Splithead

by Julya Rabinowich, Tess Lewis (Translator)

'My father and I head towards a nervous breakdown as he attempts to erase three years of Communist indoctrination in the course of a single evening. I simply cannot comprehend that Lenin, the friend of all children, is now allegedly an arsehole.' When 7-year-old Mischka and her family flee the oppressive USSR for the freedom of Vienna, her world seems to divide neatly in there's life as she knew it before, and life as she must re-learn it now. But even as she's busy dressing her new Barbie, perfecting her German, and gorging on fresh fruit, Mischka is aware that there's part of her that can never escape her homeland, with its terrifying folktales, its insidious anti-Semitism, and its old family secrets. As her parents' marriage splinters and her sister retreats into silence, Mischka has to find her own way of living when her head and her heart are in two places at once. There is darkness galore in this novel. But there is also much comedy to be had in its twisted enchanted tales. It is as seductive and unsettling as similar work by Angela Carter or Margaret Atwood, while it shares a geography with Everything Is Illuminated and If I Told You Once.

Genres: Fiction, Jewish

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

1970 in Russland geboren, im Alter von 7 Jahren nach Österreich "verpflanzt" worden.
Ist eine österreichische Schriftstellerin, sowie Kollumnistin (derStandard, Falter).

Reviews

[katharina · Rating 4 out of 5]

ich plündere ihn aus, während er mich verhungern lässt. wir sprechen die gleiche sprache und begreifen kein wort.

[Marina Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd read some short stories by Rabinowich in German before and she has a good grasp of the contradictions of the city of Vienna, which became her second home. So I was curious to read more about her initial move from St Petersburg to Vienna with her parents, when she was a child. It was especially interesting in the description of their life before they left the Soviet Union, but I could have done with more about the struggle of adaptation and less Baba Yaga conceit.

[Gretel · Rating 1 out of 5]

This could've been awesome. The start shows promise, but my hopes were soon dashed. The prose sparkles in places, but not enough to actually make me like the book. The story is too fragmented and jumps around for no good reason. I wanted to read about an escape from the USSR and the treatment new immigrants to Vienna faced, but it was just dull. Nobody in the book is likeable and Rabinowich takes the story in the direction of a girly acid trip diary kind of thing. There are plenty of themes the author could've taken hold of and written about in more detail, which is a shame.

[Ivana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aaaaaaah, zamorno.

[Geraldine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A heavily autobiographical novel, really interesting but possibly tried to do too much in a fairly short book, (it covers the period from when the girl narrator is 7 until she is a mother and introduces many of her large family briefly).

[Kris McCracken · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novel of two parts, really. One part I quite liked, the other part, not so much. I don't mind the fragmentary re-telling of memory from childhood, but the (almost) magical realist side story drifting back into a past before our narrator's birth I could have done with less of.

[Christina · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books I´ve ever read. The title and short synopsis suggest a novel about the migration of a young girl from former UdSSR to Vienna, but actually this is a coming-of-age-story like hundreds others. The story starts off well but very soon you can follow the growing up of a very unpleasing and not likeable at all girl, who is never willing to understand the words respect or consequence. It seems like Mischka could never overcome the fact of being the older daughter. The reality of migrants to europe before the fall of the Iron Curtain is just touched slightly here and there, but all in all its a not structured and not thought through story of an unthankful, manipulative and simply mean young girl around family members who are all consumed by their own unhappiness but are at least the slightest bit sympathetic and trying to connect to Mischka.
I truly can´t understand the genius everybody sees in Rabinowich, definitely not to recommend.