Poor Things

Poor Things is a book that grows with you, like all the best books do. The first time I read it I was twenty-one, and I found it intriguing, but difficult and a little baffling. Over the years I've come to love it dearly, discovering something new each time I pick it up, and just when I thought I couldn't love it any more, here we are.

Despite Alasdair Gray's iconic status in Scotland, reading this book reminds me that he's still massively underappreciated. Poor Things is nothing short of a masterpiece, exploring an array of far-reaching themes including feminism, the morality of medicine and the ethics of science, class distinctions and social inequality, colonialism, memory, and identity, both personal and national. It's a narrative within a narrative within a narrative, with not one but two unreliable narrators, giving Nabokov a run for his money, and at the heart of it all lies an exquisite Frankenstein-esque pastiche of the Victorian Gothic that is endearing and terrifying and everything in between. On top of all that, as if that wasn't enough, it's a love letter to Alasdair's beloved Glasgow.

If you haven't already, I urge you to pick it up - then gimme a ding when you're done so we can chat about it!

I loved the movie and I loved the book. Two different beasts - where one is a visual feast with outstanding directing/art design and acting they chose to follow the main recounting of events but removes itself from being a POV perspective.

The book, instead, is strongly POV, the first familiar to the movie viewer, the second, form “Bella's “POV which , of course sows confusion and doubt.

Odd, occasionally glacial, but in the end incredible epistolary novel. Truly curious to see how it's going to work as a film, totally worth a read if ya like anarcho-humanistic weirdo historical fiction like Pynchon. Took me a bit to get through some of the bits but the narrative is super easy to follow and enjoyable as hell, loved the dedication to maintaining ambiguity through it all.

A strange story that melds the gothic horror of the 19th century with the Scottish politics of the 1970s. A mysterious and marvellous tale that will leave you with questions not fully answered.

To talk to much about it would be near impossible so I'll say I can't for it would spoil the plot.

I loved it, Gray's imagination is as huge as ever and the illustrations are divine. My only regret is that I read it on my phone and didn't get to fully appreciate them - I know what I'll be asking for for my birthday!

Sinceramente, Poor things es un buen libro está muy bien escrito, me gusta que McCandles sea el encargado de dirigir al lector, pero es un libro que se me ha hecho muy pesado y me ha costado muchísimo terminar, tengo que admitir que he saltado algunas páginas porque me costaban mucho de digerir.

Aún así, creo que es un buen libro, no es una lectura para cualquiera, en inglés sobre todo es un poco compleja pero al final se deja entender bastante bien.

Bella Baxter me parece un personaje increíble, verla madurar durante todo el libro es fascinante, como la ayudan a ver cómo es de verdad el mundo y salir de su pequeña burbuja es muy interesante. También me ha gustado mucho que la relación entre Bella y McCandles tiene muchísimo más sentido que en la película, es decir, realmente hay una relación entre ellos no como en la película.

En resumen, es buen libro pero le pongo tres estrellas porque se me ha hecho demasiado denso por el final, creo que en otro momento podría volver a revisarlo.

“You made me strong and sure of myself, God, by teaching me about the fine and mighty things in the world and showing I was one of them. You were too sane to teach a child about craziness and cruelty.”