Scan barcode
mjpatton's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.0
korrick's review against another edition
1.0
There are a number of works on my shelves that demonstrate the metamorphosis of my relationship with literature far more explicitly than one may consider possible when it comes to a self-contained, inanimate object. This particular piece is one of many that grabbed ahold of my interest while I was deep in the bowels of various interlinked communities but only surfaced in my commitments long after I had left each and every one of them. A loss, perhaps, but having waited on the plunge for nearly a decade, I can look over the references flung out on the back of each volume of this duo tomed set and think alright, alright, sure, whatever. Vonnegut, Kosinkski, Joyce, Broch, Melville, Faulkner, Nin, The Waves, whatever "ancient Hindu painting" is supposed to connote: all very presumptuously impressive and bombastically esoteric, but I've committed to my fair share of such and even loved some of it throughout past, present, and future, and when I read this book, I think far more of the especial breed of USA nonsense that consists of the mewling, puking lies of a violent child forever sorry for itself and forever hateful towards those that refuse to give up their toys forever and ever than I do of all those names and then some. Perhaps it would have been different if I had never watched and grown sick of the sort of sensational, puritanical fearmongering found in shows such as True Detective or Twin Peaks, or if I hadn't successfully gotten through three of the four Great Chinese Novels within the last five years and know what it means for a tale to successfully support itself for thousands of pages and leave the reader sad that it is over. The world will never know.
I've sent enough years in both the culture and the profession of reading to know better than to treat with it all, as so many do, as if it were a series of pilgrimages ever in pursuit of the holy grail. I also don't cheapen it into a "whatever works" fanfare of the blasé, for the lack of information literacy in the throes of capitalism is a true and present danger in my own country, and I can promise you that the more complacent chunks of the oppressive status quo would be a lot less comfortable if every single child in the US had access to early literacy skills when it was most paramount for them to have such. So, if a reader tells me that they made their way through this entire thing and loved it as a result, that's their perfect freedom to do so. If, however, they seek to imply that, because I was the opposite in evaluation if not in commitment, I must have done something wrong, I'm afraid it will be impossible for me to take them seriously. This is a piece that certainly has plenty of time to hint at the more interesting facets of life that don't fall under the banal skein of subjects that most well to do pieces of writing confine themselves to, but every time there's a threat of such an object turning into subject, it suddenly becomes another 400 pages of the white collar white boy white-boying his way around the limited sphere of the descendants of imperial wealth and all their performative consumerism, with added dashes of magical disabled, magical Negro, magical rape victim, magical queer, and magical addict to break up the WASP tedium that has never forgiven itself for not still belonging to the acceptable parts of Europe and thinks that everything right with the world ended with the war of 1812. Coming as I did right off the tail end of Neuman's [b:Traveler of the Century|12510878|Traveler of the Century|Andrés Neuman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1325310312l/12510878._SX50_.jpg|6710647], it was easier to see when careless flingings at "unions" were nothing more than titillating tidbits for the more socially inclined, when the expanses of history were boiled down to more rote memorizations rather than built up into superbly engaging arguments towards a better tomorrow, when, in short, words were written because the writer had the social stability necessary for having nothing better to do, not because they had to be. It's the sort of material that makes me laugh when the elitists of my country heap scorn on the mournful teenagers of Hot Topic and the benighted adults of Walmart, for this is the sort of piece that wallows in the exigencies of both. What saving grace it has is as an artifact for a particular kind of overeducated white person who thought that hiding away in the bowels of verbiage would save them from the realities of both world and time, and if that's your kind of thing, have at it. Just don't tell me that it has to be mine.
Apparently a popular sticking point for this work is its prose, but such didn't do it for me. I'm surprised by Nin holding to it, one who despite the issues I have with her truly has a marvelous grasp on literary artistry even when at her most Eurocentrically obtuse, but having read four volumes of her (admittedly heavily abrogated) diaries, I have to wonder how much of this was kindred interest, and how much of it was for the sake of social networking and other, more explicit means of financial stabilization. Besides her and Woolf, it's admittedly been a while since I've tangoed with some of the more polyphonous names mentioned above, but fortune has it that I finally have Faulkner's [b:Absalom, Absalom!|373755|Absalom, Absalom!|William Faulkner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388474680l/373755._SY75_.jpg|1595511] lined up for starting within the next month or so, so at least I'll be able to do some baseline comparisons while the memory of this is still fresh. In any case, it took nine years to traverse the act of adding and the commitment to reading and another month and a half to read this, and all I can say is, I came, I saw, and I'm glad to move on. For those wondering where they should go from here, I'd recommend Silko's [b:Almanac of the Dead|52385|Almanac of the Dead|Leslie Marmon Silko|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386924233l/52385._SY75_.jpg|316915]. It has its own labels of "difficult," "grotesque," and "American," but unlike with this, you might actually learn a thing or two worth knowing by the time you reach the end.
I've sent enough years in both the culture and the profession of reading to know better than to treat with it all, as so many do, as if it were a series of pilgrimages ever in pursuit of the holy grail. I also don't cheapen it into a "whatever works" fanfare of the blasé, for the lack of information literacy in the throes of capitalism is a true and present danger in my own country, and I can promise you that the more complacent chunks of the oppressive status quo would be a lot less comfortable if every single child in the US had access to early literacy skills when it was most paramount for them to have such. So, if a reader tells me that they made their way through this entire thing and loved it as a result, that's their perfect freedom to do so. If, however, they seek to imply that, because I was the opposite in evaluation if not in commitment, I must have done something wrong, I'm afraid it will be impossible for me to take them seriously. This is a piece that certainly has plenty of time to hint at the more interesting facets of life that don't fall under the banal skein of subjects that most well to do pieces of writing confine themselves to, but every time there's a threat of such an object turning into subject, it suddenly becomes another 400 pages of the white collar white boy white-boying his way around the limited sphere of the descendants of imperial wealth and all their performative consumerism, with added dashes of magical disabled, magical Negro, magical rape victim, magical queer, and magical addict to break up the WASP tedium that has never forgiven itself for not still belonging to the acceptable parts of Europe and thinks that everything right with the world ended with the war of 1812. Coming as I did right off the tail end of Neuman's [b:Traveler of the Century|12510878|Traveler of the Century|Andrés Neuman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1325310312l/12510878._SX50_.jpg|6710647], it was easier to see when careless flingings at "unions" were nothing more than titillating tidbits for the more socially inclined, when the expanses of history were boiled down to more rote memorizations rather than built up into superbly engaging arguments towards a better tomorrow, when, in short, words were written because the writer had the social stability necessary for having nothing better to do, not because they had to be. It's the sort of material that makes me laugh when the elitists of my country heap scorn on the mournful teenagers of Hot Topic and the benighted adults of Walmart, for this is the sort of piece that wallows in the exigencies of both. What saving grace it has is as an artifact for a particular kind of overeducated white person who thought that hiding away in the bowels of verbiage would save them from the realities of both world and time, and if that's your kind of thing, have at it. Just don't tell me that it has to be mine.
Apparently a popular sticking point for this work is its prose, but such didn't do it for me. I'm surprised by Nin holding to it, one who despite the issues I have with her truly has a marvelous grasp on literary artistry even when at her most Eurocentrically obtuse, but having read four volumes of her (admittedly heavily abrogated) diaries, I have to wonder how much of this was kindred interest, and how much of it was for the sake of social networking and other, more explicit means of financial stabilization. Besides her and Woolf, it's admittedly been a while since I've tangoed with some of the more polyphonous names mentioned above, but fortune has it that I finally have Faulkner's [b:Absalom, Absalom!|373755|Absalom, Absalom!|William Faulkner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388474680l/373755._SY75_.jpg|1595511] lined up for starting within the next month or so, so at least I'll be able to do some baseline comparisons while the memory of this is still fresh. In any case, it took nine years to traverse the act of adding and the commitment to reading and another month and a half to read this, and all I can say is, I came, I saw, and I'm glad to move on. For those wondering where they should go from here, I'd recommend Silko's [b:Almanac of the Dead|52385|Almanac of the Dead|Leslie Marmon Silko|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386924233l/52385._SY75_.jpg|316915]. It has its own labels of "difficult," "grotesque," and "American," but unlike with this, you might actually learn a thing or two worth knowing by the time you reach the end.
captainfez's review against another edition
challenging
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
asililydying's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
a circuitous ocean of voices, in the manner of a fugue; an ocean of dreams, memories, misconceptions, misgivings. loved cousin hannah. ive already seen a lot of the influence this has had on my writing. and to think in that period i started a relationship, ended it, met so many new people, did so many new things, and now it's etched in time.
first 1000 pages are great, occasionally a tad meanspirited ~ one incident in the final 300 feels...bad, to say the least. in some part fetishizing, in another giving way to racist myth. plus miss macintosh is a goddamn zionist! struggling to rate for now.
first 1000 pages are great, occasionally a tad meanspirited ~ one incident in the final 300 feels...bad, to say the least. in some part fetishizing, in another giving way to racist myth. plus miss macintosh is a goddamn zionist! struggling to rate for now.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Miscarriage, Racism, Rape, Suicide, Antisemitism, and Abortion
kpdoessomereading's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
fionnualalirsdottir's review against another edition
I’ve never been so full of words as after reading this book, itself so very full of words.
And yet the words inspired by the reading are hard to grasp, they slip through my fingers, fly out of my grasp, flit away on the breeze of an afternoon, such an afternoon as is pleasantly spent turning the leaves of this book in a garden, beneath a tree, the sunlight stealing through the gaps in the canopy overhead dappling the page, causing the words to shimmer and shift, while the breeze, that same breeze, lifts a strand of my hair, whispers a kiss along the nape of my neck and, having cajoled me nicely, reaches in to snatch those word pictures forming in my head as I read, whisking them away and up so that they go twirling and swirling, separating and reforming, now a pair of butterflies circling each other in an eternal mating dance, now the lacey edge of a flowing skirt sweeping across the waving sands of a desert far away, shapeshifting in a mirage of heat into a masculine figure on horseback galloping off to disappear into a black speck, a speck that passes through a keyhole in the clouds and reemerges on the other side of the horizon astride the moon, a little stick person in men’s boots and a red wig who drops gently onto a New England beach and pokes at the flotsam with the tip of her umbrella, unearthing here a wedding ornament, there a funeral wreath, singing old sea-shell songs as she goes, crossing paths with a sad and black-cloaked angel toting an alpenhorn, weighty with the sins of the world, while a horizontal figure like a hibernating butterfly at one remove from life drowses away the years in a crumbling mansion with no north, accompanied by wraiths from all the ages, endlessly bidding farewell to the world, and a lonesome bus ploughs through the Iowa night with a phantom driver and three spectral passengers towards what cheer?
I may well ask.
What have I read? How has it been written? Does it cohere? Is coherence so vital?
Does beauty have to make sense? What’s on the other side of beauty? Can I contemplate it?
Am I repeating myself? Does repertition uncover new layers? Do lists constitute literature?
Will I read the second half of this million-word work? Does my love of words override my love of economy? How many ways can I ask the same question?
How can sublime sentences become nightmarish chapters? How can nightmarish chapters be made up of sublime sentences?
Will I ever succeed in understanding the essence of Miss Young’s writing, the buzzing, the hum as of a corpse beneath the envelope of the text? Has anybody ever succeeded in pinning down this phantasm of a narrative? If they have, should I search out their explanation of her word riddles?
But why should I, when I can read hers instead, her ignotum per ignotious, her mystery of the mystery, her search for the true in the false?
Why should you?
And yet the words inspired by the reading are hard to grasp, they slip through my fingers, fly out of my grasp, flit away on the breeze of an afternoon, such an afternoon as is pleasantly spent turning the leaves of this book in a garden, beneath a tree, the sunlight stealing through the gaps in the canopy overhead dappling the page, causing the words to shimmer and shift, while the breeze, that same breeze, lifts a strand of my hair, whispers a kiss along the nape of my neck and, having cajoled me nicely, reaches in to snatch those word pictures forming in my head as I read, whisking them away and up so that they go twirling and swirling, separating and reforming, now a pair of butterflies circling each other in an eternal mating dance, now the lacey edge of a flowing skirt sweeping across the waving sands of a desert far away, shapeshifting in a mirage of heat into a masculine figure on horseback galloping off to disappear into a black speck, a speck that passes through a keyhole in the clouds and reemerges on the other side of the horizon astride the moon, a little stick person in men’s boots and a red wig who drops gently onto a New England beach and pokes at the flotsam with the tip of her umbrella, unearthing here a wedding ornament, there a funeral wreath, singing old sea-shell songs as she goes, crossing paths with a sad and black-cloaked angel toting an alpenhorn, weighty with the sins of the world, while a horizontal figure like a hibernating butterfly at one remove from life drowses away the years in a crumbling mansion with no north, accompanied by wraiths from all the ages, endlessly bidding farewell to the world, and a lonesome bus ploughs through the Iowa night with a phantom driver and three spectral passengers towards what cheer?
I may well ask.
What have I read? How has it been written? Does it cohere? Is coherence so vital?
Does beauty have to make sense? What’s on the other side of beauty? Can I contemplate it?
Am I repeating myself? Does repertition uncover new layers? Do lists constitute literature?
Will I read the second half of this million-word work? Does my love of words override my love of economy? How many ways can I ask the same question?
How can sublime sentences become nightmarish chapters? How can nightmarish chapters be made up of sublime sentences?
Will I ever succeed in understanding the essence of Miss Young’s writing, the buzzing, the hum as of a corpse beneath the envelope of the text? Has anybody ever succeeded in pinning down this phantasm of a narrative? If they have, should I search out their explanation of her word riddles?
But why should I, when I can read hers instead, her ignotum per ignotious, her mystery of the mystery, her search for the true in the false?
Why should you?
asteria_vei's review against another edition
I tried so hard, but I just couldn’t get into it.
freewaygods's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
What a novel. This book will not be for everyone. However, if you can appreciate the beauty of Young’s sentences, if you can find meandering through her prose not just pleasant but revelatory, if you follow the circuitous paths, you will be rewarded with one of the most heartbreakingly gorgeous piece of prose ever written by an American.