[ad_1]
It is not considered very pleasant as critics to include their own ego too much in their reviews. But this time, I don’t know how to accomplish the mission without revealing anything about me. I have, let’s say, a little difficult for bathroom humor. In fact, I find it difficult to even write the word “bathroom humor”. I don’t want anyone to know that I know what a bathroom is it is.
And Jen Beagin’s “Dust Suction in the Dark” has got to be the safest book he’s ever read.
From the beginning You should have guessed anxiety: The first chapter of the novel is called “Lows.” Mona, a 26-year-old maid who runs away from her past, cleans herself in a blind woman’s home and has begun to find feces in refined hiding places around the house. Human like that, it seems. A short time before, she began a relationship with the man of the house, whom she calls Dark. To further complicate matters, she is also intensely attracted to her visually impaired wife.
In fact, Mona is intensely attracted to almost everyone she meets. And the fact is, the same is true of everyone who knows her. To continue the Freudian reading, all the inhabitants of the novel appear wandering: meaningless, excited and unable to act, driven by an indomitable desire to hurt themselves and others. “He realized he wanted to lick his eyeballs,” says Mona as soon as she meets the so-called Dark. “I want to put my armpits on,” she says shortly after. “You make my stand stop,” he replies. I think it’s meant to be romantic, maybe even a little exciting.
Perhaps you might think that the focus would shift slightly on the remaining three parts, all of which take place at each location with each set of bifigures and Mona as a constant center, but unfortunately each chapter could have received its name. Silly Mona renamed the self-help book “That Aunt Eckhart Tolles” “The Power of Now” to “The Power of Poop”, and suddenly you find yourself on a page you never thought you would find: Eckhart Tolles. When you get a small dog donated by a pinion seller, quaint, right? – He wonders nervously: “Was there a way to get a look at the dog’s asshole?”
The plausible tone drowns out parts that might otherwise have affected the reader. Almost all of the novel characters have been subjected to incest, horrific abuse, unimaginable pain, and God knows what else, and he does this by making friends and finding grumpy parades like paying an Indian man to read the wedding speech to him. mother. Afterward, Jen Beagin thanks someone who “edited the seriousness” of the novel. It shouldn’t have been done.
Occasionally, American Jen Beagin reminds British author Deborah Levy, whose novel characters must also always be unconventional. Beagin has said in interviews that the novels, “Dust Pickup in the Dark” and the precursor “Pretend but dead” (not translated into Swedish), represent her own life as she wishes it had become.
But towards the end, everything becomes a kind of emo version of “Bridget Jones’s Diary”, where the protagonist is forced to choose between the evil Dark and the good Kurt (who himself writes his name with C, but “K has a backbone “). A thousand times I prefer to read about the fun, smart, and believable “Bridget Jones Diary”. I’d almost prefer to read Aunt Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Poop.”
Read more reviews and other texts by Greta Thurfjell here
