I was already on page 396 and I was still going to give this book a bad review. Say, 5/10. Or worse. To be truthful, I nearly abandoned it at one point. Then on page 397, I suddenly broke down in loud sobs. It came out of nowhere. I was sitting on my sunny balcony and all of a sudden I was crying, loud and uncontrollably. I kept crying until I finished it, and then I cried some more. And I suddenly understood just how powerful this book is.
I had only ever read one book before that truly made me wince in pain - a book by Hungarian writer Móricz Zsigmond (that's Zsigmond Móricz for English-speakers, but it doesn't feel right) called Árvácska. Although the book hasn't been translated into English, there was a film version made in 1967 that bore the title of Nobody's Daughter. I read it very young. It's brutal. I didn't understand a lot of it (fortunately), but what I did was enough to make me cry and question my parents' decision of giving it to me.
My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent feels like the adult version of that book.
The plot revolves around Turtle Alveston (or Julia at better times), who lives with her dad, Martin, in an isolated house in Mendocino, near the ocean and the woods. She is tough, she is a survivor and she learnt everything from her dad. They have a special relationship. She loathes women. She doesn't make friends. She isn't very good at school, but she's very good with guns and catching eels with her bare hands. Then she meets a boy from the outside, and everything starts to change. Let that be enough.
What did I like about it?
'Like' is a strong word here, because this book is very hard to read, plot-wise (and sometimes language-wise - more on that later). But it's a very strong story, one that draws you in inadvertently. Not only that, but while you're focusing on the plot, a thought is always lurking in the background - and that thought is probably Martin himself. Our monsters match up with Turtle's, and Tallent makes us feel almost exactly what she feels. This is actually a question explored in the book too - whether we're able to experience other people's feelings, their pain, just like we do ours. Is empathy real? Often in the novel, it seems not.
Even though a Guardian review points out that the second half of the book is more action-packed, there was only one section in the book where I felt Tallent gave us a brief breather - without spoiling anything, anyone who reads the book will know which part I mean. Other than that, I don't remember a single moment when I wasn't gripping my book tight and silently praying something positive would happen on the next page.
The characters also feel very real, which is what makes this book so terrifying. Turtle is the best young heroine I've encountered since His Dark Materials, and Lyra is a hard one to out-do. Her internal struggles are described so well that we shiver in terror. Know this: it's not a horror book. It's not even really a thriller. Waterstones says it's adventure fiction, others say it's coming-of-age. I feel that, other than literary fiction, I couldn't slot it into a box.
What was I not massively fond of?
In an interview at the end of my edition, Tallent makes a good point about why he spends so much time describing the surroundings and why they received special attention. His reasoning is fair. But I still often felt his descriptions went a little overboard - not necessarily in length, but certainly in language, which often felt like he was slamming on the breaks in the middle of a gripping moment.
"Behind each kelp heap, the wind cuts a V, leaving a gore where bark chips and bits of dried eelgrass accummulate, gyring and collapsing, toying together into balls."
Maybe it's just my English that isn't good enough, but I struggled with these kinds of sentences. Although it has to be said that it's admirable and lyrical - his vocabulary is impressive.
Another thought that often occurred to me is that sometimes, just sometimes, Turtle's thought were a little too obvious. We often follow her internal monologues, and on occasion she has thoughts that I just don't believe she would have at 14. The book really made me think about what I was like at the time - how mature I would have felt, what I would have understood of the adult world. And really only on a few occasions, but it did feel like she sounded a little too aware.
Finally, there is one action that Tallent keeps using and returning to: people wrapping and re-wrapping their hands around things (mostly steering wheels). It works at first, but I felt that some of that nature vocabulary could have gone instead towards finding more imagery to demonstrate people being nervous.
Overall...
The power of the book took me completely by surprise and my breakdown revealed how much it had really affected me. It is powerful stuff, and I ended up agreeing with Stephen King who praised this book to the heavens. Not with Celeste Ng though, who said 'It will shock, then shake, then inspire you'.
Oh no.
Make that it will shock and shake and shock and shake and shock and shake you a little more, then leave you in bits.
It's hard to believe this is a debut novel, but there you go. Everyone, everywhere, should read this.
8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thoughts?