Book Reviews
Issue #35
By Venus Zine Staff
Published: March 1st, 2008 | 3:02pm
PLAYING WITH GROWN-UPS (Nan A. Talese)
By Sophie Dahl
288 pages, $24
Dahl’s first novel begins by hitting similar notes as other Brit coming-of-age novels like Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle. It’s besotted with bluebell woods, a mongrel pet named Ibsen, and grandparents named Bestemama and Bestepapa, with hands as “true as butcher blocks.”
Playing With the Grown-ups follows the adventures of Kitty, a love child produced by a bohemian beauty’s affair with an older rich man named Mr. Fitzgerald, who exists as an absence she projects onto. Along with her two half-siblings, Kitty is strung along everywhere by her mother — the loony and capricious Marina — placed in a boarding school one day, jetting off to New York the next, finding inner peace at an ashram after that.
Dahl eschews the fantastical elements of her grandfather Roald Dahl’s storytelling (and the macabre perversities of his adult works) but retains his basic empathy of what’s it’s like to be a kid. The novel is clouded in that homespun, rhapsodic haze of childhood cognition that makes Marina’s chain of permissive behaviors seem that much more charming. Kitty’s imaginative fancies enable her to embrace one uprooting after another, to hold her mother in awe in spite of her heavy insecurities and drug issues.
The downward spiral comes fast and predictably. Plot-wise, it’s a bit in shambles, tugging the reader along from one thinly veiled narrative device to another. The effect is disorienting, kind of like watching Brit sitcoms that never show exterior shots. But Dahl is a lovely writer, casually delivering handsomely packaged near-poems every few blinks of the eye: “Her mother began to unfurl. Affection and jokes puffed her up, until her eyes were half moons of pleasure.”
Playing with the Grown-ups may not rank up there with I Capture the Castle, but it’s not bad. And it is its own thing as well, with high-pitched moments that veer toward the campiness of Absolutely Fabulous. Dahl may be better known for her other career as one of the only plus-sized models in high fashion (remember that notoriously banned YSL Opium ad?), but she has genuine talent as a writer that transcends simple pedigree. Here's to reading more of Dahl’s work. — Ling Ma
THE BOOK OF WORDS (New Directions)
By Jenny Erpenbeck
96 pages, $14.95
The Book of Words inspires a certain protectiveness in a reviewer. The Berlin author’s remarkable novella, recently translated by Susan Berrofsky, is such a challenging read that is in real danger of being overlooked, especially by an American public disinclined to read fiction in translation. But is a very intelligent work, with a lot to say about life in a totalitarian state.
As its name implies, this is a book primarily concerned with language itself. It centers on the experience of a young girl growing up under a repressive regime in an unnamed South American nation. The extent of the regime’s horror is conveyed through her voice as she lingers over scenes of shocking brutality with an icy detachment that’s even more unnerving than the violence itself. In one notable example, she even adapts the government’s murderous program into a singsong chant, repeating it as she walks through her home city: “Those who, and then their friends, then the ones who remember them, then all who are afraid, and finally everyone.”
The narrator’s own thoughts mingle so closely with the words she hears and speaks that it’s often difficult to tell what exactly is going on. But that is precisely what makes the book so appealing. It doesn’t try to describe the effects of totalitarianism — it demonstrates them. In effect, the girl’s detached tone and scrambled thoughts are the story, and it works. — Guy Patrick Cunningham
THIS WILL GO DOWN ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD (Featherproof)
By Susannah Felts
192 pages, $9.95
This engaging debut novel takes the readers to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1989, where 16-year-old Vaughn Vance finds herself at the end of her sophomore year. She feels certain that her summer will be lonely until her father surprises her with a 35 millimeter camera. Taking on a picture-taking hobby, Vaughn finds a new independence by doing things she wouldn't do with her old friends, such as visiting the notorious Dragon Park, where all of the "burnouts and freaks" gather.
Vaughn befriends Sophie, a free spirit and "muse" with a bit of a dark side. Sophie's troubled mother decides to uproot, and the Vance family invites Sophie into their home, changing the dynamic of the once-mellow family.
Felts captivates her reader frame by frame in her this poetic portrait of young adulthood. Her novel reminds us of female bonding over Slush Puppies on long summer afternoons, when we could love and possibly loathe our best friend at the same time. Permanent Record is much like Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno and How Soon is Never by Marc Spitz. This tale is sure to make Gen-Xers long for an old-school mix tape and will quite possibly inspire you to pull out your old Walkman as you re-live the late ’80s. It's an enjoyable, quick read with the insightful reflections, observations, and vulnerability of a hopeful artist who believes she’s on the outside looking in, not realizing that she could possibly be the admired one. — Jolene Siana
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