Book Reviews: Piranesi, Clarke; The Snow Child, Ivey; Solutions and Other Problems, Brosh

[juushika]

Title: Piranesi
Author: Susanna Clarke
Published: Bloomsbury, 2020
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 245
Total Page Count: 352,010
Text Number: 1273
Read Because: fan of the author and reviewed by Rosamund, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County library
Review: One man catalogs the rooms of the house, which stands unpeopled and endless, filled with countless statues, the birds above, and the sea below. This is an exquisitely balanced little book. It lingers to build investment in the house itself before exploring the mystery plot that surrounds it, so the house is never a MacGuffin. It's intrinsic to the protagonist's arc, but the investment is never purely cerebral: the house, while eerie and beautiful, is also inhospitable, a lonely and challenging world. When it develops, the mystery plot puts the reader in the perfect position of knowing more than the protagonist but less than supporting characters, which provides valuable external insight into the protagonist which in turn clarifies his unique perspective—all the while maintaining the reader's investment in the mystery. The diary entries are stylized, introspective, and unexpectedly bingeable, the perfect complement to all these elements.

Conceptualizing infinity is always an intriguing premise. Selling that conceptualization is harder; following through with plot is harder. This is an accomplished, slim novel, and it manages to juggle those elements not just with deceptive ease but with an organic thematic consistency. The house is home, haven, prison. Learning the truth never simplifies the protagonist's relationship with the house; it only ever grows more intimate, complex, and fully realized. What a good, good book. I can't wait to reread it; I wonder how familiarity will change my relationship with both house and mystery.


Title: The Snow Child
Author: Eowyn Ivey
Published: Reagan Arthur Books, 2012
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 390
Total Page Count: 352,400
Text Number: 1274
Read Because: recommended by chthonic-cassandra, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County library
Review: Aging childless homesteaders in Alaska meet a strange little girl in this fairytale retelling. I'm not an easy sell on the longing to be a parent—can't relate, not engaged—so I'm impressed that this grew on me. It succeeds when it fosters long, slow investment in life on the farm, in the tentative parenthood of a half-fae, perhaps-imagined girl; the fairytale casts doubt and loss over the relationship, and characters have the time to struggle with the fairytale's implications: does parenthood require agency and control over one's child? does a relationship need to be witnessed to be real? So things falls apart in the final third, which introduces a new PoV and accelerates the timescale to create long-term consequences. Those consequences are necessary, but it's not as fully realized and the lack renders the fairytale elements, particularly re: women's "roles" and reproduction, dubious and borderline didactic. Ultimately not recommended, but it comes so close to success.


Title: Solutions and Other Problems
Author: Allie Brosh
Published: Gallery Books, 2020
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 525
Total Page Count: 352,925
Text Number: 1275
Read Because: fan of the author, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: I grew up with Hyperbole and a Half in the sense that it was formative at the time and increasingly problematic in retrospect for its depiction of "breakthroughs" in chronic mental health issues and the way self-deprecatory humor dismisses what's actually neurodivergence. So I went into this with trepidations but a lot of fellow-feeling. Brosh's breakthroughs of course are lost, but in the face of new tragedy; her journey of self-knowledge, -compassion, and -growth is flawed and deeply personal—and presented without that sense of finality or authority that made "Adventures in Depression" and "Depression Part Two" turn sour. It's more depressing for that! But it's balanced by the variety of vignettes and that distinctive brand of "bad" art (more detailed here, but only insofar as it contributes to the style), social insight, and, yes, self-deprecation that makes Brosh's style so successful and funny. A good book, but I'm too close to it to feel that; mostly I feel fond.

Comments

[starshipfox]

I reread Hyperbole and a Half in preparation for the new volume, and was surprised by how much she's experiencing is clearly neurodivergence, and the framing of it as a character flaw is really difficult to read. On the other hand, like you, I have a lot of fellow-feeling with her, and I found reading both volumes fruitful.

I'm so glad you enjoyed Piranesi! It was a huge highlight of 2020 for me.