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A review by illustrated_librarian
Supplication by Nour Abi-Nakhoul
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
'I needed it, a thing to give myself over to, to humble myself before, to go limp in the face of; we all need it. There is nothing else.'
The narrator of this book comes to captive in a basement, unsure of who or what she was before, surrender to this rebirth her only means of escape. During her hallucinatory journey through a city night she pleads for a force to take charge of her path through a world she doesn't quite understand, while on her surreal pilgrimage she constructs herself anew.
The reading experience of this was unlike anything else I've come across. It's embedded somewhere deep in the consciousness, the least rational, most instinctive part, all quick-firing fragments of thoughts, sensory inputs but no sense making. The dense, description-stuffed sentences slid off my brain nearly as soon as I read them. The whole thing was almost incomprehensible, sometimes beautiful, with a driving force behind it that was bafflingly compelling, like a tunnel you need to see the end of.
Supplication is the act of begging, often a higher power, humbly for something. Throughout the book I felt that entreaty ringing out from everything the narrator thought or did, every unfathomable circumstance or action ultimately asking for an understanding of her place in the world. Every mundane ocurrance felt hideously magnified and wrong as she worries away at each little detail, an (un)conscious mind spinning up and burning out. The themes of fear and violence lurk there: in the funhouse-mirror details, the repetitive gnawing on meaningless things, the bewilderment and sensory overload.
The reviews have borne out how divisive this has been and I'm unsurprised. It defies conventional rating (and reviewing) because it can be felt but evades being understood. Did I enjoy it, grasp it even a bit? Couldn't tell you. But was I immersed in a strange, visceral world as the narrator saw it, in all its nightmarish glory? For better or worse, I was.
Thank you to @influxpress for sending this strange read my way.
The narrator of this book comes to captive in a basement, unsure of who or what she was before, surrender to this rebirth her only means of escape. During her hallucinatory journey through a city night she pleads for a force to take charge of her path through a world she doesn't quite understand, while on her surreal pilgrimage she constructs herself anew.
The reading experience of this was unlike anything else I've come across. It's embedded somewhere deep in the consciousness, the least rational, most instinctive part, all quick-firing fragments of thoughts, sensory inputs but no sense making. The dense, description-stuffed sentences slid off my brain nearly as soon as I read them. The whole thing was almost incomprehensible, sometimes beautiful, with a driving force behind it that was bafflingly compelling, like a tunnel you need to see the end of.
Supplication is the act of begging, often a higher power, humbly for something. Throughout the book I felt that entreaty ringing out from everything the narrator thought or did, every unfathomable circumstance or action ultimately asking for an understanding of her place in the world. Every mundane ocurrance felt hideously magnified and wrong as she worries away at each little detail, an (un)conscious mind spinning up and burning out. The themes of fear and violence lurk there: in the funhouse-mirror details, the repetitive gnawing on meaningless things, the bewilderment and sensory overload.
The reviews have borne out how divisive this has been and I'm unsurprised. It defies conventional rating (and reviewing) because it can be felt but evades being understood. Did I enjoy it, grasp it even a bit? Couldn't tell you. But was I immersed in a strange, visceral world as the narrator saw it, in all its nightmarish glory? For better or worse, I was.
Thank you to @influxpress for sending this strange read my way.