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A review by svrye_docx
Seahorse by Janice Pariat
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
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? It's complicated
4.0
Picked this one up in preparation for a weekend trip and honestly? Could not have made a better choice.
'Seahorse' is a slow moving ping-pong match. Yeah it's a weird way to put it but hey, just when you're lulled into the beautiful and almost languid prose, suddenly the narrative shifts to a flashback. So then you settle into, once again, measured and paced-out writing - and wham! You're in the present now again but in a different present moment than the one you were in previously.
It would be confusing if it weren't that each shift in time is related to what comes before it or after. Sometimes, a bit of conversation in the present hearkens back to a flashback that Nem, our protagonist, falls into right after. Other times it's his own ruminations and reflections in the present that then set off the flashback. The connections are there - I had only one discombobulating experience and that was in the last section where present time Nem references something and I spent a whole 15 minutes reading through every previous flashback scene thinking that I must have missed this detail, only to see that a paragraph after Nem references the detail in the present time, there's the memory of it giving us the flashback.
I liked Janice Pariat's writing in this; I said it before and I'll say it again - it's measured and languid pacing. And there's a heavy focus on the surroundings and environment in almost every scene. Which is, I think, what keeps this book from sounding too cerebral and philosophical. It delves almost wholly within Nem's own perspective and is quite a reflective narrative but it breaks his inner monologuing and feelings with crisp and clear external imagery. Yes, Nem is very much a thinker, an ponderer, a deep-thoughts-haver but he isn't untouched by the world and the people around his. And I enjoyed that feeling. It made Nem a bit real and Nem's world real.
'Seahorse' is a slow moving ping-pong match. Yeah it's a weird way to put it but hey, just when you're lulled into the beautiful and almost languid prose, suddenly the narrative shifts to a flashback. So then you settle into, once again, measured and paced-out writing - and wham! You're in the present now again but in a different present moment than the one you were in previously.
It would be confusing if it weren't that each shift in time is related to what comes before it or after. Sometimes, a bit of conversation in the present hearkens back to a flashback that Nem, our protagonist, falls into right after. Other times it's his own ruminations and reflections in the present that then set off the flashback. The connections are there - I had only one discombobulating experience and that was in the last section where present time Nem references something and I spent a whole 15 minutes reading through every previous flashback scene thinking that I must have missed this detail, only to see that a paragraph after Nem references the detail in the present time, there's the memory of it giving us the flashback.
I liked Janice Pariat's writing in this; I said it before and I'll say it again - it's measured and languid pacing. And there's a heavy focus on the surroundings and environment in almost every scene. Which is, I think, what keeps this book from sounding too cerebral and philosophical. It delves almost wholly within Nem's own perspective and is quite a reflective narrative but it breaks his inner monologuing and feelings with crisp and clear external imagery. Yes, Nem is very much a thinker, an ponderer, a deep-thoughts-haver but he isn't untouched by the world and the people around his. And I enjoyed that feeling. It made Nem a bit real and Nem's world real.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Self harm, Suicide, and Toxic relationship