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Jul 2023
8:30pm, 11 Jul 2023
52,974 posts
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McGoohan
As chosen this month by Chrisull
This is what the blurb says:
In her brilliantly inventive debut collection, Vanessa Onwuemezi takes readers on a surreal and haunting journey through a landscape on the edge of time. At the border with another world, a line of people wait for the gates to open; on the floor of a lonely room, a Born Winner runs through his life's achievements and losses; in a suburban garden, a man witnesses a murder that pushes him out into the community. Struggling to realize the human ideals of love and freedom, the characters of Dark Neighbourhood roam instead the depths of alienation, loss and shame. With a detached eye and hallucinatory vision, they observe the worlds around them as the line between dream and reality dissolves and they themselves begin to fragment. Electrifying and heady, and written with a masterful lyrical precision, Dark Neighbourhood heralds the arrival of a strikingly original new voice in fiction.
I wanted to post some 1-star reviews from Amazon here as I usually do, but the cowards who did so didn't leave any comments. If you think something is so terrible that it deserves only one star, then I think you *have* to say why. The only reviews with actual comments on Amazon are the ones giving it five stars. So that's a positive start.
Drop your thought-bombs like doodlebugs into the thread below.
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Jul 2023
10:11pm, 21 Jul 2023
7,525 posts
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westmoors
What can I say. This did nothing for me. I disliked the writing style. Was it just the kindle version or does the print version also have the giant spaces? What were they all about?
Really didn't enjoy this. Giving it a 3.
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Jul 2023
12:02pm, 27 Jul 2023
53,029 posts
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McGoohan
I’m copy-pasting some of Chrisull’s post from the main thread here, as I think it’s a very useful kickoff point:
I have started it, and I'm enjoying it although have occasional misgivings about these halfway houses between stories/poems/prose. No regrets, interested to see what others might say and what people think in general about books like Max Porter's "Lanny" - which I started, but couldn't get on with it, as there are several examples of this which are very much in vogue. Do we like? Is it pain in the arse and could poetry do it better? Is it like marmite houmous or some other such abomination, or fish and chips (a similarly exotic fusion dish apparently once upon a time).
Having now finished this book, I think I can say I didn’t enjoy it and I think it’s what Chris calls “these halfway houses between stories/poems/prose” that is the problem for me. At their best, the stories feel Joycean. Joyce was a master of poetic prose. Other parts are reminiscent of Eliot’s The Wasteland, especially the last story. (e.g. There’s a lot of ‘Oh oh oh’, not unlike Part 2 of The Wasteland, A Game of Chess…. in fact I’ve just had a re-skim read of The Wasteland and I’d say it’s definitely an influence.)
But DN more doesn’t work than does for me. I suspect she’s a much better poet than story teller. The allusive nature of her prose isn’t varied enough. It often feels like you’re just in the same stream of consciousness no matter which story it is. One does stand out against this trend, but rather negatively is Heartbreak at the Super 8. That smacks of a non-American writing about America based on what they’ve seen in TV shows and movies.
Individual words, sentences and phrases stand out elsewhere and are quite lovely. She’s a dab-hand at imagery. However… I don’t much like the connective tissue between them. I can’t find a poetry collection by her but I’d much more happily read that than more poetry-prose by this author.
I’ve ummed, ahhed and erred to a 5/10
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Jul 2023
12:05pm, 27 Jul 2023
53,030 posts
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McGoohan
And thank you Chris for chosing something completely different. I may not have enjoyed it very much but I'd much rather this than another Angelmaker 
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Jul 2023
11:49am, 30 Jul 2023
28,927 posts
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Serendippily
The positives: most short stories i think are either novels without the work to tie the segments into a coherent whole, or are a bunch of underdeveloped ideas. This reminded me of Henry Sugar, which i loved growing up: there was a prevailing mood but each story was formed and standalone in its own right. And two of the stories, both with female protagonists, i liked a good deal. And the writing was spare and all the gaps and imagery worked when they worked.
The negatives: these same techniques made the stories i didnt like extra irritating. The last story i couldn’t be doing with at all, and i didnt believe her male characters really.
Dark Neighbourhoods annoyed me but i liked some of the imagery, it just had too many bleak dystopian tropes.
Cuba i loved and will stay with me.
Heartbreak at Super 8: generally unconvincing
The Growing state: dull
Bright Spaces: enjoyed
Green Afternoon: just about enjoyed. Finding some of obliqueness and imagery and techniques increasingly obvious and repetitive but sometimes they worked
At the heart of things: had enough
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Jul 2023
11:54am, 30 Jul 2023
28,928 posts
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Serendippily
Thank you chris for choice. She is clearly a skilled writer and i think ill remember the three stories i liked. But you have to be careful with heavily stylised writing: the reference to Joyce made me nod in recognition, style has to enhance meaning and it is very easy to obscure it instead, and noone likes a one trick pony. I was reminded of Rushdie and magic realism too at times, it requires real lightness of touch not to become heavy handed, as it were
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Aug 2023
7:15pm, 5 Aug 2023
13,718 posts
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Little Nemo
This isn't a book that I would normally choose as I don't enjoy short stories that much. As soon as you get into them, they finish and unless they are linked I tend to forget them before the end of the book! Also the prose was a bit poetry-ish which I really struggle with.
I'm not sure I can review this fairly, do I judge it on the best or worst of the stories? The style varies quite a bit between them which I appreciated. There were some sections that were too close to poetry which I have a kind of allergic reaction to, a bit like when I hear jazz music *shudders* I confess that I skimmed some of these bits! I also found the punctuation inside brackets a bit wearing.
There were some interesting snippets of ideas but some of these I found overwhelmed by the style she chose. I wanted to like Green Afternoon but the way she told the story lost me.
The story I liked the most was The Growing State which oddly reminded me of The Glass Hotel. The prose was more straightforward and I could understand the story. If she wrote a novel like this I would definitely read it.
The other part I enjoyed (although I didn't like the story overall) was her description of the deep sea in the last story. She must have watched the same programme as me (think it's one of The Blue Planet episodes) where there's a kind of beach/lagoon down deep underwater. It's a separate bit of water inside *another* bit of water that somehow keeps its integrity. Totally mind-bending when you see it and I've been kind of fascinated with the concept ever since.
So I think because of the bits I enjoyed I will give this a 7.
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