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Lädt ... Lotevon Shola von Reinhold
Keine Lädt ...
Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. Very interesting and fun read and a book I want to talk about endlesslym. It is so smart. The writing is original and playful, but the pacing is not always well-balanced. Nevertheless, I prefer an original voice over a perfect craftsperson. ( ) The Protestant work ethic vs the Roman Catholic High Mass. The Dave Matthews Band vs George Clinton and Parliament. Vanilla vs Ben & Jerry's Schweddy Balls. To this illustrious history of the proud representatives of the dull and the fabulous, this novel gives us the Garreaux Residency vs LOTE. Winner of the 2021 Republic of Consciousness prize for UK small press fiction, Lote for me has a foot in each camp. Some really interesting stuff here, yet also often really boring, thesis and antithesis produce a synthesis of 3 stars. Mathilda, who is Black, British, poor, and queer, is an Escape artist. Facing racial, sexual, gender, and economic oppression, she survives by jumping from one name and life into another. The constant is her fascination with the eccentric non-conforming socialite Modernists of 1920s Britain. While researching them she stumbles across a photo that sets her on a quest to uncover buried artistic history: in the photo is a "lost" artist from that period - the black, female, and queer poet Hermia Druitt, who despite having no money herself seems to have belonged to a subset of this counterculture. Hermia thus shares significant similarities of identity with Mathilda, and is the basis for an exploration of two related phenomenon: the hidden history of black artists in Europe in earlier decades, and the added racialized pathologizing of black eccentrics in an already suspect general class of eccentrics. This is most interestingly explored in passage in a (fictional) generally unknown essay Mathilda discovers about a (fictional) Hermia: Her costumes had the ability to temporarily dazzle onlookers into confusion, or sometimes admiration and awe. At the very least they could shut people up, even if they went on to racialize what they saw, rather than view it as a creative trait like her outlandish peers or enshrine it as 'eccentricity'. Mathilda discovers that Hermia and her friends were involved in an occult society that attempted to contact the Luxuries - black Angelic beings connected to the Lotus Eaters of Greek myth. In a curious coincidence (or is it?) Mathilda is awarded a place in an artists residency in a continental European town where Hermia and friends formed their LOTE society, where there is located a pillar dedicated to the medieval saint Christina the Astonishing (the very subject of the fine Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song of that name, which is neither here nor there, really...) and which they believed contains trapped Luxuries. This residency turns out to represent the opposing force to LOTE, the Luxuries, and all expressions of sensory enjoyment. It represents Odysseus dragging his men away from the island paradise of the Lotus Eaters so they can suffer and die properly, as they're expected to. Based on the "thought art" of John Garreaux, residents spurn all but the most dully utilitarian in all sense modes, speak incomprehensible jargon reminiscent of corporate speak, and preach "self-abnegation", which includes producing art that will intentionally never be shown to another living person (an ironic claiming on the part of privileged white people of something that is forced on dispossessed black people like Hermia and Mathilda, the denial and hiding of their true core). This was a big part of my problem with this novel. The Garreaux Residency is satire, and satire is a literary form that is my Achilles heel. I usually tend to find it dull, uninteresting, and unengaging, and this was no exception, alas. The whole Garreaux facet of the novel was tiresome for me and it's a large part of the work. In the end it unsurprisingly turns out to be intimately tied up with Hermia and LOTE, which I think works well enough, but it takes a long time to get there. Ok one small thing I only discovered after buying it and finishing it: apparently the kindle ebook has at least a few pages missing. I sort of noticed one or two abrupt transitions but I assumed it was a stylistic choice I think haha. Anyway so don't get that! I still absolutely loved it but yeah I was hovering around a 4 but ultimately I was in awe of the construction of the novel - the amount of depth, the layers, the way everything is knitted together. The engagement with very topical stuff around racism and decolonialism in culture/the arts that makes a very clear and important point while still engaging deeply and making you think about it in ways past straight didactic writing. The clearly in depth research around modernism, Black artists and the Bright Young Things that weaves in a deep and believable story about a fictional person around many real figures I'd not heard of before. The strange, slightly unreal town of Dun. The even stranger realm of "Thought Art" and its inscrutable leader Garreaux, which acts as a parody of art academia in general and its focus on a certain kind of theory and abstractness over the sensual but is developed so well as to be its brilliant own thing, far above just a parody. (this bit reminded me of the Third Policeman and Dalkey) On a personal level the kind of "decadence" advocated here isn't something that appeals to me, but obviously this doesn't matter. The author makes a great case for reclaiming ornament and luxury - not strictly as a "radical project", but simply as something that the oppressed deserve in itself, for its own enjoyment. The power of ornament and dress to give you power over how you're perceived so you're not *just* seen and defined by being Black in a racist society is emphasised. The mystery of what's behind Garreuax's project - seemingly a negation of art as pleasure and appearance - and the steady reveal of the life of Black poet, performance artist and socialite Hermia Druitt and *her* project is absolutely compelling and intricately designed. It fascinates me as a lover of mysteries and puzzles. The final "reveals" are worth it - clearly just a build up of what's gone before and yet still surprising and clever... but also with some lingering mystery at the end. This debut novel is full to the brim of fascinating ideas, is of a literary bent, with a dollop of art and (? invented) art theory. Weaves itself around identities and histories, visible, invisible, suppressed, repressed, exposed, lived, sought and enjoyed. It gets a bit bogged down in the middle and may have benefited from one more edit, but it left me with plenty to ponder upon and enjoy. I suspect Von Reinhold was inspired by A S Byatt's [Possession], with their documents and biographies and layers of research. Bold for a debut novel, and I will very definitely be looking for their work in the future. One of the #Twentyin2020 novels, a collaboration between Jacaranda and Words of Colour Productions, to publish 20 novels by black British writers in 2020. Zeige 5 von 5
“Shola von Reinhold, in her novel Lote / (A book which I advise you to procure) / Says ornament’s divine, one should devote / One’s soul to it, that that’s what life is for.” "Lote is like catnip for an academic audience: the novel is about intellectual labor and archival erasure, a kind of speculative fiction of Black trans/queer life largely absent from the British modernist canon. . . . Drop what you are doing and order a copy right now!" "This book works to unpack the whitewashing, as well as the suppression of queerness, throughout history as Mathilda discovers more about Hermia and the residency’s role in her erasure. Written by a queer person for queer people, this book deals with the subject matter in an intersectional and refreshing way." "A tour de force. . . . The luscious, textured writing is astonishingly good, full of surprises and little-known information. . . . Truly brilliant . . . on every level, leaving the reader very much wanting more." "Author Shola von Reinhold's very first book, LOTE, is a tour de force. . . . The luscious, textured writing is astonishingly good, full of surprises and little-known information." AuszeichnungenBemerkenswerte Listen
"Solitary Mathilda has long been enamored with the 'Bright Young Things' of the 20s, and throughout her life, her attempts at reinvention have mirrored their extravagance and artfulness. After discovering a photograph of the forgotten Black modernist poet Hermia Druitt, who ran in the same circles as the Bright Young Things that she adores, Mathilda becomes transfixed and resolves to learn as much as she can about the mysterious figure. Her search brings her to a peculiar artists' residency in Dun, a small European town Hermia was known to have lived in during the 30s. The artists' residency throws her deeper into a lattice of secrets and secret societies that takes hold of her aesthetic imagination, but will she be able to break the thrall of her Transfixions? From champagne theft and Black Modernisms, to art sabotage, alchemy and lotus-eating proto-luxury communist cults, Mathilda's journey through modes of aesthetic expression guides her to truth and the convoluted ways it is made and obscured"-- Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-Klassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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