(June 2016)
Gothic New Weird with a healthy dollop of
bildungsroman and one of the most gratingly pretentious protagonists I’ve encountered
since Catcher in the Rye. In fact, I’m
not even sure it is a bildungsroman, but there’s such a strong connection in my
mind between the annoyance I feel for both Holden Caulfield and Thomas Kemp, the
narrator of this book, that maybe I’m just collapsing them both in to each
other.
The other book I couldn’t help but think of
when reading this was
The Picture of
Dorian Grey, as there’s something very Wildean about both Kemp’s descent
into self-hating debauchery and the books wider concern with the intersections
of truth and fiction, ugliness and beauty, and thus, by extension, art. The
metafiction here is, I think, about how we write out worlds, or at least how
art places boundaries on that which it engages. Dolls and borders are recurring
themes, and an Opera house, with its bounded stage, is one of the principal
locations. The characters are constantly, and often literally, exploring the
boundaries between the constructed and the real, and it all makes a kind of
sense so that were I in a better (and/or more pretentious, natch) state of
mind, it would be hugely enjoyable to pick apart further. Right now, however, I’m
still reeling from my country of birth’s decision to tear itself apart for no
good reason whatsoever, and the resonances of how we create our worlds through fiction
are just a little too close to home.
Why can't the book be as good as the cover?? I don't know if I'd be able to stick with this one, though it sounds like it touches on some topics I'm interested in. Also so sorry about your ol country. It's a very alarming shame.
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