2023 Booker shortlist - Study for Obedience

[Cindy]

Ah that's interesting. I liked Pew. If this novel is like that, I will enjoy it.

[endrju]

Or, for that matter, Binyam's Hangman.

[Alwynne]

endrju wrote: "Or, for that matter, Binyam's Hangman."

The comparison to Pew makes sense, but the comparison to Binyam seems more of a stretch - at least for me. Bernstein's novel's subtler and more intricate than Binyam's. Binyam's book's definitely gripping but she does have a tendency to hammer home her points re: international aid, missionaries, the West's cast-offs etc When it comes to politics/binaries...everything's laid out on the surface, plus found the ending inexcusably annoying - and the point that then makes about racism in America seemed predictable not to mention clumsy. Bernstein's far more elusive.

[endrju]

I meant more of the disorienting effect both novels had on me given they are set in undefined spaces - the Bernstein reads like north Europe, the Binyam like Sahel - playing with particularities while avoiding specifics.

[Alwynne]

endrju wrote: "I meant more of the disorienting effect both novels had on me given they are set in undefined spaces - the Bernstein reads like north Europe, the Binyam like Sahel - playing with particularities wh..."

Thanks for clearing up the misunderstanding, hadn't considered that possibility. I read a number of interviews where Binyam emphasizes how this both is/isn't Ethiopia, including how she incorporated stories from her time there, so I didn't experience it in that way. I think the presentation of the narrator's journey with its details of planes, banks, buses, cities also gave this a more concrete feel, at least for me.

[Robert]

In short : Wicker Man meets Wittgenstein: https://youtu.be/-si5Pyzice8

[Alwynne]

Robert wrote: "In short : Wicker Man meets Wittgenstein: https://youtu.be/-si5Pyzice8"

Nice review Robert thanks, and helped me understand the reference to Shirley Jackson in the description of the novel.

[Robert]

Thanks! ☺️

[Ann Helen]

110 pages in, and I'm loving this one. The self-consciousness of the narrator seems to keep her from having a life of her own. Her only focus is to not take up too much space, and she can't believe anyone could like or care about her, or that she has anything to contribute to the community around her.

Normally I would think this is all in her head, that if she wasn't as critical of herself she might actually have friends, but I find that the novel has an eerie quality in which it really does seem like the people in this community actively dislikes her. Her tasks at the farm, completely separate from other people, the woman who blames her for her dog getting pregnant, despite the fact that her dog has been castrated, the farmer who inexplicably seems to blame her for his dying sheep (though this could be just her interpretation).

I love an unreliable narrator, and I love the strange and ominous feel of this book. I don't get the references someone mentioned earlier, and I'm sure there's plenty here that goes over my head, but I still feel like I'm getting a lot out of reading this novel, and that it's the first one on the longlist that will stay with me. Hoping the last 80 pages are as good.

[WndyJW]

I am unapologetically taking advantage of the smart readers in this group and not getting any longlisted books until I see what you’ve all thought of them. I just ordered this. It will be available in the US in two days. Weird and dense appeals to me as well.

I think the video reviewers are pleasant people, but the video reviewers who have made names for themselves aren’t critics and they get free books and perks from publishers so they try to sell “readable” books.

[Gwendolyn]

Paul wrote: "I haven't watched the video (I don't really 'do' videos) - what didn't he like about it?"

I just have to drop in here to say I love this comment by Paul! I don’t ‘do’ videos either. I just can’t be bothered. I know that’s my problem, and I’m weird about it. I don’t watch TV, movies, or anything else. Just the written word for me. I’m probably born to the wrong century, haha.

[Gwendolyn]

I’m only a quarter of a way into this one, but I love it so far. This is a strange case where I came into the book thinking it was something entirely different than it is. For some inexplicable reason, I had this down in my head as a book about a mother struggling with new motherhood. The only thing I can think is that perhaps I mixed this up with another description I read somewhere. Anyway, after starting the book, I quickly re-centered my focus, and I have been enjoying it so far.

But this part is quite cringe inducing: “my brother had appeared nervous, not quite terrified but certainly not far from it, I could feel the tension in his back as I soaped it in the morning, a certain stiffness of posture when I dressed him, for I did like to dress him.”

[Tracy]

I really liked this. There is so much to find here- this will require more than one read, for sure. Certainly a Booker book.

[Paul]

I didn’t think it was really a Booker book. That’s why I liked it!

Feels more Goldsmiths and an odd one out on this list.

[David]

Agreed. I think that's one reason for the strong reactions against it.

[Cindy]

Paul wrote: "I didn’t think it was really a Booker book. That’s why I liked it!

Feels more Goldsmiths and an odd one out on this list."

I agree with that very much. This felt very different from the other books on the list to me and more like a Goldsmiths book.

[Lascosas]

Just finished reading this...twice. I was most of the way through, not particularly enjoying it, when I discovered the reference section at the back of the book. Unfortunately I'm reading the book on Kindle, and only have location numbers, not pages. So I was unable to follow the exact portion of the book tied to the specific reference. But in general I got it. That greatly changed how I saw the book, and when I finished it, I turned back to page 1 and reread it.

I had a very difficult time engaging with the narrator the first read through. I felt she was engaged in something other than the reader, and that I was glancing in on someone very private and odd. The second narrator on this longlist I would go out of my way to avoid (though not make secret signs of the cross when she passed, promise).

After discovering the reference section my perspective on the narrator shifted, and thus my entire relationship to the narrator and the book. I now see it as an internal dialog between the narrator and the works referenced, and that my role as the reader is to watch (the word that comes to mind) these interactions, making of them what I will, becoming a participant to the extent I feel inclined.

I would certainly put this on my shortlist, but the judges won't. One judge pushed hard to get this book on a longlist where it is the odd book out.

[Paul]

This one has now also appeared on the Giller Prize list (think Canadian Booker)

Full list here: https://bit.ly/3r1rmfE

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

That’s already over on the Canadian Book Prize thread.

[But_i_thought_]

Did anyone else read a potential interpretation of the book as the narrator as (view spoiler)[a ghost, haunting the countryside, who does not know she is a ghost? (hide spoiler)]

Here are possible clues to that reading:

(view spoiler)[• When the narrator arrives at the airport, the door sensors do not see her: “The sensors did not at first register my movement, however exaggerated, so I had to wait until another recently deplaned passenger passed through the doors himself to exit…” (p 10).

• On page 22, she hints, “I had long ago settled my affairs”.

• On page 23, she explains, “I pictured any number of violent incidents resulting in injury or death, yes, an array of potential painful deaths, deaths it must be said I had courted in both action and imagination, in both thought and deed.” In thought and in deed!

• There are also many descriptions of people who do not notice her existence: “They appeared neither to hear nor to see me.” And, “The dog did not catch my scent.” (P 74)

This line of thinking might also explain the note of horror residents experience when they do see her.

(hide spoiler)]

[Paul]

That first scene at the airport gave me pause for a similar thought at the time, but I didn't carry that through the book. Certainly an interesting interpretation.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Yes I thought the same for the first pages (although I did not pick those later references) but then decided against it as did not seem to fit much of the rest of the novel or how the author talks about her narrator.

There is a sense though for me that the narrator represents the past as far as the villagers are concerned - a past they wish to forget and move on from (as dies her forward looking brother) but which she forces them to have to revisit - and that fits your idea in a more figurative sense?

[But_i_thought_]

I thought there were three possible and equally valid interpretations of the novel:

(view spoiler)[1. The narrator is an innocent bystander who is unfairly blamed for the calamitous events in the town.

2. The narrator represents herself unreliably, and is actively to blame for the shocking events in the town. The fact that even her brother starts to deteriorate in health after her administrations points to that possibility, as well as the Paula Rego quote ("I can make women stronger. I can make them obedient and muderous at the same time.")

3. She is a ghost who has come back to haunt her ancestral village. (hide spoiler)]

[David]

I think (1) is closer to Bernstein's aim, but I must confess I hadn't considered (2) or (3). I'm planning a re-read of this but haven't gotten to it yet.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I must admit I thought it was very much not 1 - I think the author has made it fairly clear that the narrator is not “innocent” even if she is also a “victim”

[Anna]

I just finished the book, and I feel like I need to talk about the ending. I was interpreting the text as the first of your interpretations, with the caveat that the narrator, while not responsible for the calamities, is responsible in a way for letting people treat her this way. She has given up so much of her personhood that even electrical doors won't recognize her, and her reflections on obedience are just peculiar.

The ending then seems to break off, showing her taking some kind of control. But it remained opaque to me, and I am unsure how far I am trusting the narrator. The book left me rather confused.

However, so far this is, with a wide margin, the most experimental and daring entry on the long list. I would be happy to see it on the short list, though I don't expect it there. Berstrin is too far removed from what the other nominees are, I think.

[David]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I must admit I thought it was very much not 1 - I think the author has made it fairly clear that the narrator is not “innocent” even if she is also a “victim”"

Yes, that's true. I was thinking more the unfairly blamed as an outsider aspect of 1.

[Paul]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I must admit I thought it was very much not 1 - I think the author has made it fairly clear that the narrator is not “innocent” even if she is also a “victim”"

Agreed - (2) seems closer, certainly in terms of the deterioration of her brother's health. The Rego quote being key.

Although the Booker site interview with the author was odd for me as we get this about the ominous happenings:

Partly it comes from the countryside where I live, where there is quite a lot of sudden animal death as a matter of regular occurrence – frogs squashed on the journey from one verge to another, gulls picking off ducklings, poorly lambs never getting any better. The book tries to imagine what it might be like to be the kind of character who reads significance into what are in fact ordinary occurrences because it’s the only way she knows of making sense of what is to her an unknowable landscape

Except it's the villagers who seem to interpret them as significant more than the narrator (at least in her narration).

[Paul]

Ultimately though there isn't an answer - I'm pretty sure if you asked the author which interpretation is correct you'd get a variation on the Josipovici answer when I asked him to interpret his novel - if I knew what really happened I wouldn't need to have written the book.

[David]

For me, the actual cause of the events was of less importance than the reaction of the villagers, filtered through the perspective of the narrator.

[Natalie]

This book is magnificently absorbing and enchanting in the first half.

The way the narrator delves into who we are, how the imagination might develop (or not), how we tell our history, how history forms our self-perception. Family, is=n particular, is a fulcrum for examining the self. The girlhood of the narrator is filled with somewhat uncanny moments which I have experienced in a similar--almost precise--way.

I suspect many other readers will feel moved to the core. These sentences are rich and sound wonderful.
Look at page 37 for one example.

I just discovered that there are footnotes, which will be fodder for thought.

I think that the second half is less enchanting than the first half: the narrator casts much doubt on everything and the structure of the novel becomes less intimate and more puzzling. The language becomes less poetic and less gripping.

"Reality" becomes more evasive and we don't know if we are reading about complicity or about colonialism:

"What right, what reason did they have, one's ancestors, to flee into the forest, cross the water, peddle rags, go to school--what was it all for, when in the final analysis one was never meant to survive?"

The novel concludes on the day of the winter solstice--when the sun stands still.

[Gwendolyn]

But_i_thought_ wrote: "I thought there were three possible and equally valid interpretations of the novel:
…
2. The narrator represents herself unreliably, and is actively to blame for the shocking events in the town. The fact that even her brother starts to deteriorate in health after her administrations points to that possibility, as well as the Paula Rego quote ("I can make women stronger. I can make them obedient and muderous at the same time."

I think option 2 is the right one, though I can’t be sure. I feel like (view spoiler)[ the protagonist is some kind of a witch who doesn’t know she’s a witch. (hide spoiler)]

It’s all very odd and unsettling but also somewhat unsatisfying in the end. And (view spoiler)[ what are we to make of the scenes near the very end where she goes to the church and somehow seems to lead or take control over the town population? Very strange. I wish for a bit more certainty in what this is all about. (hide spoiler)]

All in all, I’m glad I read this one. It is, by far, the most innovative and experimental book on the long list. However, I don’t think the book ultimately is successful as a novel. It’s just too opaque in the end and left me more frustrated than anything else. I’m all for unusual and difficult books, but they do need to give readers enough clues for how to interpret them to be satisfying. I think I’m only complaining about the last 10% or so, but, for me, the ending is critical to the overall success of a book, particularly one like this that leaves so many questions along the way.

[Roman Clodia]

David wrote: "Paul wrote: "But there must be one judge at least with decent taste in books."

Mary Jean Chan is my guess."

I'm wondering about James Shapiro given that he wrote an important academic article 'Shakespeare and the Jews'.

[But_i_thought_]

Gwendolyn wrote: "I think I’m only complaining about the last 10% or so, but, for me, the ending is critical to the overall success of a book, particularly one like this that leaves so many questions along the way."

I agree that the ending didn't do the book justice! It evaporated into nothingness.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

It turns out the author does have a plot

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxIW52Qo6...

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxUo5FYow...

[BookerMT2]

Lots of very interesting comments on here so thanks everyone.
Really not sure what I feel about it. The writing is good but so convoluted at times that it seems why not write 200 words where 100 would have been better.
The most unusual novel on the list but at times just left me a bit cold and disinterested.

[Joy D]

After thinking about this book a lot since finishing, I bumped it to 5 stars. The fact that it lingers in my thoughts meets one of my criteria as to what I consider a great read.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I kind of understand both those last comments even though they seem opposite

I loved it but it’s also clear that an editor could have taken out huge chunks of the text

[Emmeline]

I just finished this and found it very engaging and I loved the tone. Unfortunately I’m not overfamiliar with most of her references, and feel there were yawning gaps in my understanding for this reason.

I was reminded of Milkman, for the non-specific location and the psychology of unshakeably opposed groups. And We Have Always Lived in the Castle for the mob menacing a rather uninnocent narrator.

[Lee]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "The author said of her debut "One question I struggle with most is what the book is about" - and I think the same applies here."

This book spoke to me as an exploration of trans-generational survivor’s guilt. Survivor’s guilt as a concept came about post-Holocaust based on the experiences of its survivors. There’s been some research into the subsequent generational effects of the Holocaust, though I’m not too familiar with it. We’re pretty well all familiar with the general idea of inherited trauma though. I saw the narrator’s attitudes, preoccupations, and behaviors as an expression of this sort of guilt and effort to compensate.

Unfortunately it was all too Bernhardian for me.

[Gwendolyn]

My problem with this book is the last 10%. What was that ending about? When she is standing at the front of the church, is this an actual situation where she was in a leadership position in the town? Or is this a dream sequence where she wishes that she is finally getting recognition from the town people? What is going on here? I enjoyed the writing and the mysteriousness of the first 90% of this book, but the ending ruined it for me.

[Lee]

I think we should think of that ending in terms of absurdism. It's definitely not realist nor a dream sequence within realism. I'd have to read it again to be sure I think but seems like the novel gets more surreal as it advances, up to that ending.

[Paul]

That ending was one of the novel’s many highlights for me, and links back to the Paula Rego quote that is in the epigraph and the inspiration for the novel. The relationship between the villagers and her has changed - the tables turned - in the same way as her relationship with her brother also changes. As to whether it happened, was surreal, a dream etc - well that’s the case for most of the novel.

[Joy D]

I agree with Paul. I think the ending is part of what makes the book so thought-provoking. It has that surreal quality throughout.

[Paul]

Gumble's review sums it up well (indeed I may have nicked it for my previous post)

And this feeling of taking control, of turning the tables not just on the villagers for their sleights to her and possibly their atrocities to her ancestors, but to her family for the role they trained her to adopt - only becomes stronger when her brother returns and immediately starts to suffer with some form of unspecified ailment with the narrator increasingly controlling him. Towards the end (reminding me of “Pew” in a book which already reminded me of Catherine Lacey) there are some fascinating power dynamics in a scene at a church service.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

When his brother returns and immediately starts to suffer from plagiarism.

[Gwendolyn]

Interesting comments. I feel like I need to go back to reread the ending.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

For anyone who lies this and Prophet Song Mike McCormack’s new novel might be a very interesting read (as enigmatic as this but set in an Ireland under terrorism and crime threats) - and for an added bonus for Paul it features life & health insurance savings products.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

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