I didn't "love" it, but I kept hammering away at it, and felt no desire to give up on it, even when it was annoying me.
Some elements of it are excruciating, and they are meant to be: Iris' depression, her pointless, ridiculous job, her inability to speak up for herself, her inability to make positive changes in her life, her inability to read others in any way except through the lens of her own misery ... It's excruciating because you may recognize it, especially after the past two years. It doesn't make it easier, or more pleasant to read.
There were times when I felt that Sauma lingered too long on her "clever-clever" depictions of Iris' First-World problems -- the job, the relationship, the drinking, the dysfunctional family -- possibly indulging herself a bit because, to be fair, she does it very well. Some of the excruciating bits were actually very funny -- the "corporate speak" of Iris' workplace and co-workers, and the nonsense pedalled by the management training course she's sent on -- are right on the money. I just worry that Sauma kept at it because she was having too much fun, skewering a certain kind of London lifestyle -- to the detriment of the narrative as a whole.
It's also one of those novels where a "literary" author uses a trope of science fiction -- but, as you read on, you suspect the author has never actually read an SF novel in his/her life. And the novel itself exists in an alternative universe in which SF doesn't exist, because no one, not one single character, says, "Dude, this is NOT going to end well. Didn't you ever read "X," or watch movie "Y"? ..." This is very frustrating for Someone (ok, me) who reads a lot of SF, and finds disbelief is unsuspended as I find myself thinking "... this has been done before, or done better, or why the heck is she doing THAT ...?
I was disappointed in the ending. Because I didn't feel that the metaphor of the novel completely paid off, or told me anything I didn't know. It was hardly earth-shattering, I'm afraid. And there's the disappointment, in a book that otherwise I found well-written and thought-provoking.
Some elements of it are excruciating, and they are meant to be: Iris' depression, her pointless, ridiculous job, her inability to speak up for herself, her inability to make positive changes in her life, her inability to read others in any way except through the lens of her own misery ... It's excruciating because you may recognize it, especially after the past two years. It doesn't make it easier, or more pleasant to read.
There were times when I felt that Sauma lingered too long on her "clever-clever" depictions of Iris' First-World problems -- the job, the relationship, the drinking, the dysfunctional family -- possibly indulging herself a bit because, to be fair, she does it very well. Some of the excruciating bits were actually very funny -- the "corporate speak" of Iris' workplace and co-workers, and the nonsense pedalled by the management training course she's sent on -- are right on the money. I just worry that Sauma kept at it because she was having too much fun, skewering a certain kind of London lifestyle -- to the detriment of the narrative as a whole.
It's also one of those novels where a "literary" author uses a trope of science fiction -- but, as you read on, you suspect the author has never actually read an SF novel in his/her life. And the novel itself exists in an alternative universe in which SF doesn't exist, because no one, not one single character, says, "Dude, this is NOT going to end well. Didn't you ever read "X," or watch movie "Y"? ..." This is very frustrating for Someone (ok, me) who reads a lot of SF, and finds disbelief is unsuspended as I find myself thinking "... this has been done before, or done better, or why the heck is she doing THAT ...?
I was disappointed in the ending. Because I didn't feel that the metaphor of the novel completely paid off, or told me anything I didn't know. It was hardly earth-shattering, I'm afraid. And there's the disappointment, in a book that otherwise I found well-written and thought-provoking.
