nhi

big fan of how this opens up, almost artfully, as a coming-of-age teenager romance kind of novel, before descending into a very involved criticism of europe and imperialism as a whole. the translation reads strangely, which is a little unfortunate, but i got used to it pretty quickly.

i'm surprised by everyone saying that this novel drags? things move pretty quickly, and it's not a very long book either. i also think a lot of the characters were very likable, and i liked toer's female cast a lot, particularly nyai ontosoroh, but also minke's mother, especially in the second half. i didn't expect to be as into this as i am, it was a really pleasant surprise.

maaaan i wasnt that into this overall. im a sensitive, easy to cry kinda person too! the little things did hurt—walking the fish is one image that haunts me—but ionno, you ever get to a point where a book is so sad that it kinda turns to melodrama. that's how it felt for me lol

vi khi nao is definitely an incredible writer. someone said that this felt more like an experiment with language and i second that. i felt like i just got out of a showing of something from tsai ming-liang but with hirokazu koreeda's narrative. which is great! i guess. but as beautiful as the images were i'm still lost. maybe this just ain't my jam!

did NOT think i would be underlining every other page of this very white christian novel but here we are. it was utterly miserable and so much more bleak than it seems to let on. at the same time i liked it more than gilead, i think i appreciate the messages being conveyed in gilead more than i did in home.

also...lots of reviews ive read said this was super boring and i can't disagree but also i want to add that i just wasn't bored. i don't even know how i wasn't bc i have horrible attention span. but marilynne robinson would be like (beautifully) “glory made breakfast without realizing it was 3 in the morning. jack laughed at her” and i'd just be like oh my fucking god i simply have to keep reading i need to know more

“But now, for one brief moment, let's pretend what might've been.”

Dostoevsky's best, easily. There are so many wonderful moments that I don't think I'll ever experience anywhere else. Some of my favorites:
- Zosima, bowing suddenly before Dmitri,
- Ivan's speech to Alyosha, and obviously the Grand Inquisitor,
- Alyosha kissing Ivan right after,
- “But to us, sir, you are like a small child...”
- The dehumanizing interrogation sequence—“I'm the wolf, and you're the hunters, let the chase commence.”
- A lovely scene with a puppy (it was so magical that I don't want to share more),
- Ivan's nightmares,
- Dr. Herzenstrube's testimony,
- Dmitri in the epilogue.

It is unfortunate that this book is weighed down by so much anti-semitism, christofascist sympathies, Russian nationalism, all with a little bit of thinly veiled misogyny... if it wasn't for these themes (which comes up during part 4 more than any other part IMO), I would have it in me to agree that this is one of the best novels ever written.

I'd also say your enjoyment of this novel hinges on whether or not you consider Dmitri to be a sympathetic character. If you're 200 pages in and you hate him, consider shelving it... I definitely sympathized with and even liked him, but he can be a lot. I can easily see why people might hate him, but I don't know how enjoyable the book would be if you can't stand the guy.

would like to preface this with the following: for maximum...enjoyment (uhhh) you should get into this book knowing nothing about it at all.

definitely a miserable read. finishing this makes me feel like i've run a marathon except the marathon went for way too long and i don't feel any excitement in finishing just a vague sense of relief and a weight on my chest.

but it's an interesting meditation on space—we move from a journey that crosses an entire ocean, to a strange and dream-like (i'm thinking soft, weerasethakul-like images with understated lynchian horror kind of dreams here) narrative that unfolds in the confines of a house that is both large and small at the same time. maybe it's because i've not read enough, but the way that esme works with space in this book is amazing. you feel the boundaries of the worlds she creates tangibly shrink and grow. the claustrophobia. and then, the absolute fear of vastness. it's real cinematic, so that's why i keep thinking of films when i'm talking about this book. mental illness, and the rippling effects of mental illness—the person who is ill, and the people around them—is a central theme in this novel and as a result, with this control over space, esme definitely shows how mental illness affects the way in which we perceive and are receptive to our reality, or at least, the “unrealness” of it.

i can't stop thinking of good films/tv with regards to this novel. some more images: true detective's bleak, gothic images of southern america; ari aster's nightmare of a filmography; edward yang's pastel-colored, uncertain taipei. the writing is beautiful. the narrative: slow, strange, otherworldly.

it is not by any means a bad piece. but i just can't like it. it is just barely forgivable that this is by a writer of color because i don't know how much i would be willing to forgive her two main characters of color if esme had been a white writer. there i said it!!! perhaps i am not seeing the “right” picture here but it made me unhappy that the few characters of color became so much more unforgivable while their white counterparts were portrayed as more sympathetic victims. this disconnect really hurt me! i wish that their backgrounds—specifically daisy's—played a more important role than just inflicting misery.

there are more things i have to think about regarding this work but that's about all i have to say now. it was wonderful, but very painful, and the ways in which the pain was inflicted were, in my eyes, rather questionable.

i love viet thanh nguyen. i loved his short story compilation “the refugees”. i love reading from vietnamese diaspora. but yknow what i really hate this book because i know that he's writing in this style to convey SOMETHING but honestly it just rubs off as pretentious and annoying and i don't think i feel like finishing this...ever

the next guy that writes about how viet girls look “virginal” in their ao dai i will manifest in their home and curse their family lineage. remembered why i liked reading from women of color and not men

to those who criticize the style of writing, understand that nha ca began writing this the moment she left hue and returned to Saigon. it is no wonder that this reads like someone who is attempting to recall a dream (in her case, a painful nightmare)–roundabout, hasty, a little careless. but the glimpses of nha ca mourning her beloved hometown, her attempts to document and immortalize her family and the people of hue that she met during the tet offensive, her desire to share these memories for the sake of remembering–all of these make this piece so powerful and important.

I remember being all over this one when I was finished but after thinking back on it, so much of this feels just...I don't know it feels pretty lame, man. sometimes the characters feel very realistic, but there are other times where there's no actual motive for the shit they pull (how james met his wife...come on man...also the whole thing with his assistant...like...) and then they just feel like caricatures. it really took me out of the whole experience. although I loved reading about lydia and her relationship to her brother, two whole stars to that! and the tragic reveal I guess.

ok um! tw:rape would have been a nice warning! if you are sensitive to that please keep in mind it's definitely in this book.

edit: changed from two stars to one star because i keep thinking about this book and getting angrier and angrier when i see how flawed it is.

if you're into the overdramatic, sappy hallmark stories, this is your thing dude. have some fun i guess but i hated it.

i don't know why anyone says this is “powerful” because to me it does not read powerfully. there are so many examples people have listed earlier of lan cao's senseless prose. but also, considering the attentive detail to historical events in this book i wonder why there is no mention of my lai? i cannot even remember if there is a mention of the american war crimes (correct me if i'm wrong) but there is incredible scrutiny of the communists in the novel during the war.

this is not something i would bring up in just any viet book. but in a viet book that tries to be as profound as this (and gives you chapter after chapter of vietnamese history and politics), and seeing northerners/communists are just used as depressing props or enemies, it just reads as...annoying, and biased. i don't know i really hated that. also i can't help but feel that all of these characters are just...flat. i can't really even describe the personalities of mai (or her other personalities l m a o), her father, and her mother without all of them sounding the same. and james is...nice?? like that's it!

and just...that ending. that was so stupid. yes, james, you are a shitty person for not leaving vietnam with your wife and granting her american citizenship because you think vietnam is a “forgiving” place. oh my god man! why didn't you just stay dead! and how he gets with mai in the end? did i just land in hollywood vietnam war territory?? and then how the whole book is suddenly epistolary. holy moly. come on.

(RAPE MENTION BELOW)

the brutal rape scene was incredibly unnecessary and rendered quy's character (and eventually thu's) to the trope of the tragic, demure, self-sacrificial dragon woman. that was so awful my stomach turned. what was the point of doing that to a supposedly “strong” and “resilient” character except to break her down and make her a pitiful asian martyr?

as one other reviewer said–this book definitely feels like it was based off of true stories. but it feels told in a way that obfuscates the truth and that is irritating.

i don't know. i've read so many other wonderful vietnamese novels that cover tragedy and loss and melodrama way better than this did. the gangster we are all looking for by le thi diem thuy defined the relationship between an ARVN vet and his daughter when they came to america much more beautifully than lan cao did. and quan barry's novel, she weeps every time you are born, is significantly better with regard to characterization and attempts to encompass vietnamese history, especially w the way she represented both north and south vietnamese people as...people, and not just random tragedies, like this work does. if you want interesting war drama, literally viet thanh nguyen's the sympathizer is so much better with regards to addressing the conflict between north and south vietnam (and america's severely flawed involvement). duong thu huong's works are crazy dramatic and questionable as all hell but her perspective is so much more interesting. aimee pham is amazing and i'm just plugging her here because i can and i'm tired

this was just...a huge bore, and a huge disappointment.

a very ordinary romance story, made interesting by sudden and brutal images of loneliness.

“the whole vista of my future had flashed before me so bleakly and so sadly, and i saw myself just as i am now exactly fifteen years later, only older, in the same room, just as lonely, with the same Matryona, who hasn't grown any wiser in all those years.”

nastenka spent a lot of her life envisioning her future the exact same way.

at first glance it's 19th century 500 days of summer, but after your first read it unfolds more like a charlie kaufman film

as w a lot of poetry books i think i need to reread this one a couple more times before i get a strong idea of what i feel about this collection, but i loved it so much...the only thing was that it was so painful sometimes, the whole first part was so difficult to go through because of the subject matter. the work reads smoothly and after just one read i can't think of any strangely written lines at all. really, really beautiful and raw, reminds me of ocean vuong.

“my story // is a series // of pent-up men.”

umineko is a murder mystery. it is a work of fantasy. it is a romance. it is a story about hope and futility and loss and guilt and humanity. it is, ultimately, about what isolation and loneliness can do to a human being.

the manga is good if you want the story. if you want to solve the mysteries, which are wonderfully written, read the sound novel.

tfw you read one of those books that you probably need to reread again, but you don't want to reread it at all.

of course I loved the dream sequences (murakami is like if David Lynch and Wong Kar-wai collaborated on a movie) but I just don't get this book. and I don't really want to get it, either? 1Q84 made less sense but the images and the world and the madness charmed me. this one...I don't know...