a great thing in my opinion, if everything was linear, everything in a traditional mold, then where does the innovation go? Where does the curiosity go? Since literature is an art form, you should be able to cut up the pieces and make Picasso paintings right?
I always I love when a surrealist novel takes place in quiet suburbia, I feel like it always brews better in those conditions. Something odd pops out of the bushes and terrorizes a quiet neighborhood that usually expects nothing. In this case, it’s this little girl that doesn’t really have an official origin, she appears out of nowhere. She seems to have manifested out of nature itself, as you read the novella, there’s plenty of vibrant imagery of Mother Nature’s creations. There’s also a voice in her head that accompanies her throughout the story, telling her fairy tales that all sort of surround the same theme, where something beautiful, eventually dies and there’s no way to get it back. (If this is wrong, I read this awhile ago, so it’s fuzzy.)
The girl pretends to be the daughter of a father who abandoned her due to dying in an accident or committing suicide. She hangs around a war veteran and eventually ends up living with his buddies and here’s the thing, they’re all hiding something and it involves doing things that are out of their moral bases, for example, one of the guys is a police officer.
And yet, the main character, this whimsical little girl is still a mystery. But I have a theory, the voice in her head is maybe her dead father and her way of coping and living is to be a sort of Peter Pan. Maybe, they both died and the girl lives on as something supernatural. Nobody questions oddities too much in this book.
anemogram. does what it wants best, to be abstract and leaving the reader numb with wonder. It contains the fantastical fairy tale elements that Helen Oyeyemi is known for, except it takes place in a small British town. It’s one of those fairytales with a quirky modern twist of the Sundance movie scene.
Rating: 4/5
Originally posted on Notes on the Shore
When Gransden told me about her novella, we were talking about writing stuffs, she told me or maybe Leo did, I don’t remember, that she was releasing a novella. And the novella is called anemogram. and when I saw her blog, I realized just like the short story she sent me, that she was one of those abstract writers. Abstract as in, everything is a sort of mystery that can only be solved by inconsistent dreams that have come to you during the restless nights in small visions and it will maybe take you months to piece them together. It’s not a bad thing, it’s a great thing in my opinion, if everything was linear, everything in a traditional mold, then where does the innovation go? Where does the curiosity go? Since literature is an art form, you should be able to cut up the pieces and make Picasso paintings right?
I always I love when a surrealist novel takes place in quiet suburbia, I feel like it always brews better in those conditions. Something odd pops out of the bushes and terrorizes a quiet neighborhood that usually expects nothing. In this case, it’s this little girl that doesn’t really have an official origin, she appears out of nowhere. She seems to have manifested out of nature itself, as you read the novella, there’s plenty of vibrant imagery of Mother Nature’s creations. There’s also a voice in her head that accompanies her throughout the story, telling her fairy tales that all sort of surround the same theme, where something beautiful, eventually dies and there’s no way to get it back. (If this is wrong, I read this awhile ago, so it’s fuzzy.)
The girl pretends to be the daughter of a father who abandoned her due to dying in an accident or committing suicide. She hangs around a war veteran and eventually ends up living with his buddies and here’s the thing, they’re all hiding something and it involves doing things that are out of their moral bases, for example, one of the guys is a police officer.
And yet, the main character, this whimsical little girl is still a mystery. But I have a theory, the voice in her head is maybe her dead father and her way of coping and living is to be a sort of Peter Pan. Maybe, they both died and the girl lives on as something supernatural. Nobody questions oddities too much in this book.
anemogram. does what it wants best, to be abstract and leaving the reader numb with wonder. It contains the fantastical fairy tale elements that Helen Oyeyemi is known for, except it takes place in a small British town. It’s one of those fairytales with a quirky modern twist of the Sundance movie scene.
Rating: 4/5
Originally posted on Notes on the Shore
liisp_cvr2cvr's review against another edition
3.0
Surreal feelings and moments described in a way that made me feel as if I was able to touch an excerpt, a moment in time, something from my past! Can you imagine reading a sentence and it makes you feel like you’re taken back 10+ years to an event which you can pull back into current day and rub it in between your fingers, and look at it with a set of different eyes?
The children were over. Slack whispers curled around awkward noises. A park bench gleamed doom hibiscus dosages. One sat prostrate and happy, the other forlorn and weeping.
The writing in this book is unique and original. It will appeal to those who love heavy and authentic prose. Even though the story was like an episode of fever induced hallucinations, where many questions will never be answered, I truly did love how the descriptions felt so very real. The way I have felt them, the way we all feel them. It was the small detail of life that impact all our senses which we tend to overlook in every day lives that Rebecca managed to put on paper. I keep trying to define how reading anemogram. felt but I can’t seem to come up with a coherent way to describe. Take a strange dream of blocks and circles and smells and sounds and make them all 3D material with yourself in the centre, seeing and making sense of everything.
Yes, the whole book is not through and through trippy. There’s a storyline which David and Sarah follow, but the in between moments just stood out the most for me.
The centre of the story is a little girl. Her name is Rachel. Then her name is Sarah. She is appears alone in this world and she is wearing a white dress. The setting is England- forest, city, abandoned sites.
Like for many other readers, the little girl remains a mystery to me. Who is she? What’s her story? At times I expected to read how she returns home and the whole chain of events was like an adventure, a mischievous child returning from exploring. This is not how the story goes however… She was real, yet felt angelic. She was young, yet came across wise beyond her years. Was she innocent? Was she evil? So many questions…
David, a middle aged man… his wife and kids are gone from him, to another country. He has a job, but he is lonely. His existence a mere routine. He will never know how his life changes when he decides to take the little girl under his protection.
He never washed his hands. Today he would. He would not sit in front of Sarah with dick on his hands, eating a burger and fries. She’s had enough dirt in her life and so had he.
And then… There’s Tinker… Tinker is Sarah’s imaginary friend, advisor and bedtime story teller. Tinker’s bedtime stories to Sarah are really rather… imaginative and without a doubt unconventional. I enjoyed Tinker’s existence. Tinker put me on the fence… was he helping Sarah, or is he really the impending doom?
She drank some more. He’s slippery, Tinker said. He knows that you’re after him. She tapped the mug with her nail, making a dull porcelain ring. One, two, three. The hunger rose throughout her body. If she had been alone she would have allowed a tear to release the frustration. She recognized Mungo, saw his makeup. She couldn’t be anything he wanted, he would not be moulded, he would have to go.
My rating: 3***- I liked it. Rebecca’s debut novel does not disappoint. I would suggest this to anyone who likes a story where conclusions aren’t delivered on black-on-white. A story where the line in between real and not so real appears fuzzy. Unexpected behaviour of characters was one thing that turned this book into a surprise for me.
The children were over. Slack whispers curled around awkward noises. A park bench gleamed doom hibiscus dosages. One sat prostrate and happy, the other forlorn and weeping.
The writing in this book is unique and original. It will appeal to those who love heavy and authentic prose. Even though the story was like an episode of fever induced hallucinations, where many questions will never be answered, I truly did love how the descriptions felt so very real. The way I have felt them, the way we all feel them. It was the small detail of life that impact all our senses which we tend to overlook in every day lives that Rebecca managed to put on paper. I keep trying to define how reading anemogram. felt but I can’t seem to come up with a coherent way to describe. Take a strange dream of blocks and circles and smells and sounds and make them all 3D material with yourself in the centre, seeing and making sense of everything.
Yes, the whole book is not through and through trippy. There’s a storyline which David and Sarah follow, but the in between moments just stood out the most for me.
The centre of the story is a little girl. Her name is Rachel. Then her name is Sarah. She is appears alone in this world and she is wearing a white dress. The setting is England- forest, city, abandoned sites.
Like for many other readers, the little girl remains a mystery to me. Who is she? What’s her story? At times I expected to read how she returns home and the whole chain of events was like an adventure, a mischievous child returning from exploring. This is not how the story goes however… She was real, yet felt angelic. She was young, yet came across wise beyond her years. Was she innocent? Was she evil? So many questions…
David, a middle aged man… his wife and kids are gone from him, to another country. He has a job, but he is lonely. His existence a mere routine. He will never know how his life changes when he decides to take the little girl under his protection.
He never washed his hands. Today he would. He would not sit in front of Sarah with dick on his hands, eating a burger and fries. She’s had enough dirt in her life and so had he.
And then… There’s Tinker… Tinker is Sarah’s imaginary friend, advisor and bedtime story teller. Tinker’s bedtime stories to Sarah are really rather… imaginative and without a doubt unconventional. I enjoyed Tinker’s existence. Tinker put me on the fence… was he helping Sarah, or is he really the impending doom?
She drank some more. He’s slippery, Tinker said. He knows that you’re after him. She tapped the mug with her nail, making a dull porcelain ring. One, two, three. The hunger rose throughout her body. If she had been alone she would have allowed a tear to release the frustration. She recognized Mungo, saw his makeup. She couldn’t be anything he wanted, he would not be moulded, he would have to go.
My rating: 3***- I liked it. Rebecca’s debut novel does not disappoint. I would suggest this to anyone who likes a story where conclusions aren’t delivered on black-on-white. A story where the line in between real and not so real appears fuzzy. Unexpected behaviour of characters was one thing that turned this book into a surprise for me.
kingjason's review
4.0
Rebecca Gransden is a fantastic story teller, right from the start you get whisked away with the story. Sarah is an interesting little girl who causes you to ask lots of questions. David is a quiet brooding character. And Tinker? He/she is very entertaining, every now and then they tell a story to Sarah, the stories feel like little fables that Buddha has come up with, I found them good fun to read.
My biggest issue with this book is that none of my many questions were answered, I'm still unsure what exactly Sarah is, what has happened in David's past and a whole host of other questions, I might need directors commentary with the book. I think the author has some short stories based on this world she has created so I will need to go hunt them out and I might get my answers.
Brilliant story and looking for to reading more of her work.
Blog review is here> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/anemogram-by-rebecca-gransden/
My biggest issue with this book is that none of my many questions were answered, I'm still unsure what exactly Sarah is, what has happened in David's past and a whole host of other questions, I might need directors commentary with the book. I think the author has some short stories based on this world she has created so I will need to go hunt them out and I might get my answers.
Brilliant story and looking for to reading more of her work.
Blog review is here> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/anemogram-by-rebecca-gransden/
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