Hi guys it's Aisling but chatting to you again with some book recommendations.
So this month I'm gonna talk to you about who I think is one of my new favourite
authors and her name is Daisy Johnson. Now a few of you might know Daisy as she
was one of the shortlisted authors for this year's Man Booker Prize for her
book Everything Under which I'm gonna talk about in just one moment because I
discovered Daisy's writing through her first book of short stories which is
called Fen. Now I actually have to recommend this to anybody who has any
sort of interest in short fiction, short stories or what can be done with that
form. This book is amazing, I gave it a five star rating on Goodreads.
I absolutely flew through it and usually with shorter fiction you know it's
harder to grab the reader's attention and kind of keep them on tender hooks
and keep them reading but this is the most creative collection of short
stories I've ever read. My favourite story was the first one, I'm just gonna check
the name for you here.... it's called Starver. So it's about two sisters and one
sister is kind of you know she sort of develops maybe an eating disorder, we
don't know, and she stops eating and she gets thinner and thinner and thinner and
it's kind of following the two sisters and talking about school and stuff. And
then eventually the sister starves herself so much that she turns into a
fish and swims away out of her sister's arms. And that's all I'm gonna tell you
because I just think that is so beautiful and unique and magical. They're
kind of like these dark sort of absorbing fairy tales set on this kind
of fenland, hence the name, and it's just, I've never had anything like it.
Dark, murky, wet, kind of strangely delightful tales. I really recommend this.
So this was a great opener before I read Daisy's first novel Everything Under,
which like I said was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize this year. And I can
definitely see why. It's a story about a young woman called Gretel
and it follows her point of view in the present and in the past. So we're
going through how she's feeling now; she's estranged from
her mother but she's been looking for her mother for years. And then the
story from the past is when they both used to live on a boat together. They
lived this kind of feral, nomadic life where they were sort of traveling around.
They lived on this boat, they lived in kind of a horse's stable
for a while but for one point in time this teenage runaway called Marcus lived
with them as well and a lot of the book is Gretel trying to sort of remember
this story.So we get segments of the book told from Gretel's point of view in
the past and the present and then Marcus as well. Now the book itself, not to spoil
anything, but I think this is widely known, it's a modern sort of retelling of
Oedipus. Which is absolutely fascinating but I
just want to preface this by saying you don't need to know anything about Oedipus
to enjoy this book because I actually don't even know that much.
I know the basic story with the eyes coming out and you know what the
Oracle told Oedipus. But it still is an amazing read because you're sort of
waiting to see how she's gonna make this happen, how is she gonna reveal you know
the big kind of climax, the horror to us. And you won't be
disappointed, trust me. And one thing I really want to praise this book for as
well is the depiction of different genders or gender fluidity or whatever
you want to say. And there's two characters in it who kind of they're
floating in between different genders or they've changed their gender and I think
just the way it's handled, I really want to commend Daisy for that
I think it's really beautifully and gently handled and I loved it, I loved the
characters in it. Especially the character of Marcus who originally
starts off as Margo which is very, very interesting. He kind of runs away
and becomes Marcus then once he's run away from his home and then all their
stories collide and it's just beautiful and the language is amazing. And I would
recommend this for anybody interested in literary fiction and I don't think it's a
difficult read which I'm gonna use as a compliment you know. Despite all
the themes and everything that's going on here
it should be very difficult and it should be clunky but it's just not. She
pulls it off, Daisy Johnson, in such a way that it just, I feel like it's enjoyable
no matter what. And I was definitely you know reading and reading and reading
until the very end. Another aspect of the book that I really really enjoyed was
this monster called the Bonak, which the mother and Gretel you know
they kind of convince themselves lives in the river on which
they live, because they're living on a boat at the time. It's beautiful and the
theme of language as well is very strong as well. Because Gretel you know she
rewrites, updates dictionaries, so there's a lot of focus on words and words that
her and her mother made up. You know they basically spoke their own language to
each other you know when it's just two people living at such close quarters
that's kind of what happens. And how language can betray
you and you know when you find out the true meaning of words or that certain
words don't exist it's brilliant. And then the character of the mother
is handled beautifully as well you know. She does find her mother, early enough on
you're told this in the book so it's not spoiler, she does find her. And she's very
much changed, you know, she's older, she's not the kind of ballsy, strong,
physically strong woman that she used to be when Gretel was a child. And
her deterioration is very, very sad to read but very, very real. So I loved the
way that was handled as well. So I'm gonna recommend this for anybody who
wants some fiction that's a bit dark, but not dreary, still beautiful, still
bright and effervescent and flowing just like the river that it's set on. So guys
I hope you enjoyed those two recommendations that's Fen and
Everything Under by Daisy Johnson. I'll talk to you guys soon with another
recommendation, bye!