Status Updates From Fen: Stories

Uh, was this written by a horny teenager? Because, yeah, there are some interesting stories but for some reason they all involve sex or lust and it’s starting to feel like a one-trick pony. Definitely not living up to my expectations so far.

"if men fucked one another every time they were angry there'd be so much less shit in the world"

depressed

“evergreen fletsgroen
de cactustuin biedt troost
van het onherbergzame soort

ruw en droog is het hierbinnen
dit klimaat is niet veel maar het is van ons
het zijn onze knoppen onze koppen onze zon”

this is bad lol

I am having trouble pinning what these collections of stories are doing or trying to say... and I think that's the point. I am still enjoying the read, though.

I've been reading about a short from this collection every now and then, so it is slow getting through this collection. However, the angry fairytale motif I am picking up from this collection is excellent so far... plus, one of the last short stories just took a left turn to connect with all the other ones in a intriguing way.

These short stories are very... angry. They are angry, modern fairytales. And I think I am the demographic that the stories are angry at...

That was a good story. I enjoyed that one.

Started off great, dropped the overtly supernatural stuff for a bit which was a shame but it’s picking back up again now

Dit is nu al zo magisch mooi!

Obsessed

So weird, and very uncomfortable to read.

this is the weirdest book i've ever read...like i genuinely don't have a clue what's going on in most of these short stories

Like the eponymous fens, these stories have a hazy liminal quality. Watery myths and superstitions seep through the gaps in beautiful, unsettling ways, occasionally referencing each other. There’s earthy sensuality, brutality, loss, and transformation, crossing boundaries of species and reality.

“She was threaded through with cynicism, taut with anti-belief.”
Me too, but I was captivated.

Review to come.

Too little reading time of late, but I'm enjoying slipping these watery, earthy, bloody, slightly mystical, and faintly disturbing women-focused short stories into my days. Unexpectedly suitable for spooky season.

But why, when they are all set in the eponymous rural fens of East Anglia, is the grid reference in the intro to Oxford city centre?

This is only my first daisy johnson book but she has new favorite author potential I can smell it

nooo it was going so well b4 the scattering grr!

CRAZY good, love this author

Cheeky little re-read thanks to it being book of the week for university....aka another chance to fangirl over this incredible collection of short stories!

Getting there. Johnson is a beautiful writer but I preferred the earlier stories.

Meh. No descriptions. Sentences fragments for no reason. Vulgar tangents. I get it. I was young and overflowing with energy too.

These cuss words really break the verisimilitude. They just don’t fit with the rest of the telling.

Meh

“English men never really said what they were thinking” — hmmmmm.

“There was nothing in there we needed more than what we would have.” — confusing

“English was the language of breaking and bending and it would suit our mouths better.” — hah, very melodramatic

“Men could pretend they were otherwise, could enact the illusion of self-control, but we knew the running stress of their minds.” — weird phrasing?

Read "The Lighthouse Keeper", a fable of sort, with hints of a metamorphosis theme that echoes off the first story, "Starver", in some senses, creating a nice sense of bookends. It all centres around the lighthouse keeper, one of Johnson's Fen women, with quirks and foibles of her own.

Read "The Cull", a story which plays with Johnson's mythology concerning Fen foxes, albeit subtly for a large part of it.