From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

Milkman

Anna Burns

Start date: March 15, 2020

Finish date: April 1, 2020

Discussion: Reading List

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Reading List

* The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
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What Members Thought

Sep 25, 2018 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was ok

Shelves: booker-winners-and-listed, reviewcopy, read2018, location-ireland, ebooks

I don't even know if I should say I read this book. I read the first 20% and set it aside, confused as to what I was reading. I'd heard it was set in Ireland during The Troubles but it felt more like a dystopian novel where everyone is just a nickname/archetype/category and the women are powerless. I picked the novel back up the week the Man Booker shortlist was going to be announced and pushed through for another 10%, and this included a horrific description of animal murder and a town hardly l ...more

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Jan 19, 2019 Ken marked it as abandoned · review of another edition

I started reading and walking at the same time when I noticed eight maids-a-milking following me and *click* went a nearby bush and *click* went a nearby tree and I said to definitely-wife when I got home first, I think I'm being watched, and second, How could this be when there are no longer maids-a-milking in the world, but it mattered not because number-one-sis told me that rumors were already flying that I was fraternizing with milky-skinned women who were not only stalking me but apparently I started reading and walking at the same time when I noticed eight maids-a-milking following me and *click* went a nearby bush and *click* went a nearby tree and I said to definitely-wife when I got home first, I think I'm being watched, and second, How could this be when there are no longer maids-a-milking in the world, but it mattered not because number-one-sis told me that rumors were already flying that I was fraternizing with milky-skinned women who were not only stalking me but apparently stalking definitely-wife because they knew that I had spoken to her of them and that she had lifted her eyebrows in wonder and said, Does your mum know? Lord, if my mum knows, that's the end of it, as she is a well-respected lady in this politically-fraught neighborhood, in fact someone who can read books that consist of giant paragraphs from Mars, in fact someone who can skip entire pages and chapters even, landing wherever and picking up seamlessly as if my narrative had no seams and I was the King of Digressions in a land that has no kings (but certainly has digressions, as I explained to definitely-wife, who immediately saw the humor in it and said, Life is too short and paragraphs are too long and there's no accounting for tastes when it comes to Man, oh Man prizes or Booker, Dan-O, prizes, and that even though you can be clever and funny in a prolix way it is bound to drive some people crazy whether the car is standard or automatic), and why do you think there are so many lactose-intolerant readers in the world, anyway? But I digress. And if you want to jump 47 pages from here, I promise that you won't really miss much anything because not much anything is happening and your job is to be fascinated, I gather, with my voice, I gather, and my maybe-stream-of-consciousness (or preciousness, or whateverness) and, honest, I'd like to wrap this review up, but I feel compelled to go on with impunity because I can and I have and there's milk to be delivered and I keep hearing that *click*-ing sound from the bushes (not George bushes, either), which can only mean Google or Twitter or possibly the Russians or their friends the Republicans are watching, and where is George Orwell of the Milk Mustache when you need him, anyway? So, yeah, definitely-wife, I am in fairness not starring this because in fairness I only made it through 100 pages, though in fairness feel I could have read the first sentence of every paragraph (as they arrived each five pages) and had the basic gist of this entire book anyway, but no, I said, that's no way to read a book, I said, even this book, I said. Other matters were more pressing, anyway, like other books with more conventional paragraphs and less patience-trying voices and maybe this is all about me and my lack of prize-winning taste and maybe it isn't and I'll have to take it up with sisters number one and two and my maybe-dog (who needs a maybe-walk despite the maybe-sleet falling outside) and, of course, definitely-wife who is always reading Sense & Sensibility and thus approving of my disapproving, or at least has been like that up until now. *Click.* ...more

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Jun 02, 2021 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: location-ireland, booker-winners-and-listed, tournament-of-books, europepic, june, europe-2021, hoopla, reread, read2021, audiobook

I tackled this again for the Tournament of Books Tournament of Favorites, but now I'm not sure that's happening, so I'll have to get back to you. ...more

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Jun 11, 2022 Clifford rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, audiobooks

Milkman by Anna Burns won the Man Booker Prize a couple of years ago and it’s no surprise. It’s an impressive achievement of voice and, at the same time, of social commentary. I’ve seen complaints about its lack of a plot, and it’s true that the central conflict could probably have been presented and resolved in a short story, but there is so much more to admire here than just the plot. The narrator is a young woman who has a boyfriend (or a “maybe-boyfriend”) but she is also being stalked by a ...more

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Apr 16, 2019 Melissa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: macreads

Astonishing- innovative structure and a simply astonishing ability to draw the reader into the mind of the first-person narrator. Set in an unnamed Belfast during the Troubles of the 1970s, the story as it unravels features nothing but the unmediated thoughts of the story’s 18 year old female protagonist, which come tumbling out with startling but utterly convincing insight, self-doubt, stubbornness, and insight. Her thoughts and experience of her life under constricted, frightening conditions, ...more

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Apr 09, 2020 Jane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: womans-story, grief, geographical, family-story, historical-fiction, political, my-own-books, feminism

Not easy for me. I much preferred the audio, but either our player or the CDs kept messing up. I got into a rhythm and I'd heard enough of the audio to have that reader's voice and it was fabulous. The Irish lilt, the music of the endless sentences and paragraphs flowed as I listened. Sometimes, when I gave up with the CDs, I'd read aloud, trying to catch her voice.

I know the run-on-ness of maybe girlfriend's sentences capture her mind and the chaos of the Northern Ireland in which she is strug ...more

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