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A review by archytas
Wall by Jen Craig
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This novel may be short, but it is a lot. At various points in the reading, I was bewildered, enthralled and frankly, broken. Then probably back to bemused. I went from thinking from this was very-clever-but-not-really-a-novel, to that it was simply brilliant, to something a little more moderated. It was, in short, intense.
This is not really because of the subject matter (which I will get to) but because of the style. Craig writes in a stream of consciousness that can go pages without paragraph breaks. Whereas this is somewhat evocative of a modernist style like Woolf, unlike her, Craig's stream does not include the intruding daily small worries, thoughts or reminders. This is unadulterated ruminating, a pile of heightened anxiety musing which endlessly (well, for 200 pages) pursues some sense of emotional understanding and resolution. If you, like me, are prone to this kind of obsessive overthinking, it might feel a little too claustrophobic to be entirely bearable. It is exactly the thinking I read books to escape.
So I wouldn't describe this as a fun read. It can also be intellectually taxing. Keeping track of all of the events and characters requires close attention as our narrator weaves through events, apparently chaotically. Names shape our impressions - one figure always gets a full name and a descriptor, indicating both the weight and the distance he has from the narrator. Another Sonya, is sometimes shortened to Son, and sometimes not, signifying a different kind of relationship. Characters' intersections have to be pieced together. This part can bring some fun - unravelling what is going on is pleasurable to read in the right hands.
The cumulative effect, though, is really something. This story unfurls through the book, which is in-world a document written by the narrator to her partner. Through her eyes, her partner is hypercritical, with her constantly trying to hedge off his criticisms of her family, friends and country. He functions not so much as a personality, as a constantly judging eye, soundlessly cajoling her into explaining, justifying and hence interrogating herself. We see her complex relationships with her friends and her deep-centered guilt over her family, the origins of which are pieced together as they are reinterrogated. There are also more recent events. It can feel like a detective novel at times, with the source of emotion as the mystery.
Aside from all this, Craig also produces a powerful and often wincing critique of the process of selling art or the right to make art. The novel's beginning dilemma is Craig's realisation that she emotionally simply cannot turn her parents' house into the artwork she has already hyped up. As the novel spirals through, we realise the push-pull of art world expectations and emotional avoidance that churns into the creation of art pieces. Our narrator cannot parse her own intentions exactly, but we see how committing the artwork is, in part, an act of both a desire to be seen as a relevant artist and a desire to avoid the emotional work of dealing with the house. Through flashbacks, we see how she and her friends alternately protected and mined their own trauma for art, the delicate and often opaque interplay between what they want and what they want to present. The format provides little space for clear cut answers, which suits these murky waters well.
This is not really because of the subject matter (which I will get to) but because of the style. Craig writes in a stream of consciousness that can go pages without paragraph breaks. Whereas this is somewhat evocative of a modernist style like Woolf, unlike her, Craig's stream does not include the intruding daily small worries, thoughts or reminders. This is unadulterated ruminating, a pile of heightened anxiety musing which endlessly (well, for 200 pages) pursues some sense of emotional understanding and resolution. If you, like me, are prone to this kind of obsessive overthinking, it might feel a little too claustrophobic to be entirely bearable. It is exactly the thinking I read books to escape.
So I wouldn't describe this as a fun read. It can also be intellectually taxing. Keeping track of all of the events and characters requires close attention as our narrator weaves through events, apparently chaotically. Names shape our impressions - one figure always gets a full name and a descriptor, indicating both the weight and the distance he has from the narrator. Another Sonya, is sometimes shortened to Son, and sometimes not, signifying a different kind of relationship. Characters' intersections have to be pieced together. This part can bring some fun - unravelling what is going on is pleasurable to read in the right hands.
The cumulative effect, though, is really something. This story unfurls through the book, which is in-world a document written by the narrator to her partner. Through her eyes, her partner is hypercritical, with her constantly trying to hedge off his criticisms of her family, friends and country. He functions not so much as a personality, as a constantly judging eye, soundlessly cajoling her into explaining, justifying and hence interrogating herself. We see her complex relationships with her friends and her deep-centered guilt over her family, the origins of which are pieced together as they are reinterrogated. There are also more recent events. It can feel like a detective novel at times, with the source of emotion as the mystery.
Aside from all this, Craig also produces a powerful and often wincing critique of the process of selling art or the right to make art. The novel's beginning dilemma is Craig's realisation that she emotionally simply cannot turn her parents' house into the artwork she has already hyped up. As the novel spirals through, we realise the push-pull of art world expectations and emotional avoidance that churns into the creation of art pieces. Our narrator cannot parse her own intentions exactly, but we see how committing the artwork is, in part, an act of both a desire to be seen as a relevant artist and a desire to avoid the emotional work of dealing with the house. Through flashbacks, we see how she and her friends alternately protected and mined their own trauma for art, the delicate and often opaque interplay between what they want and what they want to present. The format provides little space for clear cut answers, which suits these murky waters well.