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Flamingo
Women's Prizes
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2022 WP longlist - Flamingo
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message 1:
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Hugh, Active moderator
(last edited Mar 08, 2022 04:47AM)
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Mar 08, 2022 03:02AM
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Flamingo by Rachel Elliott
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Pretty cover - there should be a song about it
This sounds really interesting. Has anyone read it yet?
Here is a quote from this novel. It’s reminding me of the style of another author but I wanted to see (without prompting) if anyone else saw the sameThis passage is after a character (estranged from her mum and dad) realised she no longer really takes in a pile of fly tipped rubbish she passes each day …
Funny what familiarity does to a person, a brain, the senses.
Funny that fly tipping is a term only applied to rubbish, when it’s usage could be wider
To throw things away in the fly, on the sly
Don’t we do that with human beings too? Discard them without care, as if they were trash that meant nothing to us?
She thinks of her parents, just for a minute.
I have fly tipped my parents, she thinks.
And the fly tipping of her parents, that too will blur over again. It’s happening right now as we speak. Like the graffiti on the wall that Eve will pass every day. See it now blurring? Catch it while you can, before it —
Hazy, soft focus, world obscured until something makes you look again, look closely, or see in a way you’ve never seen before.
Crisis makes us look.
Art makes us look.
You’re on pace to finish the longlist by the end of March.
message 7:
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Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer
(last edited Mar 13, 2022 05:30AM)
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rated it 3 stars
I need to get as much done as possible by then as I start having to work for a living from the 28th (as opposed to currently being paid not to work - my gardening leave is reading leave)
I am 90 pages into this one and liking it a great deal. Not sure exactly where it's going yet, but I am completely engaged. One thing I've started to wonder is whether each judge got to include a few books on the longlist on her own, without debate. You could almost group the 16 books into clusters by style or type, and I'm starting to try to guess which judges pushed for which books (apart from the obvious Carless plug by Pandora). It makes for a somewhat random-feeling longlist and also suggests a somewhat divided judging panel. Maybe there is hope that things will tighten considerably for the shortlist.
Which books would you group together, Cindy?
Certainly Flamingo, Careless, Sorrow and Bliss and The Exhibitionist seem to me to be of a certain category or type. Then perhaps the ghost ones (I would not include This One Sky Day in those). And then the others that I would say are more typical of the kinds of books I would expect to be real contenders for this prize.
It would be interesting to know which judges picked which books and/or how the books were selected. Does anyone know about the selection process?
It would be interesting to see if your theory is right. You seem to be making quick progress on this list, Cindy!
Well, I had read half before the list came out, which helps! I am hoping to finish Flamingo and start Remote Sympathy this weekend. Copies of The Bread the Devil Knead are backordered so I may not get to that one.
I’m really torn on Remote Sympathy. I hear mostly good things and I am curious about the topic-what did the German people know and when. I dread reading about the suffering, but it sounds like an important book. I’m eager to read your review, Cindy.
Thanks Wendy. I have some trepidation about it but have heard some pretty positive reactions.
Wrong thread, I know, but I just ordered Remote Sympathy.
So I finished this one earlier today. I did find it quite charming and very enjoyable to read. I grew a bit tired of the author's short, declarative sentences (or sometimes not complete sentences), which I assume is just her style (I haven't read any of her other novels). But I liked the story and I liked the way she chose to tell it, and I liked the way it ended a lot. Hard to see it on the shortlist, but I consider this one of the happy surprises of the longlist.
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Here is a quote from this novel. It’s reminding me of the style of another author but I wanted to see (without prompting) if anyone else saw the sameThis passage is after a character (estranged f..."
I think I know she other author you are reminded of GY, but if I'm guessing correctly, I would say that the other author's writing is superior in pretty much every way.
Absolutely - feels like Smith-lite and I cannot believe there is not a strong influence.
It would certainly seem so.
Well, yes, Smith-lite, indeed. I liked it, it was entertaining but I felt it lacked real substance, and it wanted too much. The whole part about the SOM-company, for example, a neat idea but completely underdevelopped, and the same re the issue of homelessness. And as GY pointed out, some characters make an entrance and are subsequently dropped entirely (Pauline) or make an entrance very late for no reason at all (the twins).
