Foggy
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Erica Wagner's Seizure is, I'm afraid, a triumph of style over substance.
Janet, who seems to be American, has issues with her mother. She believed her mother died when she was three, but the novel kicks off when a solicitor tells the adult Janet that she has inherited a cottage in Scotland from her mother who has died three weeks ago. There she meets Tom and falls in love. There are back stories of small people being told bedtime stories. There was also the device of the title, where Janet had seizures - presumably of the epileptic variety. I missed the significance of this to the plot. Instead, it just seemed like padding.
The writing aims for high poetry, at the expense of clarity and interest. There are switches between the story telling and the "reality" that are not clearly signposted and it is often unclear exactly who is narrating at any given point. I think the narration involved both Tom and Janet as children, being told stories that had parallels with the lives they were living, but it all became a bit of a fog. I suspect we might have been told up front that Janet was American, although I missed it. Thus, I wondered why an apparently British story was talking about Jell-O, parking lots and sneakers. It was only during a laboured discussion of first floor and second floor near the end that the penny dropped. Then I thought back on what I had read before, trying to piece together who did what to whom, when and where. But I gave up because it was making my head spin.
Seizure felt like a self-conscious attempt to create art - but one where the intricate details formed together to create a blur of boredom. The stylized ambiguity felt like a ploy to hide the lack of anything significant going on. It was an effort to reach the end of this rather short novel, and one that ultimately disappointed. There was no great moment of clarity or understanding at the end. Just more fog.
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Poetic prose but a long read
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The languauge in this novel is very beautiful and atmospheric, but a times gets in the way of telling the story which is longet than needs be.
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Nice prose, shame about the content!
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I look forward to reading the Books section of the Times every Saturday. As it is edited by Erica Wagner, the opportunity to read her novel attracted me. It is no doubt beautifully written (Booker ambition?). But the story was long, drawn out and very predictable. I actually skipped through pages to see if what I thought might happen would! It is a shame as I had hoped for something more from a woman who's opinion I respect. Only worth reading if you are into beautiful prose exclusively.
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