The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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Such a Fun Age
Booker Prize for Fiction
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2020 Booker Longlist: Such a Fun Age
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I quite like the way she presented that coincidence, blunt rather than slow build on something like that. I imagine some people may have thrown the book at the wall at the point of reveal had she done it the more common way.
Yes I quite liked it as well in that sense.
I was just typing exactly what Ang said. It made the immediately following parallel girlfriend-share-a-secret-scenes informative (both as to narrative and to the reasons for subsequent character behaviour) rather than ridiculously revelatory.
I read a very enjoyable psychological thriller (literally on the beach) last year which used a similar technique and it worked well there too I felt.
I also thought the last line of the novel was excellent and to me showed that both the author and her character are deeper than one could otherwise think.
I am not a fan of dialogue heavy books, so again, I’m disinclined to read this, I’ll wait for the movie.
I can’t see it will make a great movie either. Albeit they will I hope ditch a lot of the exposition every time a character wanders on to the page. The author seems incapable of showing someone’s traits, even minor characters, without telling us their life history (“Between 2001 and 2004, Alix Chamberlain sent over one hundred letters and received over nine hundred dollars’ worth of merchandise”, "Jodi was a children's casting director, who had two red-headed young children aged four and one who often appeared as crying extras on TV shows and movies")The Guardian interview with the author is headlined ‘Some black women say: "I don’t want to explain anything." I’m not one of them' which I understand in terms of the issues of race, but doesn't need to be extended to all aspects of the book.
Feels odd that this book has come out of a writer's workshop program as feels the sort of draft one would take along to it. But perhaps I'm out of touch and the classic 'show don't tell' is now 'tell don't show.'
Not sure I will express this very well - but here goes ….One thing that I think matters a lot to Kiley Reid is producing rounded characters. Pretty well every character in the book comes off badly at some point, but in pretty well every case we understand something of their motivations (or what in their background drives that behaviour). Reader empathy for her characters is something she talks about a lot (and I think delivers).
The way she does this is a bit unusual - but it is via these expositionary vignettes and I think it does work.
I will give an example - a short passage early on sketches out (in what seemed to me on first read like annoyingly precise) details of her family's careers ("second place in National Latte Art Competition in 2013") - but its crucial to establishing part of Emira's character (as described in the blurb).
I can see the point.But to me it made the characters so artificial - in reality people don't walk around with "second place in National Latte Art Competition in 2013" stickers on their heads - that I didn't believe in any of them as people so there was zero empathy created.
As someone who manages a coffee shop - yes they do.
You still owe me 15 pounds for the dry cleaning bill after I came into your coffee shop and bought an almond croissant to take away on my way to a client meeting. One bite and I was enveloped in a cloud of icing sugar.Actually 15 pounds plus the lost of revenue when I turned up at the client meeting looking like a ghost.
I still walk around with “able to walk through a dancing crowd with a tray of drinks over my head in one hand” sticker (in my mind,) so it’s totally believe that 7 yrs later someone is proud of 2nd best latte competition.
Heck, I get excited when I set a personal record when I do a bike ride, even when I'm in a 20-way tie 385th place out of 700 hundred others who have ridden the same route and I'm inclined to tell whoever is near me when I get the notification. Twenty years ago, I won the first place trophy in my age group in a 10km race (running), and finished last. I still tell everyone about it! And it is a detail that tells people something about me -- I may not be the best but I like to compete and do better when I have competition than without, even if the competition is virtual.
There you go. Trivia about someone is a window into their character.
I have to agree with Paul. The characters were rather artificial. But that's because they are rounded, to reiterate Gumble Yard's point. People are contradictions and I didn't get that from any of them. Reid's expositions didn't give me why I should sympathise, but rather the reasons for why they did the things they did. Does she tell us why Kelley like black people so much? Is it because of basketball? Or something else I missed? You don't really need a reason to hang out with people of differnt race, but for a novel that gives all the reaosns as to why the characters are like the way they are. i expected some exposition on Kelley too.
I think Reid aims for empathy (in the sense of understanding someone's motivations) rather than sympathy. As for Kelley - let's pause that discussion until after the shortlist is announced.
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Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer
(last edited Sep 03, 2020 05:28AM)
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rated it 2 stars
Interesting comments from the Booker site just now - which I believe fits the debate we are having quite well ..., Why did you decide to tell this story as a satire?
Paul Harding, one of my professors in graduate school, always said that the job of a writer was not so much to tell a story, but to explain life’s moments so accurately that they become almost haunting. I wanted to achieve this level of accuracy in Such A Fun Age and it became impossible not to satirize the systems that drove the characters’ behavior, whether it was “diversity” as perceived by the liberal elite, or how feminism operates under capitalism.
I also think that working through a lense of satire allows me to have more empathy for my characters. I see them and their actions as symptoms of history and broken systems, and it gives me the freedom to grant them big wins on some pages and let them behave quite poorly on others. An even hand was also important in terms of poking fun at the bourgeoisie. I wanted a novel that even one of the most harmful characters would pick up and enjoy
Now Paul Harding's Tinkers does this very well. I should be receiving Such a Fun Age soon so I'd like to see how she adopted this philosophy
Paul wrote: "Yes I think the author has gone out of her way to be unsubtle in her depiction precisely as she wants the issues to be out in the open rather than alluded to. But then I don’t see what the enormous coincidence that dominates the novel adds to the discussion of race."
I'm with you on this Paul. I don't see how the coincidence furthered the story other than to show the cliched, exaggerated (once again) response of the mother. She acted like a teenager about the coincidence.
Well, I'm no expert, but the 'satire' she talks only works in the beginning. It felt like it devolved into toxic caricature as the novel went on.
Thinking about the book in terms of satire helps me understand my reaction to it. I admit to not being a fan of satire because I'm not particularly good at perceiving it! Looking back, now that I've been told it's satire, I see it and it makes me like the book more than I did.
My video review:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ubfb...Careful, the snark level is high!
If - I do come across as racist- which is not my intention, do tell me and I'll rerecord
That was Such a Fun RageI particularly loved the bit when you said “that’s enough about the negative” but then said a whole lot more.
Robert! That was hilarious! You did not sound racist, first, so don’t worry about that, and now I’m glad that didn’t spend money on this.
Interesting article about how getting health insurance is taking over in American novel plots from seeking marriage. https://electricliterature.com/the-he...
In the US 42 million died a year from lack of medical care before the Affordable Care Act aka ACA aka Obamacare, yet it is has been squarely in the sites of Republicans ever since it was voted into law. It seems a boring topic for a novel, but Ella can tell you how the lack of health care coverage can effect every aspect of one’s life: mental health meds, chronic illness meds that allow one to work, debt that costs families their home, parents with kids with serious life threatening conditions, lack of therapies and treatments for traumatic injuries, pre-existing conditions, I’m not suprised having medical coverage is the measure of success now in novels now.
Actually the health care angle did not bother me at all in such a fun age - I’ve never read about that in a novel
WndyJW wrote: "In the US 42 million died a year from lack of medical care before the Affordable Care Act aka ACA aka Obamacare, yet it is has been squarely in the sites of Republicans ever since it was voted into..."The article agrees - it isn't trivialising the issue but arguing it should be a key feature.
Of course nihilism is not new, and fiction has always dealt with illness, and suffering. The nihilism is because of mortality, not insurance. Health benefits can’t remove this anxiety. But not having insurance, or having other barriers to care, can press this anxiety into every day, and we already live so precariously now. Health inequity is especially present for marginalized groups, like undocumented immigrants who face greater barriers to even obtaining insurance, and Black women, who are two and half times more likely to die of maternal causes than white women.
Why wouldn’t fiction account for these anxieties around care? This is what life is like. With no right to health care in America, “real fucking jobs” with health benefits are a clear path to some security. As a reflection of this, insurance is functioning in recent fiction the way marriage did long ago: as a happy ending, as a relief.
I have cancelled my library reservation on this book, which will please everyone behind me in the queue, but means I cannot make comments in this thread, other than...Thank you everyone.
Nor me.
I wish I could say not me.
Well you will all have to blame Robert. His youtube video review was both funny and a good assessment of the book, so I decided to let the 'one book a year' readers carry on without me (besides that, I like my library and wouldn't want to deface their books).
Haha - actually I could have taken things further - I should blacked out the name to leave Rile (and add an extra 'd') then I should have misquoted the Smashing Pumpkins track bullet on Butterfly Wings'Despite all my rage, I still hated Such a Fun Age'
but I didn't - ah well
What a great song. All time classic.
Definitely- this is a deviation- I saw the video premiere on MTV. I was 16 years old and the next day that was all us music nerds spoke about at school. The album that track is on - melon collie and the infinite sadness - did not disappoint either
To divert a little further concerning the health insurance theme, I just read a non-fiction book by two Princeton Univ economists (one a Nobel prize winner) - Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism - that believes the US healthcare system is one of the primary reasons for the recent decrease in life expectancy of middle-aged white men and women in the US (caused in part by deaths of despair - suicide, opioid overdoses, and alcholism).
Now the Goodreads Choice Award winner, voted for by Goodreaders, as Best Debut Novel. I didn't think it was even in the top 5 best debut novels on the Booker list.
The Mookse and the Gripes
Books mentioned in this topic
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (other topics)Such a Fun Age (other topics)
But yes this one to be fair was a real page turner. I think if it weren't Booker listed, and I'd instead say found it in the hotel left-books section, I would have rather enjoyed it in a guilty pleasure way.
One question where I'd be interested in views. The main plot coincidence in the novel. Why does the author choose to drop it in, rather out of context (at the end of a different scene, the narrator announces suddenly words to effect of "out of the window was where X happened") rather than have it gradually dawn on us via clues, or indeed us realise when the characters do?
It worked well in one sense - as it had a bit of a 'hang on, surely that doesn't mean' jolt - but in another it speaks to the exposition heavy nature of the text. For example, I'm pretty sure when it is filmed there won't be a voiceover telling us that.