Theo Coleridge’s Reviews > The Doll's Alphabet > Status Update

Didn’t have a ton of time on me so I skipped ahead a tad to the final story (with the intention of going back when I have more time for the longer one)

Story 13 - Notes from a spider

In a way my appealing to this one is not surprising - right from the opening, it feels almost cinematic in its described scale and decisive descriptions. But then along with all that comes a brilliantly grim tale. Slayed!

Story Eleven - Hungarian Sprats

Back to effortlessly charming form, with a simple but enjoyable conceit. Maybe this could be a bit bolder with its conclusion? Great fun though and very simply imaginable. I get a real ‘Poor Things’ vibe - maybe that speaks to Lanthimos’ creative team better than anything creating what felt like a ‘new’ aesthetic.

Story eleven - Edward, Do Not Pamper the Dead

Not sure I really connected with this one… Grudova’s created a collection here, but this one feels *too* familiar - too similar to some of the other stories, and I was therefore not really moved or grossed out by this in the way I maybe would’ve been were it my first encounter.

Story nine - The Sad Tale of the Sconce

I found this basically effortlessly charming - fun, silly, both large and small in scale at the same time! I do think it was perhaps so fast paced that it missed some of the potential ‘sadness’ it’s going for - I didn’t always connected to the Sconce’s paternal ‘characters’ - but I do think the style, silly footnotes and all, worked a treat.

Story eight - Rhinoceros

Didn’t hate nor love this one, I just feel so-so about it. I thought the world was described and outlined in a different way here that was both too specific and not illuminating enough. I’m also not entirely sure I picked up on the theme properly - this time to the greatest extent of any of these so far! Still, has some nice little parts to it here and there.

Story seven - Agata’s Machine

Just like Waxy and The Mouse Queen, I was really enchanted by lots of this, and while I actually thought the plot was less interesting than those preceding stories, I adored the structure. Everything here felt pacey and punchy w/o adding an obtusely out of place element, and the ending especially moved in a sudden ambush-like manor that had me dying to get from one word to the next.

Story 6 - The Mermaid

This was one of the weaker stories, but by that all I really mean is I thought it had great potential and it didn’t go anywhere too exciting. I really enjoy imagining the worlds and characters that Grudova’s building so far - yet here all I could latch onto was caricaturist characters that never even got a proper voice. Never lingered at least!

Story 2 - the Mouse Queen

I was quite enamoured with this, featuring 2 enigmatic, unique characters as well as Grudova’s charming prosaic style that smartly resists some of the obvious traps I think the characters could’ve prompted, such as ‘poetic’ inclusions of blocks of Latin or graphic descriptions of the prowling nights. I especially enjoyed the decaying image of Peter we are fed, in line with the lead.

First story: Unstitching - as the introduction to this book, it seems this is probably a pretty stark and clear indicator of what’s to come - setting an interesting tone that thrusts you into thoughtful and provocative absurdism. In some ways this is already the sort of story I’m wanting to discuss with the author to parse some of the deepest meanings - but I was able to pick plenty up and enjoyed it!