Kind of like an episode of Real Housewives except there’s no discernible storyline and just before the final ad-break they all become super woke??? ExKind of like an episode of Real Housewives except there’s no discernible storyline and just before the final ad-break they all become super woke??? Except the characters become socially aware in an I-saw-one-surface-level-TikTok-about-this-extremely-complicated-issue-so-now-I’m-an-expert kind of way. Like, one of them has a random outburst about how gender is a spectrum for no real reason, and it’s never discussed, analysed, or considered ever again?
I miss when rich people wrote about being rich in a fun way. Instead this kind of became a “social issues” tick-list. No nuance, just vibes....more
An instant classic!!! The kind of book you want to write an essay about.
Our Evenings is so expertly crafted -- the writing was just silky smooth, likeAn instant classic!!! The kind of book you want to write an essay about.
Our Evenings is so expertly crafted -- the writing was just silky smooth, like velvet on the page. Once I started, I couldn't stop reading, and now blame my complete uselessness over the past few days on how distractingly brilliant it was.
We follow a queer Burmese actor from childhood to adulthood, as he comes of age and comes out. It’s also a story about his childhood patron, Giles, who becomes a radicalised pro-Brexit politician (a Boris Johnson-esque figure) in later life. Despite identical education backgrounds, the two men's lives diverge significantly, which is fascinating to watch unfold and Hollinghurst traverses this with expert subtlety.
Perhaps most interesting is the way that "microaggressions" throughout the book towards our central protagonist end up punctuating the entire novel and, indeed, the character's life. Small moments end up having dire consequences, and it's devastating to realise how many of these occurrences would be dismissed in casual conversation in our own world outside of the novel. It's a powerful statement about being aware of one's own use of language, and the way that silly quips or invasive questions can escalate rapidly into deep-rooted prejudices and an atmosphere of hostility.
Our Evenings is also about how love can manifest in myriad forms, and ultimately persevere. It's about the desire to know and be known.
Sometimes I wished for one extra layer of introspection from the character, and some crucial moments were glossed over that I would've liked to have seen unpacked in more depth. Honestly I could’ve read an extra 200 pages of this and spent many more evenings poring over Alan Hollinghurst’s masterful style, so I just wish there was more of it.
The final chapter (the coda) floored me, and I burst into tears. Wow.
"Hopecore" in a book -- a series of stories in which each troubled person finds peace thanks to the recommendations of a local librarian.
It's a little"Hopecore" in a book -- a series of stories in which each troubled person finds peace thanks to the recommendations of a local librarian.
It's a little formulaic after a while but I think that's the point: to reassure the reader that problems in our work lives, relationships, self-esteem, etc. can be resolved with new information and new mindsets... sometimes we just need a little help finding our way there. In this book, that person is the librarian, however -- and I'm not sure this was intended -- I found it allegorical of therapy. The message of the book seemed to me that help and support is out there, but the first half of the battle is actively seeking out the person who can provide that support (notably, an expert). The "librarian" in this way, seemed to me to be a stand-in for a therapist, pointing the characters in the right direction so they were equipped with the resources they needed to find the answers they were seeking. For that reason I liked it, and though the language is very simplistic, it is extremely readable.
It's a love story to reading and recovery.
However.
The descriptions of the librarian are... pretty unpleasant. Each time someone encounters her, almost an entire page is dedicated to describing how grotesquely large she is. If there's one thing this author wants you to know, it's that this librarian is FAT. This honestly just felt quite cruel, and after a while made me squirm with discomfort. I am aware this is a cultural difference, in which fat-shaming is much more acceptable in Japanese society, and of course this translation needs to remain faithful to the sentiment of the original text, but damn. This was.... brutal.
To give you an example:
"[...] yikes! My eyes nearly jump out of their sockets. The librarian is huge … I mean, like, really huge. [...] She takes up the entire space [...] Her skin is super pale – you can’t even see where her chin ends and her neck begins [...] She reminds me of a polar bear curled up in a cave for winter"
"But what shall I do on Christmas night if no-one has given me a book?" So true bestie."But what shall I do on Christmas night if no-one has given me a book?" So true bestie....more
Throw me in Room 101 and you'll find me locked in there with only this book to read.............
Normally I love a (feminist) literary retelling but --Throw me in Room 101 and you'll find me locked in there with only this book to read.............
Normally I love a (feminist) literary retelling but -- though it was fun to dive back into Orwell's 1984 and reimagine events from Julia's perspective -- this book only made me appreciate how much better Orwell's original was. Of course the comparison is inevitable, and tackling a modern classic is a respectfully ballsy risk, but this only proves that Orwell's 1984 truly is a timeless, untouchable masterpiece.
'Julia', on the other hand, kind of reads like one of those books published in the post-Hunger Games teen-dystopia craze around 2014 with nothing especially exciting to say. Winston Smith is belittled to such a one-dimensional weenie that I found it borderline cringeworthy, and the ideological discussion is basic, if not nonexistent. I'm sad because I expected this to be a new favourite, but at least it made me want to read 1984 again to wash myself clean of this....more
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