ghostworld reviewed Pond: stories by Claire-Louise Bennett
Not for me
2 stars
While some of the stories are nice, I found the style unfocused and meandering.
148 pages
English language
Published Jan. 1, 2015 by The Stinging Fly.
3 stars
(8 reviews)
"Longlisted for the 2016 International Dylan Thomas Prize "What Bennett aims at is nothing short of a re-enchantment of the world... This is a truly stunning debut, beautifully written and profoundly witty." -The Guardian Immediately upon its publication in Ireland, Claire-Louise Bennett's debut began to attract attention well beyond the expectations of the tiny Irish press that published it. A deceptively slender volume, it captures with utterly mesmerizing virtuosity the interior reality of its unnamed protagonist, a young woman living a singular and mostly solitary existence on the outskirts of a small coastal village. Sidestepping the usual conventions of narrative, it focuses on the details of her daily experience--from the best way to eat porridge or bananas to an encounter with cows--rendered sometimes in story-length, story-like stretches of narrative, sometimes in fragments no longer than a page, but always suffused with the hypersaturated, almost synesthetic intensity of the physical world …
"Longlisted for the 2016 International Dylan Thomas Prize "What Bennett aims at is nothing short of a re-enchantment of the world... This is a truly stunning debut, beautifully written and profoundly witty." -The Guardian Immediately upon its publication in Ireland, Claire-Louise Bennett's debut began to attract attention well beyond the expectations of the tiny Irish press that published it. A deceptively slender volume, it captures with utterly mesmerizing virtuosity the interior reality of its unnamed protagonist, a young woman living a singular and mostly solitary existence on the outskirts of a small coastal village. Sidestepping the usual conventions of narrative, it focuses on the details of her daily experience--from the best way to eat porridge or bananas to an encounter with cows--rendered sometimes in story-length, story-like stretches of narrative, sometimes in fragments no longer than a page, but always suffused with the hypersaturated, almost synesthetic intensity of the physical world that we remember from childhood. The effect is of character refracted and ventriloquized by environment, catching as it bounces her longings, frustrations, and disappointments--the ending of an affair, or the ambivalent beginning with a new lover. As the narrator's persona emerges in all its eccentricity, sometimes painfully and often hilariously, we cannot help but see mirrored there our own fraught desires and limitations, and our own fugitive desire, despite everything, to be known. Shimmering and unusual, Pond demands to be devoured in a single sitting that will linger long after the last page"--
"A tour de force fiction debut, darkly humorous and utterly original, in which the habits and observations of a solitary young woman illuminate her inner life with uncanny, irresistible intimacy"--
Travis reviewed Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett
Review of 'Pond' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
To begin with, I want to say that this book may have gone completely over my head. The clues are all there; the writing is good, the subject matters thoughtfully considered, and the author seems to be executing her plan.... and yet, I can't quite put my finger on what that plan was trying to accomplish.
Obviously, on the surface, this book is about a woman living alone in a cottage in the countryside, delving deeply into the social terrors of dealing with other people and the value of tomato paste in turns. Early on, there is a section describing a Japanese tapestry (or a painting? some art piece), with subtle gold lines that hint at a more complex picture, letting the viewer fill in the gaps on their own without all the extra details. 'Ok', I thought to myself, 'this is the author telling us that these interior vignettes …
To begin with, I want to say that this book may have gone completely over my head. The clues are all there; the writing is good, the subject matters thoughtfully considered, and the author seems to be executing her plan.... and yet, I can't quite put my finger on what that plan was trying to accomplish.
Obviously, on the surface, this book is about a woman living alone in a cottage in the countryside, delving deeply into the social terrors of dealing with other people and the value of tomato paste in turns. Early on, there is a section describing a Japanese tapestry (or a painting? some art piece), with subtle gold lines that hint at a more complex picture, letting the viewer fill in the gaps on their own without all the extra details. 'Ok', I thought to myself, 'this is the author telling us that these interior vignettes are the subtle hints that help us fill in this lady's life without being overly explicit.'
For most of the book, for me, that thought seemed to hold up - and for that part, I found the book more or less enjoyable. At other times, though, the author seemed to start to fall in love with the smart person's thesaurus, on many occasions it seemed like sentences were overwritten and overly complicated - I struggled to keep focus on reading and it took several weeks of off-and-on sessions to get through.
The breaking point for me came in the last third of the book - and again, I want to stress I could just be completely missing things - where I was convinced either the author or I had just suffered a massive stroke. A passage about impromptu gardening transitions suddenly into a kind of impressionistic, surreal, quasi-poem.. followed by a section where I was no longer sure if the narrator had died and was now haunting the cottage and having conversations with the moon (?) and yet sending texts to her friends (??). I suppose this could be the whole point; that after living by herself so long, she herself isn't sure if she's died or not ... I don't know, I could have used another clue or something.
Anyway, I am sure there are people out there that would really enjoy this book, and I certainly didn't dislike it - I just never quite connected to it on whatever level it was trying for.
Subjects
- Irish Short stories