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A review by dukegregory
Role Play by Clara Drummond
3.0
3.5
Though I am giving this a 3.5, this book should have a substantially higher average rating on Goodreads. It felt like if Guillaume Dustan were less sexually crude and were consumed by his bourgeois life rather than attempting to escape it. The neuroses and cruelties of the Brazilian elite are captured cattily to great success. There are layers of self-awareness and self-deception shown to be not simply contradictory but simultaneous. There's a persistent sense of play, though the novella spirals as it goes on, to pasts that reveal the present and presents that fight against the past. Drummond's voice is the heart of the novel, and I found its quick wit and affinity for slight shock wonderfully breezy for poolside reading. But I wish she focused less on the past and the bevy of characters around Vivian (the narrator). The propulsion of the prose sings when fixated on a chaotic present immersed in brands, nonrelationships, glimpses of the past, and a hedonistic willing away of consequence. Drummond's structure reveals something, while still critical of the status quo, lacking in its structure: Role Play is rather standard fare. Like the narrator, the text attempts to break away from novelistic tradition while ending up clinging to it for safety.
An indicative quote:
"I've got very little understanding of the weight of the world. I don't know hunger, I don't know death, I don't know love. My existence is a search for small victories that sound important at the time. So I desire smaller victories still, like I am walking around scanning the ground with my eyes for coins."
Though I am giving this a 3.5, this book should have a substantially higher average rating on Goodreads. It felt like if Guillaume Dustan were less sexually crude and were consumed by his bourgeois life rather than attempting to escape it. The neuroses and cruelties of the Brazilian elite are captured cattily to great success. There are layers of self-awareness and self-deception shown to be not simply contradictory but simultaneous. There's a persistent sense of play, though the novella spirals as it goes on, to pasts that reveal the present and presents that fight against the past. Drummond's voice is the heart of the novel, and I found its quick wit and affinity for slight shock wonderfully breezy for poolside reading. But I wish she focused less on the past and the bevy of characters around Vivian (the narrator). The propulsion of the prose sings when fixated on a chaotic present immersed in brands, nonrelationships, glimpses of the past, and a hedonistic willing away of consequence. Drummond's structure reveals something, while still critical of the status quo, lacking in its structure: Role Play is rather standard fare. Like the narrator, the text attempts to break away from novelistic tradition while ending up clinging to it for safety.
An indicative quote:
"I've got very little understanding of the weight of the world. I don't know hunger, I don't know death, I don't know love. My existence is a search for small victories that sound important at the time. So I desire smaller victories still, like I am walking around scanning the ground with my eyes for coins."