Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer’s review of The Renovation > Likes and Comments
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I was a bit disappointed with this, but more I think as I came to it with high expectations (based on past '5 star, Paul you should read this' recommendations) - Audition or Endling it isn't, at least for me - more Pamuk meets Exit West lite
I think Istanbul interests me much more than you and I think it was better than Exit West due to the two dimensions. Also for me the fact I can read in the original language adds a star whereas for you it loses one do I think we agree (were this translated from Turkish it would be 3 starts from me and 5 from you)
True dat. On a similar topic I am reading what looks like the best book on the US RofC. The blurb compares it to Kafka and Beckett, “as if novels had never existed and Laura Vasquez had suddenly invented them”. It’s translated and I shall no doubt award it 5 stars. In interviews the translator is often asked if she can think of any book, or indeed novelist, like it - a poet, who writes novels for the 21st century. She agrees it is almost unique - but the only real peer is …. Patricia Lockwood.
I can guarantee that if Lockwood’s books were published by a small press (which - especially her last - are way weirder than anything on the Goldsmith) were published by a small press the phrase “heavy lifting” would be employed!!!!!!
To be fair I didn't read her last. It was the shallowness of the one I did read I struggled with - the book I'm reading seems rather deeper.
Deeper than the death of a baby niece.
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Paul
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Feb 18, 2026 12:32AM
I was a bit disappointed with this, but more I think as I came to it with high expectations (based on past '5 star, Paul you should read this' recommendations) - Audition or Endling it isn't, at least for me - more Pamuk meets Exit West lite
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I think Istanbul interests me much more than you and I think it was better than Exit West due to the two dimensions. Also for me the fact I can read in the original language adds a star whereas for you it loses one do I think we agree (were this translated from Turkish it would be 3 starts from me and 5 from you)
True dat. On a similar topic I am reading what looks like the best book on the US RofC. The blurb compares it to Kafka and Beckett, “as if novels had never existed and Laura Vasquez had suddenly invented them”. It’s translated and I shall no doubt award it 5 stars. In interviews the translator is often asked if she can think of any book, or indeed novelist, like it - a poet, who writes novels for the 21st century. She agrees it is almost unique - but the only real peer is …. Patricia Lockwood.
I can guarantee that if Lockwood’s books were published by a small press (which - especially her last - are way weirder than anything on the Goldsmith) were published by a small press the phrase “heavy lifting” would be employed!!!!!!
To be fair I didn't read her last. It was the shallowness of the one I did read I struggled with - the book I'm reading seems rather deeper.
Deeper than the death of a baby niece.
