The Skeleton House, Katherine Allum

The Skeleton House

by Katherine Allum

horror

Copyright 2024

Part-read in October 2024

Rated 7/10: well worth reading

but for me: 4/10: bad but could be read. Except that I choose... to not read it.

An excellent choice for, book club discussion :-)

It's funny. I've barely started reading and... I don't like it.

Not the book itself, but ... the story. It is such an unpleasant story. I may stop reading.

This says a lot about me. About my mood. About, why do I read?

I'm reading the book in chunks, stopping and starting (I have other things to do)

This also means that I am building my appreciation of, my understanding of the book in chunks.

As I read more... I may change my mind.

But now...

Okay. I really would like to read it all. But... 

The plot, the theme, depress me.

Time to bite the bullet. I read for enjoyment. For escapism. This book offers neither.

So, from one third read: my review.

The book is nicely written. Is this literary fiction? Lots of references to Good Lit, some used to build an understanding, by comparison, to this book.

Well drawn characters. I am quickly drawn to sympathise with the main character. Though I disagree with her ... too sweet and caring... approach to child-rearing.

Except, of course, that her approach offers a contrast to the brutality, largely mental, of others.

There are characters who offer, just by their presence, support. All very well-written, well presented.  Nicely written. Cleverly written...

The style is clever. far too clever for a mainstream novel. Perhaps that is deliberate. A "literary" novel? Anyway...

It's almost stream of consciousness. Following the consciousness, the memories, of how the main character reached... wherever is the here and now.

It's easy to read but difficult to follow. Especially when new characters and situations appear in the heroine's memory.

Okay, I'll call her the heroine.

Main character? Protagonist, victim... heroine? we'll see (or not)

Whatever she is -- the book drives me to feel an awful lot of sympathy for her.

Because, yes, she suffers. She needs -- and she deserves -- sympathy. That, is an enormous power of the book.

And why I'm going to stop reading :-)

But:

One key character is, Neeley.

Absolutely central... to the heroine, if not to the plot.

Yet he feels tacked on.

Reading the author's own story, Neeley may well have been tacked on to the half-written work. Neeley needs to be firmly -- much earlier -- given a clear place in the community of the novel.

And speaking of the community:

What a load of absolute creeps. Narrow-minded, dogmatic, ignorant, controlling, creeps.

And that, I think, is the theme of this novel:

Coercive control. A very current theme.

Coercive control: control of the individual...

By the partner. The family. by the community, by the cult.

The book may be an attack on Mormons. Or an attack on the way in which an individual is coerced by individuals, by family, by friends, by community... by their own beliefs that they are trapped.

I'm not sure.

But... at whatever level... the coercion ... and control... is awful.

But horror?

Yes.

For a short time I hoped that the control would involve supernatural monsters. I have given up hope: The evil is entirely human.

Early on, a death is forecast.

Reading on, I have no idea who could die (or, more likely, be killed.

Thinking of the cast of characters... there are half-a-dozen that I would gladly see die. Any... or all of them. Unfortunately it does not seem likely.

And a string of deaths will still leave the heroine needing at least a chapter...

to escape the clutches of the evil community in which she is trapped.

A very well-written, very involving... book.

An excellent book for those who like to understand... to wallow in... the suffering of others.

I do not.

Early notes:

It's showing some good potential. Depending on where it goes.

It's the characters, their attitudes. I feel that I could very easily dislike the lot of them. Which will make for very difficult enjoyment of whatever does happen.

Really I only mention it because -- the dislike is so very strong. And personal.

The mother is so cutesy, so nice to the children. Like Hi-5 which talks down to the kids vs PlaySchool which talks and plays ... *with* the children.

Then we meet more of the family and social group.

I get the feeling of paternal control and... Stepford Wives.

All of this goes against my natural preferences for behaviour. Which makes me very uncomfortable.

But which also makes me hope for a nasty, enjoyable, horror story, with one sympathetic character and all sorts of awful threats against the far-too-cute children.

Which must make this a good start to the book: I am already viscerally involved :-)

=== now to read on:

at various reading times:

the OZ link just does not work

it feels tacked on.

if it is essential -- attach it firmly -- very early -- to allow it to be explained

Hours later...

I'm reading this book in chunks. So may as well document my opinions as they. develop. and, probably, re-develop.

Yes... "horror"? I suspect a slow build-up to horror. Whether physical or psychological... not yet known. But to me... already very horrid.

The author is MA.

This allows them to reference literary "giants" as a quick way to define some character traits, possibly even situations.

Unfortunately it is of little help to us non-MA readers.

Given time, practice and an already good (if negative) understanding of humanity, I suspect that this author will be writing good books which will appeal even more to mass readers... without forcing us to Wikipedia to understand, what on earth the author is on about :-)

half blind. half deaf. dying of cancer.
so what?
notdotdeaddotyet.blogspot.com :-)

Dr Nick Lethbridge
Consulting Dexitroboper 

   

Kairos, Jenny Erpenbeck

Kairos

by Jenny Erpenbeck

Fiction, romance... historical allegory !?

Copyright 2023

Started and still reading, October 2024

Rated so far,  6/10: read to pass the time.

Then re-rated to 4/10: bad but could be read.

Could be read because the writing style is simple. Though for various reasons, difficult to understand. Perhaps like, Dick and Jane analyse Shakespeare.

20oct24:

Here is a very quick opinion:

The cover says that this is a book of love and betrayal.

So far I've read maybe a third. The love is fun though weird.

And yet... *if* the betrayal is disappointing... or as bleeding obvious as my current guess: then the book is a waste of time, which I will never finish.

For now, I read and review. I hope add a footnote when I know more.

So.

The book reads like a poem, or a dream. This suits my mood, I am reading while half asleep. So far, I'm enjoying the book.

Yet it is confusing. He did, she did, sometimes hard to follow... yet interesting and enjoyable.

Then there are the assumptions of knowledge.

I suspect that characters may be involved in dangerous, revolutionary organisations... but I'm not sure. I just do not have the background knowledge which is assumed by the author.

Then I realise a bigger problem:

This book is written for, or at least about, intelligentsia living in Germany between WW2 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Very difficult for an Aussie to *identify* with the people, the places --or the political situation which is very important to the book.

My understanding of the situation is based on living through the era but well outside Europe.  Of disinterested reading of Aus papers of the time.

My knowledge of the intelligentsia is from a few chapters of a horror/fantasy book with a similar setting :-)

It is very difficult for me -- still not interested in learning about an important era of German history, difficult for me to identify with this book.

In fact... it was a huge relief when the heroine walked across the Chain Bridge in Budapest! I too have walked across (and been impressed by) that bridge :-)

Still, it's an easy-to-read book. Especially when I'm  falling sleep. I'm quite enjoying the silly romance.

And I really really want to reach, the betrayal.

The nature of that betrayal will... I suspect... fix my entire opinion of this book.

====

25 oct 24:

I take a break from reading. I mean, it's easy to read, though difficult to understand. It's a book for drifting, not at all gripping.

But I really do want to reach the end. Or at least reach the betrayal. So today, I start again.

And guess what? A German book with a kid stacking dead bodies in a WW2 Concentration Camp.

There's a word which means: when someone compares the situation to Nazi Germany -- further discussion is pointless. And must be ended.

I stop reading. 

Skim quickly, to discover the betrayal. As far as I can tell, it's all in the Epilogue. But before that...

The love seems to be suffering. In a deeply meaningful, to the characters, way.

Germany is rebuilding from East and West into one nation. Massive unemployment, massive changes, massive impact on history... possibly of interest if you are at all interested in raking over relatively recent German history. I'm not.

And so to the Epilogue. And the "betrayal". 

Which, blow me... is almost identical to what I have expected from page one.

Only two surprises:

(1) The betrayer has a life-long history of betrayal.

(2) Love and betrayal revolves round two lovers. Yet the betrayal is "aimed" -- at a third, not in the affair, person. I guess that's an interesting twist: a couple caught up in a situation that is none of their own personal concern.

I re-rate the book from six /10 down to four.

 

half blind. half deaf. dying of cancer.
so what?
notdotdeaddotyet.blogspot.com :-)

Dr Nick Lethbridge
Consulting Dexitroboper