A review by gracer
Not a Novel: A Memoir in Pieces by Kurt Beals, Jenny Erpenbeck
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
I have read only one book by Jenny Erpenbeck ("Go, Went, Gone") and it blew me away, uniting everything I love in literature. And that’s basically all I knew about Erpenbeck when I picked up this book. I did not know that she was trained as an opera director, or that she was raised in East Germany, etc. etc. etc. This was therefore highly informative, and I do love reading about writers and their experience and following their philosophical thoughts on the process and the art of writing, etc. But this was also fascinating just because her perspective is so unique. It’s interesting to read about someone who was raised in Communism, and who was 22 or so when the Berlin Wall fell, and studied opera directing, and so on. I don’t know much about theater or music and I love reading about how these art forms can intersect and interact with the one I *do* know a bit about.
I gave this three stars at first, thinking probably more like a 3.5, but that was faulty. My beef with this book is just that there’s a section in the middle with three 20+ page essays (really lectures), while the rest of the book is filled with mostly 2 page pieces, a couple stretching to 6 or 8 or maybe 10 pages. So I was cruising through the first section, and had been reading a short, reflective, pleasant essay before bed or such, and then when I hit the long sections it interrupted the whole relationship I was building with this as a book, or as a collection.
So my criticism is just a matter of collection and nothing to do with the work. I sort of wish the middle three had been separate, or left out, but that’s really neither here nor there, and I enjoyed reading those, too. Two of them focus on some of her earlier books ("The Old Child" and "The Book of Words"), so now obviously I have to go read those books. What a life.
I gave this three stars at first, thinking probably more like a 3.5, but that was faulty. My beef with this book is just that there’s a section in the middle with three 20+ page essays (really lectures), while the rest of the book is filled with mostly 2 page pieces, a couple stretching to 6 or 8 or maybe 10 pages. So I was cruising through the first section, and had been reading a short, reflective, pleasant essay before bed or such, and then when I hit the long sections it interrupted the whole relationship I was building with this as a book, or as a collection.
So my criticism is just a matter of collection and nothing to do with the work. I sort of wish the middle three had been separate, or left out, but that’s really neither here nor there, and I enjoyed reading those, too. Two of them focus on some of her earlier books ("The Old Child" and "The Book of Words"), so now obviously I have to go read those books. What a life.