susanhecht's reviews
55 reviews

For some reason, I went into the this book thinking it would be a light, short read, but it was intense and weird and I couldn't put it down. I'm struggling to put it into words, but one idea I had is that it plays with the ways that feeling out of place-- literally not fitting in right with the space one inhabits--really messes with your head. And it deals deeply with loss and the psychic wounds that come with being blamed for things that aren't your fault, but you fear they could be.

It look me months to get all the way through this book, because it wanted to read it carefully, and I found it very rewarding. 
The overall thrust of the book is that the outbreak of WWI was not inevitable, and the assassination of Archduke Franz Josef was not merely a pretext for a war everybody (*cough* Germany) wanted to happen. Clark takes Serbian nationalism and irrendentism very seriously, and thinks that Austria-Hungary was probably right to want to punish the Serbs over the assassination. But the Great Powers of Europe, in an era of strengthening alliances (esp. the one between France and Russia), military buildup,  and hawkish leadership (all of which were fairly recent occurrences and may well have waned over the next few years) decided it was worth going to war over. 
The book goes deep into the weeds of the various people who were involved in decision making in the UK, France, Russia, Germany, Serbia, and Austria-Hungry, a cast of characters (monarchs, Presidents, Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers, War Ministers, etc.) that changed over the last couple of decades before 1914. There are lots of arguments about colonies and borders within Europe (esp. in the Balkans) which contribute to the conditions of 1914, as well as power struggles inside each country. Laying out these struggles takes a lot of pages, and serves the overall argument that assigning blame for the war's outbreak to any one country or person doesn't make sense--there were a lot of moving parts that could have moved a different direction. 

The narrator was so deliciously insufferable but I somehow didn't hate her for it. Grief can do wild things to people's brains and this book leans into that in a fascinating way. Moshfegh has a great way of capturing details (like smells) that give scenes texture, without overdoing it. 

As an appreciator of WWI novels, I loved this book's angle--the experience of Black African soldiers and the kinds of savagery and madness that are required for combat vs. the kinds that go too far. 

In this story, the narrator/protagonist Alfa Ndiaye tells us that his commanders liked the Black soldiers to "play the savage, to scare off the enemy." But then when Alfa's guilt over not putting his friend Mademba Diop out of his misery as he lay dying overcomes him, he realizes that "on the battlefield they wanted only fleeting madness. Madmen of rage, madmen of pain, furious madmen, but temporary ones. No continuous madmen." Still, Alfa's vengefulness and descent into unmanageable madness goes on, even as he reflects on his home in Senegal, his mother, and his beloved. The book is written in a tone that I think convincingly captures a young man who is trying to make sense of the world that makes so little sense. He tags many statements with "God's truth," like he is constantly testifying on his own behalf, justifying himself against inevitable judgment. 

The story was simple and rather sweet, but rather thin.
Sibling Dex, the monk, just didn't seem all that wise. They must have learned something in monk school and in having conversations with people who came to their tea wagon, right? But instead they seemed  unwilling to learn anything deep. Maybe that's the point? If so, it's just boring! Also the robot ingenue Mosscap is sweet but cliché. 
I did appreciate a glimpse (just a glimpse) into an eco-friendly, post-scarcity society, though; the notion that one can just decide to be a "tea monk" and that's a generally recognized job! The story takes place on a moon called Panga, which used to be industrialized until the robots decided to permanently go on strike. That was the Transition; the humans then did a "Half Earth Socialism" thing where they rewilded half the land and almost all the ocean. There's a lot of great potential to this world--imagine the social revolution that would have had to happen to make all this possible--so why is Dex so stubbornly individualistic in their approach to everything? 

The story centers around an older, rather unhealthy, semi-retired woman living in a sparsely-populated mountain area in Poland, near the Czech border. The plot involves several deaths in her area, but the novel focuses primarily on her mental state (including her fixation on astrology), struggles with health and part-time work, relationships with a few neighbors (including a former student who she is helping translate William Blake), and her opposition to hunting near her home. 
I enjoyed the experience of reading, even though the events are rather tense. I found the way the locality was portrayed to be very vivid and the mental state of the protagonist very absorbing. 
Is "eco-rage" a genre? Well, this is it. 
I think the way she portrays this mountain village is compelling, in that it's rather common for people who live in a WUI (Wildland Urban Interface) zone imagine themselves to be rugged outdoorsy types and identify with hunting traditions, which they justify by pointing out (often correctly) the need to provide population control for deer, rabbits, etc. But the most prominent hunters in this story were either poachers, or came from the town's elite, who drove the biggest cars and lived in relative luxury

and actually killed indiscriminately and/or maliciously.

 
As an atheist vegan myself, I sympathized with the protagonist's views on religion and animal exploitation. I'm not into astrology, but it's fun to read sometimes, because it provides a great example of confirmation bias, which I think we're all susceptible to in certain ways.

Spookily prescient.

Bad history. Read something (anything!) else.