The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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Creatures of Passage
Women's Prizes
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2022 WP longlist - Creatures of Passage
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I hope to get back to is this evening, but it’s our family game day, tomorrow is my favorite day of the week, my Silent Sunday and now I hope to meet Mercy soon. I can’t compare Yejide’s narration to other narrators, but she is doing a fantastic job reading her book. Her voice is mesmerizing, the tone and tempo make me feel like I’m listening to a woman with magical powers.
Now I understand what others here mean when they say a book worked or didn’t work in audio. It makes sense since different areas of the brain are fired up when listening than when reading. I will listen now when the opinion is that particular novels are best listened to rather than read.
Not sure “I hope to meet Mercy soon” quite fits the novel - but let’s see once you have.
I just finished this as an audiobook. Right now, this is my #1 from the longlist. I amend my statement a while back. Yejide joins Gaiman in the fiction writer who’s good at reading their own audiobook category.
Wonderous, I loved it. (And I normally don't gel with magical realism nor with ghost stories). For me, the best book of the list.
What do you think was different about the magical realism here, Britta, that worked for you?
David wrote: "What do you think was different about the magical realism here, Britta, that worked for you?"Thats a really good question, and I'm not entirely sure but I think Yejidé was able to create a world in which ghosts and spirits and magic 'made sense'. Without crossing over to the fantasy genre.
That’s a great comment. It’s probably why magical realism is so hard for an author to find the right balance. A lot of magical realism can feel like a failed experiment.
Yes, exactly, a failed experiment, that's how it often feels to me.
Tracy, I agree the audio for this is excellent. It (partially) makes up for the Erdrich debacle.
I’ve been too busy to make much progress. I’ve made it to page 149, half way for those listening to the book, and have met Mercy Ratchet. To answer the question posed by Gumble, I think having Mercy as POV character was a brave choice for Yejidé and I think will probably be useful for the story. I don’t know yet what happens with Dash, but Yejidé is showing the light and the dark in each of the characters so it’s consistent to show the dark in Mercy.I’m curious what everyone else thinks about sharing with the reader the inner life of a pedophile murderer.
I appreciate that, as in Lincoln in the Bardo, death isn’t portrayed as an end to all one’s fears, anger, and attachments; Osiris went to some very dark places because he was so angry at his own death.
I expect to see this on the shortlist, which is when I will start reading for the WP.
I certainly hope this is on the shortlist. I’m juggling a few books so I haven’t read far - but I’m loving it. Don’t forget to add your rankings, Wendy.
I will! No, I won’t. I don’t read for this prize. I will rank the shortlist if I read enough of them.
Struggling to see this winning though given the mercy character.
I thought the use of the Mercy character was well done.
There's a difference between being well done and being likely for the shortlist. I agree this may not be on-brand for the WP.
I could see it going either way, GY might be right and the judges won’t like that Yejidé made us spend time in the mind of a pedophile, or they might feel, like some of us do, that Mercy was well done.
When is the shortlist out. If it was this week like the MBI would be topical in a sense given the Jimmy Savile documentary has just dropped on Netflix (highly recommend that - quite astonishing story really).
Paul wrote: "When is the shortlist out. If it was this week like the MBI would be topical in a sense given the Jimmy Savile documentary has just dropped on Netflix (highly recommend that - quite astonishing sto..."I just watched that - I'm still amazed at how one person can fool a nation publicly (as those in the know, knew)like that
I thought the documentary explained that well - the lady who worked closely with him at one of the hospitals and never suspected anything and still, while not denying the allegations, was really struggling to process it - “I never saw anyone who did so much good”.
Mod
At the risk of stirring up another hornets' nest, our world beating leader comes to mind. His popularity with ordinary people is mystifying, but like Savile, he is heavily protected by the media and the establishment...
It is his lack of popularity with some which I find mystifying.
Paul wrote: "I thought the documentary explained that well - the lady who worked closely with him at one of the hospitals and never suspected anything and still, while not denying the allegations, was really st..."True - considering in Dan Davies book about Saville, he was actually caught quite a few times and the head matron did nothing for fear of media persecution
It was some of the hiding in plain sight parts as well where he used to almost admit he was up to no good in interviews. Although that all hinted he had a string of one night stands. Yet the papers couldn’t find anyone who would admit to having a fling with him. And formed the wrong conclusion (he was actually asexual, rather than that the reason no one would kiss’n’tell was because they had been abused).
On the other hand I sometimes read things now as if we all knew he was a wrong’un really. People didn’t. He was a huge hero - look at those scenes of his funeral.
But sorry I have derailed this thread. I blame Gumble who has failed to give me the book to read even though I bought it.
We had the era of incest tropes, unstable cruel mothers, abuse of children, people will read anything if it’s handled correctly and I agree Yejidé handled him well. She’s not the first, remember Martin John? A stream of consciousness novel, the consciousness belonging to a sick man.WP shortlist is June 15.
27 April although that’s still a good time15 June is the winner
So it is. I wrote WP shortlist twice.
In other words, the shortlist of the shortlist.
I just finished it. I loved it, but I suspect it would have been a 4* book for me instead of 5* if I had started reading it instead of listening to Yejidé narrate it. Her voice was perfect and created the mesmerizing, mystical feel that stayed with me as I finished reading the second half. Yejidé has understandably been compared to Toni Morrison, but I don’t know that years from now Nephtys, Osiris, or Dash will still be with me like Pecola Breedlove, Sethe, Denver, Sula, or Milkman have been. I think Yejidé has her own voice and for me it wasn’t the characters that will linger as much as the way she seamlessly embedded contemporary, temporal racial injustices in an other-worldly, supernatural realm where anger and grief still fuel a journey through time, driving tortured souls to seek out violence and revenge until they realize that if they want to rest in peace, they must let go of their bloodlust and seek love.
There are three books about child abuse on the longlist (that I have read) and even though I did not get on with Creatures of Passage at all, I think it handled the subject the best. Therefore theoretically it should stand a chance of being shortlisted, but I wouldn't put money on it.
I've just started this. Relatively impressed c.80 pages in (but child abuse? haven't reached that bit yet), although it rather suffers by comparison to This One Sky Day in terms of the magic realism element, as would most novels.Interesting that many have listened to the audio as Nephthys regards "the glyphs that other people seemed to need to use" as a "lower form of communication" whereas "conversations were permament, recording grafted on to her mind".
Child abuse becomes explicit in Part II, although there are clues laid in Part I.
Yes pretty strong clues I felt
The way that Dash uses his imagination to process what he witnessed, at times blurring the imaginative and reality, mirrors the way magical realism is used as a whole in this novel to process trauma.
Dash hasn't actually featured much so far.
GY commented elsewhere that Creatures of Passage seems like a better fit of US prizes than UK prizes. I agree with that - although it seems to have been overlooked for all the US prizes. I might be the only one in this group to give it 5 stars, so it might just resonate with me in particular. I thought it was groundbreaking and excellent.
Just finished. Need to process it for a while. Probably a 4 star book but may be 3 for me due to length. It got rather dull at times. But the author is certainly doing something interesting and distinctive.
For me, it was the best book of the Longlist, distinctive and inventive. Loved it. (I rarely give 5* so hence 'only' 4.5*).
The Mookse and the Gripes
Books mentioned in this topic
Martin John (other topics)Lincoln in the Bardo (other topics)
A Wizard of Earthsea (other topics)
Creatures of Passage (other topics)
The book I can see might work even better in audio than on the page as it is replete with repetitions which on the page can seem redundant but I suspect lend the spoken version rhythm.
Will be interested to see what you both think about the choice of having Mercy as a PoV character.