September Reads
The alienation and temptation of forbidden desire.
September is a month that is always up for interpretation - some immediately consider it Autumn, others are adamant it is still summer. Personally, it changes yearly, but this year it was still summer. Most notably because I went on holiday! I have not been on a holiday, of any kind, for over six years (!) because of covid and then my own chronic health issues. It was lovely and gave me what felt like an extra month to squeeze in some ‘summer reads’. A couple were brilliant, but most were average and quite frankly bad. However, I do find it the most enjoyable to write about the books I don’t like, so strap in for lots of criticism!
This month several books explored the temptation and alienation of forbidden desire. Those who try to repress their desires to the unnerving confrontation that they are living a life that does not align with what they want. Particularly how illicit it feels for women to want something outside societal norms. With almost 70 years between some of these novels, it makes you think about how despite progress, what is considered culturally acceptable continues to have such an iron grip on women’s lives.
Before the fun starts, I would love it if you could respond to my (very short) survey about what you would like the future of Martha’s Monthly to look like. I have a lot of ideas, but they mean nothing if they do not align with what you are interested in.
Anyone who responds is automatically put into the ballot to be one of 5 readers to receive a year’s paid subscription to the newsletter (when I turn on the paid feature soon) - how fun! What a gift!! Thank you in advance for responding, I am eager to hear any praise, and criticism, you might want to send my way.
To see the translated reads from September on Martha’s Map, including authors from France, Chile, Cuba, Italy and Montenegro, click here.
For those who are new, buy, borrow, bust is my recommendation key: Buy = I loved this book and highly recommend it. Borrow = I liked this book and think it is worth a read. Bust = I wouldn’t recommend this book from my reading experience.
‘Prodigal Summer’ by Barbara Kingsolver
At the end of August, I said that I have a soft spot for reading a Kingsolver every summer. Her writing is incredibly easy and she is brilliant at pacing; an expert at creating a cohesively satisfying story out of multiple secondary stories. While this remains the case within Prodigal Summer, it is safe to say this is my least favourite Kingsolver I have read.
Prodigal Summer is the collective tale of three individuals who live in the Appalachian farming community. Deanna is a forest ranger, living a solitary existence in a cabin in the woods so she can intimately monitor the life cycles of all plants and animals in her surroundings. Lusa has only been married (and not necessarily happily) for a year when her husband dies in an accident. Lusa is left with rolling acres of land, far away from where she grew up, unsure whether she can, or should, overtake a farm that has been in her husband’s family for generations. Garnett, eight years a widower, lives alone and uses religion as a guide for his aimless existence. He misses his wife deeply and resents the world for taking her away - he is bitter about everything, and everyone.
The novel follows these three people, who are all ‘alone’ in conventional terms, and explores how their lives change through various relationships across one summer. Deanna meets a hunter in the forest, someone who represents everything she despises, and feels pulled by a lust towards him that as an aging woman she did not know she had. Lusa feels ostracised by her husband’s family who have never welcomed her with open arms. It is through a conversation with one of her nephews that she feels she can express an idea of how she would like the future of the farm to look - and finds a solace within him as someone in the sprawling landscape who understands her. Garnett lives opposite Miss Rawley, an unconventional old lady who hates pesticides, had a child outside wed-lock and is opposed to the god-fearing community they live in. He equally resents her and is drawn to her defiance - he is consistently curious about who gave her the permission to live so radically outside societal norms.
Prodigal Summer orbits around three women; Deanna, Lusa and Miss Rawley, who exist outside conventional womanhood. They do not inhabit traditional roles of wife, or motherhood, and represent the antithesis of the ‘proper’ life for a woman. While they did not all necessarily choose this difference, life has taken them there. They are connected by their passion for nature and the ecosystem of all lives on the planet. This results in several passages extensively detailing specific organisms, and where Prodigal Summer starts to lose its zest, and thrust.
These descriptions were often heavy handed. While it is interesting to give any reader the opportunity to learn about something they may never have encountered before, Kingsolver took this exploration too far. Prodigal Summer exchanges more emotional intimacy with its protagonists for pages detailing the hunting patterns of a coyote or the mating rituals of moths, leaving the reader more familiar with the animals in the landscape rather than the protagonists. Kingsolver was a biologist before becoming an author, thus it is easy to see how Prodigal Summer was the meeting of her two greatest loves - nature and writing. While it can be fun to see an author’s other life bleed onto the page, this passion sometimes leads to overcomplicating a story. The technical information weighted the story unnecessarily, pushing the novel into the realm of the overdone.
Nevertheless, there is a lot of seamless, if not incredibly obvious, development here. Each character is introduced to us as a complex ball of contention. They have desires they can’t express and feel dissatisfied about the paths their lives have taken. Throughout the novel, Kingsolver pulls on every thread, simultaneously, arriving at the end with everything perfectly in its place. Everyone becomes who you could feel they wanted to be from page one, all conflict is resolved. While ‘perfect’ endings are rarely what I enjoy, and on the one hand I was dissatisfied with it, I was equally impressed with how Kingsolver crafted it. As I said at the beginning, her pacing is arguably more perfect than any other I have encountered. It is, I believe, one of her greatest writing strengths.
I can appreciate why people may really adore this novel; there is an energy throughout that reassures you everything will work out. There is comfort to be found in Prodigal Summer - whether it is in how long you get to spend which each character, or the variety of desires to be found on the page - it is a very gentle, incredibly frictionless, exploration of desire. Especially female desire and the desire to live outside of ‘the box’ - to challenge what it means to be a woman and how you can find yourself while rejecting societal conditioning. Published in 2000 I can retrospectively appreciate how many women would have found Prodigal Summer to be incredibly accessible in its pioneering of women choosing something other than domesticity. While today it reads as a bit cliche, that is just the result of growing up in a world shaped by women who have had the right to choose and ensured I knew I could too.
All this considered, this was a fine novel - nothing more, nothing less. I would recommend it to those who enjoy novels where everything falls into place, where all conflict is resolved to ensure a happy ending. I would call Prodigal Summer a borrow! The Lacuna remains my favourite Kingsolver. Perhaps next summer I’ll dive into the tome of The Poisonwood Bible - we shall see.
‘Just A Little Dinner’ by Cécile Tlili (translated by Katherine Gregor)
In an apartment in hot, late summer Paris, a group of friends meet for dinner. Four people, two couples, meet under the pretence of socialisation, but are actually engaging in a performance of idealisation and perfection. However, they cannot keep up with their own deceptions as fractured relationships, manipulation and desperation are increasingly revealed throughout the night.
Just A Little Dinner is an exceptionally choreographed dance of honesty and deception. With each perspective, we watch moments that should, in theory, be synchronised between the two couples, become more singular. They step out of the well oiled routine that they aren’t even aware they are performing. Their masks slip further and further down their faces as their flaws and lies are revealed to us, and to each other.
Tlili makes the reader the keeper of all of their secrets - it’s thrilling to know everything while the others know nothing; like a Shakespearean tragedy, the reader can see the rupture before the cast even senses its arrival. Tlili places the reader at the edge of their seat, enthralled by the messiness and drama of the night. Claudia, with her partner Étienne, are the hosts of the night. Claudia hates Étienne’s friends, doesn’t want to host them and is anxious about her relationship with him. Étienne is unaware of this, too focused on welcoming Johar into his home - a high power business woman who could save his dwindling career. Johar knows this is the exact reason Étienne has invited her and his childhood friend, Rémi, but masks her understanding perfectly. Rémi, who hasn’t seen his wife Johar all summer because of her job, is reflecting on their dying relationship - their lack of passion, which has dwindled even more since he started having an affair.
For one night, they are undertaking what potentially might be their last dance as a four. Initially it is unclear where the power lies between them. Tlili presents the women’s dissatisfaction to us first, with the men continuing a compliant performance. But the scales shift and it is revealed that all four are riddled with insecurities and uncertainties about the lives they have chosen.
Just A Little Dinner is inherently about the search for happiness and purpose in the systems we live under - it is serious as well as satirical. Tlili questions how societal norms and expectations influence us in ways we don’t even realise. How do we discern between if we are living a life with intentionality or whether we are following the path of least resistance for the sake of what we think might be an easier life? While this is interrogated within all four characters, Tlili extrapolates on it most fascinatingly with the women and the pressures they feel to lead a certain life.
Both are experiencing internal and external conflict about motherhood and how to make the decision surrounding whether to undertake the role of not. Tlili handles this contemplation with such nuance and compassion it was incredibly moving. They are recipients of societal pressure about how they are not leading the ‘right’ life, exacerbated by their mothers and internal conflict. Their uncertainty, a desire to want it and not want it just as equally, was so deeply familiar and human. How Tlili broached and entertained the subject was masterfully empathic and balanced.
I was so impressed with how captivated I was by Just A Little Dinner. I was completely transfixed and did not want it to end! The novel pulses with the conflict between desire versus conformity, the tension between pleasing others and pleasing yourself. I would recommend it to truly anyone because it traverses the internal anxiety that I think all of us experience trying to interrogate what the ‘right’ way to live your life is. The eternal question of what is more terrifying - doing what others want or doing what we want? This is a buy!! I loved it.
‘Reflections in a Golden Eye’ by Carson McCullers
Two officers, a soldier, two women, a Filipino and a horse are all involved in a murder on an insular and dull military base in 1930s Georgia. The soldier embroiled was Private Ellgee Williams, who catches sight of Captain Penderton’s wife, Leonora, in the nude. What ensues is an obsession that cannot be restrained as Williams creeps around their house at night, eager to catch a glimpse of her. But Penderton is unhappily married to his wife who is cheating on him with Major Langdon, and in turn, erotically fixates on Williams. Thus ensues a feverish entangled web of forbidden desire, one that we know is heading towards a murder.
This is a tense, strange novella about who is permitted to have desires. Set in the hyper-masculine environment of a military base, the novella questions who is allowed to desire publicly and privately - especially in regards to gender and status. McCullers has crafted a two pronged exploration of how politics and gender shape desire, how it is classified as permitted versus forbidden. For a modern day reader, this is clearly a queer novel. We have two men lusting, and stalking, their prey - except Williams is obsessed with a woman, and Penderton a man. William’s behaviour is unbelievably unnerving; ‘William’s squatted by the bed in The Lady’s room almost until dawn. He did not move, or make a sound, or take his eyes from the body of the Captain’s wife’ while Captain Penderton’s is slightly less alarming, but equally unsettling; ‘The Captain followed and stood watching as he walked off into the night’.1
Both men are presented with an equally uncontrollable obsession, almost animalistic, but McCullers is toying with the reader, to probe and question which is more unsettling. Is it William’s, who is breaking into the home of Leonora to watch her sleep every night, or is it Penderton who feels aroused by ‘his slim body glistening in the late sun’ ? 2 McCullers is provocatively interrogating desire in conjunction with power, institutions and queerness. Initially published serially in Harper’s Bazaar in 1940, and later as a book in 1941, McCuller’s novel was initially met with poor reviews. I went into the NYT archives in search of whether there was any suggestion towards Reflections in a Golden Eye being about repressed queer existence. Alas, there was not, just criticism that it was ‘overloaded’ and ‘gruesome’ - and I would not disagree with the reviewer, Charles Poore, that it was gruesome, however there is room to speculate as to what it was that Poore interpreted to be gruesome. Was it William’s unhinged and dangerous behaviour towards Leonora or perhaps it was Penderton’s uncontrolled lusting over the ‘tender roundness’ of William’s neck?
We can only allude as to whether this could have been the case, perhaps Poore really was alluding to only William’s behaviour, but this uncertainty speaks to what McCullers was trying to encapsulate. Reflections in a Golden Eye explores the existence of forbidden desire, that repressing it does not remove its existence - rather, it makes it more dangerous and shameful. Leonora and Langdon feel no shame for their affair, Williams clearly feels no shame for breaking into their house to watch Leonora sleep every night, yet Penderton is the only character who feels ashamed for his desire. All of their forbidden desire results in a murder, and McCullers extrapolates on how it didn’t have to end that way.
McCuller’s prose is enchanting, transfixing the reader into the mundane life on the military base. There is the suggestion that the everyday monotony of existence on this base interacts with suppressed desire, to create an explosive and all consuming atmosphere. Whether McCuller’s intention was to address the forbidden desire of queer lust, or to explore the effect of living a life according to societal expectations rather than following your heart, Reflections in a Golden Eye suggests that only unhappiness, and perhaps violence, lies ahead for those who suppress who they truly are.
I loved this weird little novella, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys gothic fiction or ghost stories (there are no ghosts here but it is so unsettling there might as well be!) This is a buy! It was unhinged and completely enticing in its strangeness.
‘Ways of Going Home’ by Alejandro Zambra (translated by Meg McDowell)
Ways of Going Home is an alternative exploration of the Pinochet regime, focusing on the emotional atmosphere of the time, rather than the violent details. Our protagonist is a young boy who offers a continual contrast between his daily life and the one that is unfolding around the adults; he’s playing hide and seek, they’re fearing for their lives;
‘We cursed them [parents], and also took refuge in their shadows, relieved. While the adults killed or were killed, we drew pictures in a corner. While the country was falling to pieces, we were learning to talk, to walk, to fold napkins in the shape of boats, of airplanes. While the novel was happening, we played hide-and-seek, we played a disappearing’ 3
A mysterious girl appears in his neighbourhood and makes a bizarre request for him to start spying on her uncle. Under the veil of a lighthearted game, he begins to track and follow the movements of a man. In typical Zambro style, Ways of Going Home is a mixture of tension and style - with the protagonist both narrating the story of his childhood and reflecting on his life in the present day. We alternate between perspectives, gleaning an understanding of how his past has shaped the novel he is writing influenced by his childhood (very meta).
The crux of Ways of Going Home is the exploration of generational tensions - how he, as an adult, reflects on his parents actions, or lack thereof, during the dictatorship. Zambra attempts to recognise the complicated relationships children who were born during the regime may feel towards their parents as adults. There exists this conflict between loving them and trying to understand their previous political stance. The tension between these grown up children retrospectively forming political opinions about events of the past and the reality of experiencing it first hand. Our protagonist’s parents supported the regime and he cannot understand, as much as he tries, why. He is confused about how to love and disagree with them in equal measure.
This exploration of the generational political division is brilliant. It is easy to judge in retrospect, to have the luxury to form opinions in your own time, without your life being in danger. However, the novel is fragmented in its observations, scant in detail in an attempt to be rich in emotion, but it doesn’t work. Zambra doesn’t interrogate these generational relationships as substantially as he could, rather just recognising their existence. Ways of Going Home attempts to explore this inherently, but the final result is just a passive identification. While there is the opinion that such an interrogation would be too messy, because ultimately there is no ‘answer’ to be found, such an opinion is ruling out the necessity of interrogating the horrors of the past - implying that any decision or belief can be absolved with the passing of time.
On the one hand, the novel could be interpreted as tiptoeing around the risk that lies within challenging such a relationship because of the past - to what are you achieving by excavating the motivations of decisions made decades ago? A meditation, if you will, on the cost of relationships amid political tensions, especially for children. They are in no position to challenge as children, and some may say aren’t in a position to challenge retrospectively as adults - and maybe that is the message of the novel. But that is simply hard to believe.
Zambra could have positioned such a discussion with much more - more observations from both parties during the dictatorship, more emotional nuance when discussing his parents, and the context of their lives. I felt a complete indifference when I finished this novel, which is probably the worst way to feel. I felt indifferent about his contention with his parents, the brief struggle we witness as he considers initiating conversation about their actions. To finish a novel about Pinochet’s dictatorship feeling indifferent is for Zambro to do a disservice to the terror of the time. I don’t need details of the horrors to feel compelled, but I felt almost entirely unmoved by the turmoil he so evidently has experienced by being born during it. To learn, in retrospect, about the environment you were growing up in, unaware of the horrors taking place inside and outside your home, is painful. What a confusing environment to learn about yourself, and the world around you. Yet, I felt nothing - for him as a child and as an adult.
In a struggle to feel moved, or captivated by this novel, I am conflicted about my stance on recommending. While I loved the concept, I did not like the execution - so I would call this a bust. I felt similarly when I read Chilean Poet a few years ago and it leaves me with the thought that perhaps Zambra’s style of prose just isn’t for me - however I did love Bonsai but that was so short and maybe therein lies its brilliance.
‘Forbidden Notebook’ by Alba de Céspedes (translated by Anna Goldstein)
In secret, Valeria Cossati begins recording her daily life as a housewife in 1950s Rome. Every time she writes, Valeria plunges deeper into excavating her life; exploring how the roles that define her - wife, mother, daughter - are in conflict with her true desires. Valeria hides the notebook around the house, terrified that her intimate thoughts and feelings will be exposed. We are Valeria’s closest confidant and arguably the only person who truly knows her. It is through this deeply intimate and enticing narrative structure that Céspedes manages to craft such a psychologically rich and expansive novel.
Forbidden Notebook is a window into the home and the pressure felt by women in post war Europe. On the cusp of the second wave of feminism, Valeria is flooded with internal conflict about what is expected of her, the dichotomy she exists within because she is a mother, wife and working woman. These gendered tensions are only further articulated by the beliefs of the men inside her home. They believe in her eternal servitude to them. She feels as though they cannot all coexist - or rather, she is fed up with feeling stretched thin by working and maintaining the home. The idea that work could give her identity is something incomprehensible to her husband Michele and son, Riccardo. He cannot comprehend how work could represent anything to Valeria other than following the orders of her husband;
‘[You] only do it out of necessity, and therefore your work is a proof of solidarity with your husband, basically proof of submission’ 4
Forbidden Notebook questions what this liberation and opportunity to work has truly brought her, when she is still expected to do everything at home. Valeria confesses she is exhausted about being at their constant disposal, conflicted about whether she can even express these dangerous emotions in writing. Valeria’s vulnerability and self-doubt within the diary is moving, as she grapples with who she is under all these labels. She articulates that her identity is heavily intertwined with everyone else in the household, except for her. Within them she finds her identity, and ultimately devastatingly suggests she couldn’t possibly find it within herself;
‘In fact I’ve always belonged to him [husband], to the children, and yet now sometimes it seems to me that I am bound to all but belong to no one [...] I think a woman has to belong to someone to be happy’ 5
With every entry, Valeria uncovers the horrors of her desires she had no idea existed. The diary has given her a freedom she did not know was possible; one where she can be emotionally honest. Valeria apprehensively tip-toes around trying to find her identity, to create a form of liberation for herself - but she is terrified. To try and architect a life of pleasure, one where she pursues only what she wants and not others, is inaccessible to her because she has been conditioned to serve.
‘At a certain point we no longer understand what is kindness and what is ruthlessness in the life of a family’ 6
Valeria’s relationship with her daughter Mirella is where Forbidden Notebook shines. Mirella has an emerging independence, aged only nineteen, that Valeria could only dream of. While outwardly criticising the decisions she makes, there is an intimate turmoil within Valeria as she secretly admires how Mirella knows her own mind; ‘See if you can understand, I think it’s too late for me’ p.153. Here Valeria is referencing Mirella’s changing understanding of the world, and of a woman’s right to express her opinions. Mirella and Valeria are equally, in different ways, trying to resist the notion that a woman’s place is solely within the domestic sphere.
Céspedes’ prose is arresting in its clarity, enveloping the reader into a compulsive desire to keep reading - with every entry, Valeria pulls back more layers to discover an almost relentless desire to reject everything she has ever known. For the hundreds of women that would have read this as a serialised story in a magazine in 1950, I cannot imagine the voyeurism this would have given them - to know that they can, and should, desire more than what they are told too. Forbidden Notebook is so exceptionally powerful as a piece of fiction and an early piece of feminist literature - I loved it wholeheartedly. I enormously recommend this and call it a buy!
‘False War’ by Carlos Manuel Alvarez (translated by Natasha Wimmer)
False War is a novel that brings together a series of interconnected stories of the recurrently displaced. Ambivalent castaways living lives estranged from their countries, and homes, existing in what feels like a perpetual no-mans land. However, while Alvarez aims to portray the emotional complexity for those perennially displaced, all False War manages to convey is a barren and incoherent portrait of one of the most pressing issues of our time.
Displacement, whether elected or forced, is a disjointed experience. Ripped from homes and communities, being faced with language barriers and cultural nuances that you may never be privy too, is a dizzying experience. Through a range of narratives across the world, from those in Havana, Mexico City, Miami to New York, Paris and Berlin, Alvarez attempts to demonstrate that while constantly moving, these individuals are in a state of no change. A fractured narrative attempts to reflect the disintegration of uprooting, but instead creates an unharmonious cacophony devoid of connection.
How tragic that a novel about those living in any form of estrangement, so far from any emotional or physical home, felt so cold and impassive to read. Instead of feeling moved by the variety of perspectives, there is a frustration present about how fleeting those perspectives are. They are disjointed emotionally and structurally, jerking from one stilted narrative to the next. False War was painful to read - not because of the subject matter - but because of the agonising narrative structure Alvarez chose to carry this story.
In principle, I understand how this narrative structure could reflect the harsh reality of disintegration and the challenges that come with uprooting. To be ejected from one narrative to the next, never quite managing to connect with the character you are reading, is to reflect the experiences of those who are displaced. In choosing this, Alvarez trades style for substance, failing to create an opportunity for the reader to connect with, or care about, the stories the novel carries. While an author’s intention behind their novel is often up for interpretation, something many say is to be found within the reader or never to be found at all, it feels incomprehensible to suggest that, at least to some degree, False War’s intention is to portray the humanity within us all. That division is man made and our existences are more aligned than we realise.
While there are so many things I hated about this novel, Alvreaz’s prose is not one of them. His descriptions of certain moments, interpretations of language and identity were exceptional glimmers of craftsmanship among the rubble;
‘She wanted English as a rental car, a way to cross the wastelands to the north, and plunge into the hand-to-hand border, riding the wheels of the tongue of Tom, Karen, Lisa and Mike’ 7
Occasionally linguistically great, but structurally a complete nightmare, I would not recommend this book - it is a bust. Interestingly, I realised the translator, Natasha Wimmer, has translated several novels I have read recently and disliked; The Savage Detectives and You Dreamed of Empires. While I have translators I love, this is perhaps the first time I have recognised one I don’t! Though Wimmer is not responsible for the contents of these novels, her taste and the style of work she evidently likes to translate is without a doubt a style I do not enjoy.
‘Slanting Towards The Sea’ - by Lidija Hilje
Slanting Towards The Sea is the tale of Ivona and Vlaho - two students who meet in the early 2000s in Zagreb and immediately fall in hopeful, young love. Both finishing their studies, dreaming of what their futures could hold, it feels like anything is possible. Fast forward a decade later, Ivona lives with her ailing father in her childhood home in Zadar. She has divorced Vlaho, but sees him regularly with his new wife. What ensues is an alternating point-of-view narrative that begins to uncover what has happened in the last decade.
When initially reading this book, I felt infuriated at Ivona’s indifference. Evidently struggling with her father and the heartbreaking reality of watching her ex-husband become a father himself, Ivona is a deflated protagonist. The narrative is frictionless as it glides through a graveyard of all the mistakes Ivona has made within her life, ones which she believes were inevitable, destined for her. Her self-depricating nature became increasingly frustrating as the novel evolved, her hopelessness spreading like a disease to the reader.
After finishing the novel, I came across a review from a Croatian reader of Slanting and it made me (partially) reevaluate my stance. The review cited this novel’s ability to mirror an entire generation in Croatia and the pressure they have received from the government to ‘save’ the country alongside. The irony of this demand is that the economy is collapsing and there were no opportunities for them, and cites the loss of a future that they were told was yours;
‘But, as often happens in Croatia, noble ideas gave way to sordid execution’
‘By the time I finished college, the once-prosperous industry already lay in ruins. The whole economy of our town and region took a sharp, unsatisfying turn towards tourism the beauty of these parts the only thing we still had to offer to the world’ 8
For those raised under stable economies, it is perhaps unimaginable to understand how coming-of-age under an insecure one can irrevocably shape you to feel powerless. In a moment of vulnerability, having grown up in an ‘anything is possible’ environment in middle-class Britain, I found it hard to separate that Ivona’s feckless and self effacing character was not a product of herself, but rather her environment.
Ivona is merely a product of where she happened to be born, pinning her in a place she did not expect to be in. She has internalised the socioeconomic climate of Croatia, resulting in a growing disinterest in expressing her opinions or desires because she has become, over decades of disappointment, emotionally numb to the prospect of having anything. Ivona’s inactive approach to her life is frustrating - the statement that life comes from you, not at you, presides here. This lens is individualistic - life can only come ‘from you’ if you’re in the right place; somewhere with stability and safety fiscally, politically and socially.
However, while I can recognise a failure on my part in misinterpreting the novel, this is ultimately the result of Hilje. The context that a novel exists in cannot be assumed for every reader - it has to be given, to an extent, within the story. The quote above was one of the very few times Hilje directly discussed the crumbling economies’ effect on Ivona and her peers. There are certain subjects across the world where knowledge can, dare I say, be assumed, but the landscape of the Croatian economy in the 2000s is not one of them.
Hilje provides a disservice to the reader in multiple ways throughout Slanting. While cliche prose isn’t a valid criticism (but nevertheless disappointing), Hilje simultaneously trusts her reader too much, and not enough. Too much because there is a presumption there of knowledge about the socioeconomic landscape of Croatia, not enough because of ending each chapter in these didactic ultimatums that conclude the emotional landscape of the chapter we have just read. There is a presumption that the reader cannot coherently discern what is happening, thus needs to be repeated at the end. This technique of writing perpetuates an infuriating dissonance throughout the novel - one that condescending anticipates ignorance from the reader. Not only does it waste (!) word count, but it also encourages a heedless and bored reader - one who does not have to pay close attention to the novel because any nuance will be blatantly repeated, crushing any possibility for implicit emotional subtlety.
The more I read, the more I demand from my novels and Slanting couldn’t meet any of these demands. My relationship with this book is a mixture of personal taste and shortcomings from the author. It is sufficient to say that I wanted something different from the novel. It is also sufficient to say that Hilje struggled to balance all the elements of this story. The cultural nuance, the love story, struggles with infertility and career anxiety were all fighting for dominance, resulting in a universal dissatisfaction. She touched on everything, but interrogated nothing.
Slanting was easy to read, and I don’t mean that cruelly - it kept me entertained on a three hour plane ride - but it never reached its potential. It existed just under the threshold becoming the moving and evocative novel that it could have been. I would call Slanting a borrow! I enjoyed it, but couldn’t help feeling passionately about what I considered to be some of the great failings of this novel.
‘Anomaly’ by Andrej Nikolaidis (translated by Will Firth)
In September I went on holiday to Montenegro and this was the reason I picked up this book - because it is translated from Montenegrin. Unfortunately, a holiday was definitively not the right environment to read a book about an apocalypse. While I was relaxing in the sun, the worlds between the pages of Anomaly were falling apart - and I couldn’t care less.
Set on New Year’s Eve, the last day of the last year of human existence, Anomaly takes us to several peoples’ last day on earth. A high-ranking minister criss-crosses the city with blood on his hands, a dying necrophile attempts to get clean before God and a nurse is pressured to keep a powerful secret. A nameless narrator traverses these tales of moral turmoil, philosophising with us about the decisions these strange characters are about to make before their (unknowing) last day on earth. His observations about humanity were comical and affronting;
‘Allow us to present you the bigger picture: all people are unhappy in the same way, regardless of whether their unhappiness is organised in a family, religious society, gang or masonic lodge. There is no unique misery: if you think the pain you feel makes you exceptional, different from everyone else who’s been hurting, we kindly remind you that suffering is no excuse for stupidity. A mishap, such as life, is a mass phenomenon.’ 9
Anomaly is philosophical about humanity - what it means to move through the worlds and how we find meaning within each other and the world around us. The unnamed narrator was compellingly humorous, Nikolaidis prose were arresting - but the story as a cohesive body left much to be desired. Whether it was because of my environment, that I kept picking it up and putting it down, or the structure of the story, I ultimately felt apathetic towards Anomaly. My gut tells me that I didn’t ‘get’ it because I wasn’t focussing on it correctly, but perhaps that is offering an unsubstantial excuse to a novel that wasn’t that good. I believe this novel holds something I did not quite manage to access while I read it. I rarely wish to reread novels but I feel quite compelled to try and read this again.
I would call Anomaly a bust. I barely have anything to say about it which, again, is the sign of a truly bad book. Potentially subject to change if I revisit it again, but for now, I would not want anyone to read this book from my recommendation! The other book translated from Montenegrin I wanted to take on holiday was Catherine the Great and the Small by Olja Knežević - evidently I made the wrong choice. I will endeavour to pick this up soon though!
‘The South’ by Tash Aw
When his grandfather dies, Jay and his family travel to the south of Malaysia to the property that they have inherited. Once a functioning farm, it has now fallen into disrepair. Before their arrival, Jay and his sisters Lisa and Yin are speculating about how there will be nothing for them to do there. However, it is on this farm, that Jay meets Chuan, the son of the farm’s manager, Fong, and becomes enthralled by his existence. Jay’s intent to shadow Chuan on the farm results in the beginning of a relationship, where the destination is revealed to us right at the start.
The initial chapter of The South details a violent sexual encounter between Jay and Chuan which suggests is not entirely consensual. After this abrupt introduction, reading The South is akin to being on the hunt for clues as to how this comes about - because without it, you would truly have no idea - nothing ever quite matches the tone of this opening. Neither Jay, not Chuan, are introduced as queer in any sense of the word. Jay is coddled by his family as the youngest and has dealt with bullying at school for being different. He is not sure of himself, and perhaps we only ever see this certainty with his feelings towards Chuan. Chuan is confident, defiant and the opposite of Jay in every sense of the word, except his sexuality. If we had not known the end result of their relationship from the first chapter, I would hasten to suggest that it would not be evident at all that this is how Jay and Chuan feel about each other.
While narrated in first person, it feels like third because it is so distant. Aw never allows the reader a moment of emotional intimacy with Jay - his emotions are kept at an arms length. There is barely any turmoil surrounding his feelings of desire, which are valid to be anticipated when reading about two queer boys in rural Malaysia in the 1990s. Equally, we are never given any emotional insight into Chuan - it was barely evident that he even liked Jay. This desolate landscape of emotional intimacy was stilted, almost as much as the initial scene where they sleep together. For the relationship of these two boys to be the focus of the novel, Aw falls short on creating an emotional centre of young love, desire and admiration. Youthful desire is so explosive and all encompassing, but none of this intensity is given by Aw. Instead, it feels as though he is operating on the basis of assumption, that we can ‘assume’ these feelings might be happening behind closed doors, unaware for us to see. But assumption does not make great novels.
Alternatively, the strength of this novel is within the relationship between Jay’s parents, Jack and Sui, and the bittersweet moments shared between siblings growing up. Snippets of tensions between Jack and Sui’s union are revealed because of their decade age gap and contrasting classes they are from. Their relationship is one seemingly peppered with conflict and this was the most dynamic aspect of the novel. Jay’s reflections about how he hardly knew his sisters as individuals, reflecting on the characteristics they had that he wished he had, was sweetly melancholic. The South had a misplaced and mismarketed focus - feigning to be a complex coming-of-age about queer love - but in reality a partially subdued exploration of generational class and financial anxiety.
The ending of The South was unfinished and abrupt. While this is the first novel in a quartet, it fails to stand alone as a portrait of a family navigating substantial change. I would not feel compelled to read this story any further - only perhaps if the next book is the perspective of the parents, where it revisits their cultural and generational tensions and how they manifest domestically. This book was ok - it could have been a lot better. I read it alongside one of my favourite people Nic Marna and I agree with his assessment that it had the bones to be great but not good execution. I’d call this a bust. I don’t feel as though I have much to say about it, which is a glaring criticism in itself.
And that concludes my September Reads! My favourite books of the month were ‘Just A Little Dinner’ and ‘Forbidden Notebook’.
My first read of October is ‘The Morning Star’ by Karl Ove Knausgaard!! My first Knausgaard - I am excited and only marginally intimated by the fact it is over 600 pages long.
End Notes
❤︎ In September, part 1 and part 2 of my interview with Ezra Kupor over at Galley Brag came out! Ezra is a book editor at Harper Collins and Galley Brag is his *fun* side hobby of talking to all types of people in the book ecosystem - authors, bookshop workers and people who talk constantly about their passion for books on the internet (aka me). He wants to know why they love books, how they love books and what they think about books. If you have ever been curious to know more about me, how Martha’s Monthly came to be or want to hear any of my unwarranted opinions, give the interview a read!
⚝ The Cercador Prize list for 2025 came out! This is, in my opinion, one of the *much* better translations prize lists (The National Book Awards also released there longlist in September but I think Cercador’s is better). Sakina’s Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag is the only new title to me on the list, but I am into it!
☞ And I will not be commenting The Booker Prize shortlist because I have nothing to say. Even though I have read none of them, I still believe I am qualified to say it looks so boring? Does anyone disagree?
Let me know your thoughts:
☀︎ What have you read and enjoyed in September? Any recommendations for me?
☆ Have you read any of these books? Would you like to?
☹︎ Does anyone disagree with any of my criticisms? If you do, the floor is yours - I want to hear why!
❊ Is anyone planning to read ‘seasonally’ for October? I tried this last year and it went horribly (I hated most of them) so am steering clear of going out of my way to seek ‘spooky’ books this year. However, I am planning to reach for any books from my shelf this month that are loosely spooky - whatever that means - and I will interpret this as I see fit.
These four seem to be fitting to be read this October:
‘House of Day, House of Night’ by Olga Tokarczuk (tr by Anontia Lloyd-Jones)
‘Restoration’ by Ana Barerra (tr by Ellen Jones and Robin Myers)
‘hungry for what’ by María Bastarós (tr by Kevin Gerry Dunn)
'Pedro Páramo’ by Juan Rulfo (tr by Douglas J Weatherford)
(If anyone would like any spooky reading guidance or inspiration then I would be remiss not to recommend my friend Natalie McGlocklin’s newsletter Subverse Reads - this is her speciality.)
Thank you, as always, for reading.
Remember to answer the survey (it’ll take you 1 min) to have the opportunity to influence what you might want to see from Martha’s Monthly in the future! It’ll also grant you my eternal love, gratitude and admiration (a priceless gift!).
I love you all! Happy Reading!
Martha
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Catch up on what you might have missed:
And what I was reading in September 2024; (a good month!)
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First quote in this sentence is from p.62 and the second is from p.87 in Reflections of a Golden Eye
p.82 in Reflections of a Golden Eye
p.41 in Ways Of Going Home
p.119 in Forbidden Notebook
p.73 in Forbidden Notebook
p.131 in Forbidden Notebook
p.196 in False War
p.88 in Slanting Towards The Sea
p.59 in Anomaly
Hi Martha, Thanks so much again for your terrific reviews and introduction to books I may not have heard about otherwise. I’m sorry you didn’t like Zambra’s novel, which I haven’t read yet. I loved Chilean Poet, the irony laced through his observations. I really appreciate your saying maybe his voice is not for you. Many reviewers do not have that same humility and respect for other opinions. Many kudos to you for all you do!💖
You certainly packed in a lot of books in September. Hope you had a good holiday. I am surprised about The South considering it was Booker longlisted. Although I read this week that the Chair of the Booker committee Roddy Doyle expressed disappointment at the quality of the books submitted. Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead is a must read. I have just started reading Philippe Sands new book about the Pinochet regime and your take on the Zambra book is interesting indeed. I still have to delve into a McCullers book. Great review as usual Martha. 👍👏