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A review by purplepierogi
Bottled Goods by Sophie van Llewyn
3.0
I’m visiting Cluj-Napoca right now, and I chose this book as my token Romanian lit pick as it was recommended on a culturetrip listacle (lol) and also was the only Romanian novel I could find on my various elibrary apps.
I was really interested in the setting: 1970s Bucharest, under the deeply repressive Ceaușescu regime. Our characters are fracturing under pressure from colleagues, students and family reporting their activities to the Securitate, the Romanian secret police. This was fine, if not anything super unique. But about 2/3 through, a “magical realism” element emerges and from that point on I just couldn’t take the work seriously. I can see how the magical element is a manifestation of certain guilt one character feels, but I just didn’t like it. Maybe others who are fans of the surreal will gain more from this book, but it wasn’t for me.
All this being said, this is how I felt about the book, but it’s also difficult to rate it objectively because while I think it was not at all a bad book, it was a horrible audiobook. You always risk a soap opera narrator, and while about sensitive subjects, the actual reading of it just felt wildly over emotive, and that probably contributed significantly to having less empathy for characters than I would otherwise.
I was really interested in the setting: 1970s Bucharest, under the deeply repressive Ceaușescu regime. Our characters are fracturing under pressure from colleagues, students and family reporting their activities to the Securitate, the Romanian secret police. This was fine, if not anything super unique. But about 2/3 through, a “magical realism” element emerges and from that point on I just couldn’t take the work seriously. I can see how the magical element is a manifestation of certain guilt one character feels, but I just didn’t like it. Maybe others who are fans of the surreal will gain more from this book, but it wasn’t for me.
All this being said, this is how I felt about the book, but it’s also difficult to rate it objectively because while I think it was not at all a bad book, it was a horrible audiobook. You always risk a soap opera narrator, and while about sensitive subjects, the actual reading of it just felt wildly over emotive, and that probably contributed significantly to having less empathy for characters than I would otherwise.