What i read: april

“The Empusium”, by Olga Tokarczuk (translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)

A strange and unsettling novel set in a health resort in early twentieth century Poland where people are dying…but it may not be from tuberculosis.

In September 1913 a young sanitation engineer Mieczysław Wojnicz arrives at the beautiful and isolated Görbersdorf with a mild case of T.B. and a severe case of social anxiety. Soon after, the wife of the head doctor hangs herself, and this shocking event and the rapid dismissal of her death as a mere inconvenience (who will cook for them now?!) sets the tone for the rest of Wojnicz’s stay.

As the gentlemen settle into their Cure routine of rich foods, quiet, and long walks their mental faculties are tested as much as their lungs. They hear strange tales of insane women that live in the forest and tear men apart with their hands, they discover unsettling forest floor puppets of women made by local workmen, and Wojnicz keeps hearing mysterious noises coming from the dead wife’s attic bedroom. In between, the men have long misogynistic conversations (we’re told in the authors’ note that these were all lifted verbatim from 36 male writers) fuelled by a local liquor – schwärmerei - made from foraged hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Tokarczuk is incredible at creating atmosphere and capturing striking imagery (the puppets in the woods – the ‘tuntschi’ – were especially scary). The story is told by a ghost-like narrator who floats through walls, seeing the world of these deeply damaged men from a distance that made their actions seem both inevitable and a bit pathetic. The use of the woods as both lure and threat was very effective –the men are not really afraid of what is out there, but what is inside themselves.

This was intended to be an homage to previous “horror health spa” stories, but for me it didn’t feel like it subverted or examined any of the stereotypes it was using. I don’t want to give spoilers but there was a “gasp – reveal!” moment about one of the characters towards the end that was both predictable and disappointing.

An atmospheric and engaging story, but sadly a little underwhelming.

“Colony”, by Annika Norlin (translated from Swedish by Alice E. Olsson)

An incredibly moving, funny, and heartbreaking novel about community, nature, and the stories we tell ourselves.

Burned out professional, Emelie, has escaped the city to camp in the Swedish countryside. One day she witnesses a group living there, separate from society. As she observes their strange rituals and power dynamics from afar, Emelie becomes obsessed and, through a chance encounter with the youngest (a friendly but clearly damaged teenage boy) she seeks to join them. But once a clear line is drawn between Us and Them, can this well-meaning initiate bring positive change, or will she cause the downfall of the entire system?

Weaving through time, it unravels the stories of the seven colony members, exploring their unique histories, traumas, and psychological issues. They all fall into set roles: the charismatic leader, the people pleaser, the carer, the ones who know and the ones who do. But are they really happy here, or are they just as trapped as they were outside? Can anyone truly escape their past, or do they bring it with them wherever they run?

Each character is so well crafted, flawed and raw and wanting. They all have their own desires, but ultimately they all want the same thing: safety, community, and for someone to really see them. The peace, or denial, lulls them into staying for years until they no longer know how to extricate themselves from the group. Norlin uses recurring motifs to anchor the stories – a long-hidden stack of unopened letters belonging to a character unable to face his family’s past, a metaphorical ‘ruby in the pocket’ representing the suffocating charisma of the colony leader.

There were dark moments, including some shockingly violent scenes, but also so much humour, empathy, and tenderness. You love each character, and hate them a little as well. The best authors manage to capture the deepest, darkest, secret thoughts you have and put them into words in a way that makes you feel understood and less alone. This did that repeatedly. An extraordinary read that I will think about for a long time.

Thank you to Scribe for the review copy.

“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”, by Omar El Akkad

A furious, eloquent, and urgent call to account of the West’s refusal to acknowledge and intervene against the brutal live-streamed genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza.

In a series of ten essays, Omar El Akkad explores the contradictions and hypocrisies embedded in the history, mythmaking, and continued self-identity of ‘The West’, and the traumas we are all collectively responsible for if we do not undertake real and continued resistance. It all comes down to one important question we will all be made to answer one day: when it mattered, who sided with justice, and who sided with power?

This is a book specifically about the unrelenting genocide of Palestinian people, being carried out by the state of Israel with the financial and political support of nearly every Western government. But it is also a broader account of how our governments and media allow for well-meaning liberals to look away (negation), prioritising the idea of themselves as supporters of freedom, while doing nothing that may inconvenience them via financial or social discomfort. This personal self-mythologising reflects the national concept of America (and Australia) as both a great and powerful nation and a scrappy underdog.

El Akkad describes years of frustration with colleagues for “journalistic neutrality” which allow column space for deliberately confusing or outright inflammatory statements, giving conspiracy theories and racist and harmful rhetoric the same respectful consideration as the opposing facts. He also discusses the role of the artist, and the interconnection of creation and funding, specially calling out the more established writers and artists who are seemingly happy to play ball knowing that there will be time for very moving pieces about grief once the unpleasantness is over.

This is a fiercely necessary book that everyone should read. It is confronting, may make you feel guilty or defensive or ashamed, but it also gives the grace of hope, of the power we have as individuals to step out of line and ‘throw sand on the gears’ in any way you can.

“Extracting the Stone of Madness”, by Alejandra Pizarnik (translated from Spanish by Yvette Siegert)

A collection of over 150 poems by the Argentine poet, published in translated English alongside the original Spanish.

This anthology is the first major English-language collection of poems by Pizarnik, with works dating from 1962-1972. Pizarnik sadly died in 1972 from a self-induced drug overdose, and many of these poems were only published posthumously.

These poems are haunting, beautiful, somehow both fragile and fierce. The fantastic title (also the title of one of the longer poems) is a reference to the 1494 Hieronymus Bosch painting ‘The Cure of Folly’, which depicts the contemporary belief that mental illness was causes aby a tumour of stone lodged in the skull which could be physically removed. Pizarnik explores themes of transience, existing between states – between asleep and awake, child and adult, loneliness and solitude, speech and silence – in poems ranging from a few lines to several pages. There is a continued return to imagery from nature, particularly certain birds and wolves, and an obsession with metaphorical lilacs. She cries out to a missing person – a lover? A friend? A former self? – while reflecting on her own writing, her ability to piece together a night with words alone.

I enjoy reading comprehensive collections of poems like this where you can see imagery and ideas drifting back again and again, circling in the mind of the poet as they try and find the perfect encapsulation of it.

However, knowing the bare bones of her biography did lend a ghoulishness to the experience. I had the impression I was reading pages and pages of draft suicide notes, and knowing that these sections were posthumously published (perhaps with her intention? I’m not sure) left me with a sour taste, like her pain was being exploited for the artistic satisfaction an audience, an audience I’m not sure I wanted to be a part of.

Overall, an achingly beautiful collection about introspection and isolation.

“Signs of Damage”, by Diana Reid

An engaging holiday-thriller about relationships, family, secrets, and the persistent human need to reduce messiness to a tidy narrative, regardless of what truths that might erase.

In 2008, the wealthy Kelly family are having a summer holiday in a villa in the south of France – the beautiful wife Vanessa, her much older husband Bruce, their daughters – beautiful Skye and younger, troubled, Anika, and their guests - Anika’s school friend Cass, Bruce’s old friend Harry and his adopted nephew Sam. The holiday goes awry one afternoon when 13-year-old Cass is locked in an old “icehouse” for several hours. How did she get in there, and what happened to her in the dark?

In 2024, the family is brought together again. First for the funeral of patriarch Bruce, and then a week later for the destination wedding of Skye. Cass, now closer to the elder Kelly sister and in a serious relationship with Sam after reconnecting as adults, is suffering from a series of increasingly prevalent seizures. She awakens from one of these incidents in the first chapter to discover that, alongside Anika, she was one of the last witnesses to a fatal fall. One of the wedding guests has died, and the White Lotus style unravelling of who and how is the central mystery of the later timeline.

But how do these timelines intersect? What really occurred all those years ago, and how does it directly affect what is happening now? Are Cass’s seizures “real”, or are they the result of deeply suppressed trauma?

This was an enjoyable mystery, with fascinating and well-rounded characters populating both timelines. While the actual ‘whodunnit’ element was a little bit undercooked for me, I did find the broader exploration of trauma narratives compelling and interesting to think about. Why do we want there to be a “reason” why bad things happen? Why do we want there to be a singular cause, a turning point in someone’s life to explain their choices and behaviour later on?

This is a novel about the stories we tell ourselves, and the plot contrivances we create to understand the world and our place within it.

“The Burning God”, by R.F. Kuang

The final instalment in a dark history-inspired fantasy trilogy, following a young soldier/shaman as she learns that winning a war may just be harder than fighting it.

 -- SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST TWO NOVELS BEWARE –

After fighting off one invading army, and then unwittingly welcoming another more insidious enemy to Nikan, Rin realises that her only option to go home. Meaning she must embrace her identity as a Southerner, not one of the wealthy nobles from the north who are allowing the Hesperian’s to ravage their land and religion, but one of the common people. With her god on her side – and in her mind – she gathers the masses and the Southern Army to claw back her country by any means necessary. But after a series of betrayals Run begins to unravel into paranoia. When you are used to burning everything you see, can you ever learn to stop and rebuild from the ashes?

This series was an exploration of power– who is born with it, who fights for it, who suffers for it, and what is the most ethical way to wield it? Drawing on historical events, Kuang roots her fantasy in reality, never allowing the talk of gods and shamans to distract from the less cinematic but more devastating sides of long-term war – disease, starvation, and displacement. As Rin rises in status she begins to both understand how the people she had judged beforehand, and struggles to make different, better choices.

I had a (correct) hunch that I would be unsatisfied by the ending. The very aspects I loved – the realistic politics and historical influences – meant that there really couldn’t BE an ending. History doesn’t end, there is no magic spell that can rid the world of systemic oppression and colonialism. If they had ended on a happy-ever-after it would have undermined the entire tone of the series, so at least it was consistent.

Kuang deserves her plaudits as a wunderkind – the characters were flawed, surprising, and human even when doing monstrous things, the action sequences were riveting, and her ability to centre the reader in vast everchanging landscapes was masterful. I can’t say I enjoyed reading it perse, but I am glad I did.