"A Stranger in Olondria" by Sofia Samatar (BR)

[Meredith]

Welcome to the buddy read for A Stranger in Olondria! Other than first impressions, please use spoiler tags and indicate chapter/percentage so others can follow the discussion as they read.

[Gabi]

I'm ready! Book bought, only short stories at the moment, so I'll start right on time. :)

[Jordan]

My copy is on its way to my library! I'll finish up The Raven Tower, which likely won't take me long and then start in on this one.

[Rachel]

I have an order in at the library so should start this week

[Meredith]

I'm about 20% in. Some interesting world-building and lovely imagery so far, (view spoiler)[ and I'm ready for stuff to start happening now. (hide spoiler)]

[Joelle.P.S]

Meredith wrote: "I'm about 20% in. Some interesting world-building and lovely imagery so far, [spoilers removed]"

Lol, I agree with your spoiler. :-)

[Gabi]

:D I reached the 20% point, so I could have a look at your spoiler, Meredith. Same here! I guess with this book I have to break my rule of not reading blurbs and have to have a look what it actually is that I'm reading.

[Rachel]

Just got it from the library today- will start after I catch up in Forgotten beasts of ELd.

[Gabi]

End of book two:
(view spoiler)[ I adored the last chapter. The recounting of the descent into madness was masterfully done (hide spoiler)]

[Rachel]

Gabi- wow that was fast!

[Gabi]

Rachel wrote: "Gabi- wow that was fast!"

It's only at 27%. ^^' I'm not very fast with this book.

[Jordan]

Woohoo, my copy came in today! I haven't had time to actually sit down and read it yet, but the page or two I perused when I picked it up were really promising.

[Rachel]

Jordan I agree- just got mine and feels like something one can sink into

[Gabi]

I'm looking forward to all of your impressionen.

I'm now at 66% End of Book 4: (view spoiler)[ I still love the prose and I still have the feeling that not much is going on. The story reads like one long, poetically written fever dream. (hide spoiler)]

[Ariana]

Gabi wrote: "I'm looking forward to all of your impressionen.

I'm now at 66% End of Book 4: [spoilers removed]"

I read this last year, and had a similar reaction. (view spoiler)[I thought the writing was lovely, but I got pretty annoyed by the lack of plot.
(hide spoiler)]

[Beth]

I am 28% in (chapter 8). Loved the beginning. I will comment more later

[Lesley]

I just finished this last night. I agree wholeheartedly with some of the sentiments that have been shared already. (view spoiler)[ The writing was beautiful and the description of characters’ feelings and places was well rendered, but as a novel, it felt disjointed. It seemed like there were multiple promising narratives that never quite wove themselves together in the end.

On another note, I almost stopped reading at the halfway mark, but I’m glad I didn’t if only for the description at the end of Chapter 19 about what it feels like to find yourself back in the real world after a good book. This book unfortunately didn’t do that for me, but I know that feeling exactly. (hide spoiler)]

[Gabi]

Lesley wrote: "I just finished this last night. I agree wholeheartedly with some of the sentiments that have been shared already. "

Yes, I wasn't sure if I should go for 3 or 4 star rating. But then the prose outweighed the story for me.

[Jordan]

I'm about a third of the way through and really loving it. All the descriptions and the writing are just so fantastic.

[Lesley]

Gabi wrote: "But then the prose outweighed the story for me."

I definitely agree about the power and imagination of the prose. For me, there were so many promising story and theme threads throughout the book, that it was disappointing when it felt like they weren’t fully realized in the end. Such as, (view spoiler)[ the idea of the importance of books and the written word in sharing history and culture. I also felt like there was a good parallel to be explored about free will and choice between Jevik being used by the two cults for their own ends and then Jissavet being kept in the dark by her father so that he could see his dream of a simpler life realized. In both storylines, other people are making choices for them, even if one feels more manipulative than the other. (hide spoiler)]

[Meredith]

I'm at the end of Book Three (47% in). I am still enjoying the language (view spoiler)[ and trying to appreciate the leisurely way the story is unfolding when I want to know more at a quicker pace. Ah, well, it is very lovely and stuff has started to happen to our main character though there isn't much feeling of urgency. I feel like I am the ghost demanding that Jevick write me a vallon and he's got other ideas. (hide spoiler)]

[Gabi]

Meredith wrote: "I'm at the end of Book Three (47% in). I am still enjoying the language [spoilers removed]"

Your comparison is quite fitting! :)

[Rachel]

I've read part 1 - love the book love ; )

[Meredith]

Ariana wrote: "Gabi wrote: "I'm looking forward to all of your impressionen.

I'm now at 66% End of Book 4: [spoilers removed]"

I read this last year, and had a similar reaction. I thought the writing was lovely..."

I'm at 66% now. Gabi and Ariana, I agree with your sentiments, (view spoiler)[ I've started to think of the book as primarily a travelogue. (hide spoiler)]

[Rachel]

I’m about 100 pages in - somewhat enjoying the pace.
But also starting to be distracted by The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

[Beth]

my review is up:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jordan]

I'm halfway through and still really enjoying it. I'm curious to see where the plot goes but I'm also just there for the lovely writing.

[Rachel]

I’m at... 85% - guess I could open up these spoilers now haha

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I am late, but less than I anticipated!

Chapter 9

(view spoiler)[ I'm having a hard time sinking into this one. I don't understand why I'm reading these things, and the onset of the madness seemed quite sudden to me--I wish there'd been more foreshadowing or a hint so we could have seen it coming. The language is beautiful but it's feeling showy for the point of being showy rather than the function of telling me a story. Hoping that changes soon. (hide spoiler)]

[thalassic]

I just read this a couple of weeks ago but I'm not on Goodreads much anymore. Is it ok if I jump in at this late point?

[Meredith]

Of course Liz! The more the merrier.

[thalassic]

Thanks!

The writing in this book is so beautiful in a quiet, slow way, almost more poetry than prose at times. I had a difficult time getting into it, but I think that my expectations got in the way and it wasn't a narrative structure that I was used to so I kept expecting the pace to speed up or something momentous to happen.

In retrospect I feel like it was more like a story about stories rather than the typical narrative. It played with the ideas of how the stories we tell influence others and how we are shaped by the stories we consume. In it, history and religion are equally just collections of stories, subjective and selectively presented to convey the writer's agenda, rather than a more objective record of events. It's probably not far off from our own reality but I don't think that most of us scrutinize them in that light very often.

(view spoiler)[Jevick devoured every story he could find and became something wholly new in his world through them. The stories were as real and important to him as his physical experiences, to the point that he literally fell in love with a disembodied spirit through her story.

In contrast, Lunre was shaped completely by the life he had abandoned and the stories he refused to tell. Even so he gave the gift of a love of stories to Jevick, and set the chain of events in motion. (hide spoiler)]

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Liz, I love that foil you found!

I seem to be with the majority of you. Gorgeous prose that just...didn't quite amount to a story for me. How did you feel about the other characters?

[Meredith]

I wish the high priest, Auram, had been developed more. (view spoiler)[ It was interesting when we saw the man behind the mask & makeup, but there was a wasted opportunity of all that time riding around the countryside in the carriage when he was just sleeping constantly instead of giving more insight into his character by having conversations with Jevik, or expounding on his evil plans, or something. At the end when we learn he just wants to burn it all down, it came out of nowhere. Hints could have been dropped along the way. (hide spoiler)]

[Meredith]

Overall, my feelings are similar to other folks. While I liked the use of language and the world that Samatar developed, the whole story didn't pull together for me. (view spoiler)[ I felt that the Jissavet storyline ended well, though I still don't know why Jevik resisted writing the vallon for so long, especially when he was fine with all the effort involved in retrieving her bones. Other story threads weren't as developed and so there wasn't a feeling of resolution at the end. (hide spoiler)]

One thing that I wish I'd noticed before I was ~90% finished reading was (view spoiler)[ on the title page, under the title, it says, "Being the Complete Memoirs of the Mystic, Jevik of Tyom." I definitely would have had a different expectation as I ws reading. I actually yelled "It's a memoir?!" when I saw that. (hide spoiler)]

[Xan]

I'm glad others are reading this amazing feast of language.

I found the young girl's story powerful; it just wasn't enough to carry the larger story. (view spoiler)[The anger felt towards her mother, the well meaning yet no less devastating lie her father told her, and the unrelenting unfairness of the disease, bewitched me , and all the more so because of the language used to tell the story. (hide spoiler)]

I give this a 5 with a caveat that it is for the beauty that jumps off every page, and not for the story.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I agree with you, Meredith.

Xan, it was beautiful! I think my favorite part about language though is what it communicates. I wish I could have gotten what you and the others found in it!

[Xan]

Allison,

The lack of story and the leisurely pace made this plodding at times, but such language is rarer than a good story, I think, and that has its own value.

I guess this was about storytelling or how lives are stories. (view spoiler)[The young girl could not rest until he captured her story. To know her story was to know her. Had he not captured her story, she would never have lived. Your story is your immortality. (hide spoiler)]

[Beth]

The leisurely pace wasn't a problem for me. On the other hand, now that I have some critical distance from the book (I finished it last week) I'm kind of unsatisfied with the characters. (I am surprised at how much I don't remember about the characters, and it's only been two weeks! I'm usually better about this, and I think the vagueness of these characters is why.) Of course, if the book had spent more time fleshing out the characters it would not necessarily be any faster paced, so that's a separate issue.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

The pacing wasn't the issue...actually I thought they sped too quickly through things! It was more that I wasn't sure what the thrust of the book was about. I didn't understand the character motivations, or why the detail about certain things was so important when we glossed over other things that felt like I'd need more time on them. I didn't have anything to grab onto for the story elements. It felt more like pretty writing for the sake of pretty writing and even in poetry I want there to be something we're exploring together.

[Jordan]

Okay, finally finished this one. I liked it a lot, but somehow despite all the descriptions and all the beautiful language I felt like I didn't really have as clear of a picture of Olondria as I felt like I should have by then end. I'm definitely going to be picking up The Winged Histories sometime in the near future.

[Alondra]

I just wanted to post here because my name is Alondra.

Thanks LOL

*runs*

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

XD Haha!

[Meredith]

Alondra wrote: "I just wanted to post here because my name is Alondra.

Thanks LOL

*runs*"

Awesome!