Afrika
by Daniel Kehlmann
Translated by Ross Benjamin
Showing posts with label Quercus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quercus. Show all posts
Monday, 19 October 2026
Wednesday, 30 December 2020
Sunday, 25 October 2020
The Bell in the Lake by Lars Mytting
The Bell in the Lake
Lars Mytting (Translated by Deborah Dawkin)
________________________
Sunday, 4 October 2020
Friday, 1 May 2020
Saturday, 25 January 2020
Thursday, 10 October 2019
Ghosts of Christmases Past: A review of "Mistletoe" by Alison Littlewood
Ghosts of Christmases Past
Alison Littlewood's "Mistletoe"
A review
Sunday, 23 September 2018
Horror Autofiction? "I Always Find You" by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Horror Autofiction - "I Always Find You" by John Ajvide Lindqvist
A review
Some years back I had enjoyed - with some
reservations - Lindqvist's first and best novel "Let the Right One
In". It was that which led me to try his latest book to be published in
English (in a translation by Marlaine Delargy) - I Always Find You - the second
instalment in the "Places" trilogy. Unfortunately, it left me with a
sour taste, a reminder that in-your-face horror is, alas, not for me... Which,
of course, does not mean that there's not much for others to enjoy in this
book.
Lindqvist has often been compared to Stephen King and one can see certain parallels with the American master of horror. Lindqvist is as much concerned with the realist/social aspects of his story as with the supernatural ones. In this case, the protagonist-narrator is a fictionalised version of the author himself, who is recalling events which occurred in 1985, as well as a disturbing incident from some years before that. In the mid-80s, the narrator/author was just 19 years old and starting out as a young showman/magician. He moves into a small and decrepit flat in a run-down apartment complex in Stockholm and the 'horrors' he has to face are the very real daily challenges faced as a teenager coming to terms with adult life. A novel does not need to go far back to count as convincing historical fiction and, in this case, judiciously-placed cultural and historical references (Depeche Mode, skinheads, the assassination of Olof Palme) take us, very effectively, back to 80s Stockholm. One also gets the impression that mixed with the distaste for the sordidness which city life could bring, there's also a vague sense of nostalgia.
The supernatural elements start, literally, with drainage problems. The apartment condomini share a communal laundry and bathroom and, out of the blue, an out-of-order sign appears on the bathroom door. Soon after, cataclysmic and ominous signs manifest themselves - birds fall out of the sky, John suffers from a constant claustrophobic feeling and the neighbours start behaving strangely. And the bathroom seems to beckon.
What follows is hard to describe without giving away much of the plot. And so I will leave any intrigued readers to discover for themselves the strangeness which lurks in the cover's bathtub. Suffice it to say that it is both splendid and bizarre, and evidence of the author's wild flights of the imagination. However, it also leads to some bloody and, at least to me, repulsive scenes and it is here that the book started to lose me.
Lindqvist manages to give even the more outlandish aspects of his book a social and political underpinning. It is an interesting approach even it sometimes gives rise to rather preachy monologues.
Overall, a mixed bag, which gives a horror twist to the "autofiction" genre.
Published September 20th 2018 by riverrun
Lindqvist has often been compared to Stephen King and one can see certain parallels with the American master of horror. Lindqvist is as much concerned with the realist/social aspects of his story as with the supernatural ones. In this case, the protagonist-narrator is a fictionalised version of the author himself, who is recalling events which occurred in 1985, as well as a disturbing incident from some years before that. In the mid-80s, the narrator/author was just 19 years old and starting out as a young showman/magician. He moves into a small and decrepit flat in a run-down apartment complex in Stockholm and the 'horrors' he has to face are the very real daily challenges faced as a teenager coming to terms with adult life. A novel does not need to go far back to count as convincing historical fiction and, in this case, judiciously-placed cultural and historical references (Depeche Mode, skinheads, the assassination of Olof Palme) take us, very effectively, back to 80s Stockholm. One also gets the impression that mixed with the distaste for the sordidness which city life could bring, there's also a vague sense of nostalgia.
The supernatural elements start, literally, with drainage problems. The apartment condomini share a communal laundry and bathroom and, out of the blue, an out-of-order sign appears on the bathroom door. Soon after, cataclysmic and ominous signs manifest themselves - birds fall out of the sky, John suffers from a constant claustrophobic feeling and the neighbours start behaving strangely. And the bathroom seems to beckon.
What follows is hard to describe without giving away much of the plot. And so I will leave any intrigued readers to discover for themselves the strangeness which lurks in the cover's bathtub. Suffice it to say that it is both splendid and bizarre, and evidence of the author's wild flights of the imagination. However, it also leads to some bloody and, at least to me, repulsive scenes and it is here that the book started to lose me.
Lindqvist manages to give even the more outlandish aspects of his book a social and political underpinning. It is an interesting approach even it sometimes gives rise to rather preachy monologues.
Overall, a mixed bag, which gives a horror twist to the "autofiction" genre.
Published September 20th 2018 by riverrun
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
