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Emily M's Reviews > The Other Name: Septology I-II
The Other Name: Septology I-II
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The best not-bad book I’ve read this year?
It’s a lonely road to embark upon something that all your reading friends have pronounced wonderful and find it just okay. Just okay means you can’t even gather much steam to your disagreement. In fact, you can sort of see what all the fuss is about. The writer clearly has great talent and has put great thought into all of this. Occasionally, when he gets it together, there’s a transcendent scene that really is on another level to most things you read.
There’s a scene like that near the beginning of The Other Name. An aging painter is watching a young man and woman swing in a deserted playground. They may be real people, they may be doppelgängers, they may be memories.
In this scene, the strange, repetitive language of the book, the very visual and yet very minimalist aesthetic, and the pathos of something lost, all come together. The woman rises higher and higher on the swings, and the reader can’t look away. There’s a similar scene near the end of the book, when a boy and his sister go wandering to all the places they are forbidden to go and the tension is unbearable.
Unfortunately these are the only two scenes I found memorable. The rest of the book is very much in the style of an interior monologue and I found the repetitive language very repetitive indeed. There are some beautiful observations and some profound thoughts. There are some interesting characterizations.
And yet I am unmoved. This novel reminds me of two others that are widely loved that I have been unmoved by: Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair. I suspect the same issue affects me with all three. They are concerned with religion, the loss (or here the recovery) of faith in a possibly Godless world. I understand this is something people are interested in, but I am so entirely not interested in it that the reading experience becomes almost satirical.
I’m afraid I couldn’t gather much passion for the meaning-of-art thread of this book either. And if I never read the words The Country Inn or St Andrew’s Cross again it won’t be too soon.
I suspected I wouldn’t gel with this based on the back cover and reader, I knew myself. That at least is some comfort!
It’s a lonely road to embark upon something that all your reading friends have pronounced wonderful and find it just okay. Just okay means you can’t even gather much steam to your disagreement. In fact, you can sort of see what all the fuss is about. The writer clearly has great talent and has put great thought into all of this. Occasionally, when he gets it together, there’s a transcendent scene that really is on another level to most things you read.
There’s a scene like that near the beginning of The Other Name. An aging painter is watching a young man and woman swing in a deserted playground. They may be real people, they may be doppelgängers, they may be memories.
In this scene, the strange, repetitive language of the book, the very visual and yet very minimalist aesthetic, and the pathos of something lost, all come together. The woman rises higher and higher on the swings, and the reader can’t look away. There’s a similar scene near the end of the book, when a boy and his sister go wandering to all the places they are forbidden to go and the tension is unbearable.
Unfortunately these are the only two scenes I found memorable. The rest of the book is very much in the style of an interior monologue and I found the repetitive language very repetitive indeed. There are some beautiful observations and some profound thoughts. There are some interesting characterizations.
And yet I am unmoved. This novel reminds me of two others that are widely loved that I have been unmoved by: Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair. I suspect the same issue affects me with all three. They are concerned with religion, the loss (or here the recovery) of faith in a possibly Godless world. I understand this is something people are interested in, but I am so entirely not interested in it that the reading experience becomes almost satirical.
I’m afraid I couldn’t gather much passion for the meaning-of-art thread of this book either. And if I never read the words The Country Inn or St Andrew’s Cross again it won’t be too soon.
I suspected I wouldn’t gel with this based on the back cover and reader, I knew myself. That at least is some comfort!
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Roman Clodia
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Mar 06, 2023 03:55AM
Ha, The End of the Affair is one of my worst books ever! It put me off Greene forever :)
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I loved this one; and I actually would argue that it was the best part out the total 7 parts for me, Emily. But I can get where you are coming from - if you are not into all transcendental stuff, you would probably be bored. I am not into any organised religion myself, but his musings on art where up my stream though. And if you were moved by those two scenes, you kind of cannot say you were "yet unmoved":-)) But I agree that the repetitions would grate if the rhythm would not be your rhythm:-)Oh, and for the record, I could not finish neither Waugh nor Green's book you've mentioned:-)
I haven’t read this either because I suspect I’d have similar thoughts.
Roman Clodia wrote: "Ha, The End of the Affair is one of my worst books ever! It put me off Greene forever :)"I liked others I had read so was excited for End of the Affair and bleurghhh.
Katia wrote: "I loved this one; and I actually would argue that it was the best part out the total 7 parts for me, Emily. But I can get where you are coming from - if you are not into all transcendental stuff, y..."I saw that you loved it. Sigh. I wasn't exactly bored, I was just profoundly not interested. As usual with things that are a little reflective and philosophical, I compared it to Outline, which as you know I love. So I really do think it was the topics that failed to interest me here. I enjoy art but I don't enjoy mystical waffling about art, and this book seemed in that category to me (all that black light). I simply don't see art that way, and I don't feel that way when I create things. Yes, some things work out and some things don't, but I don't see this as the work of God shining through, so much as work and happy accident. It was all a bit new-agey for me, the art bits. I was quite intrigued by the idea of doppelgangers, and it's a shame I won't get to find out what that is all about (unless you want to tell me), but well, it's nice to remove three books from my To-read pile rather than adding three, for a change. :-)
David wrote: "I haven’t read this either because I suspect I’d have similar thoughts."It was nice to know that I'm good at predicting what I will like notwithstanding the glowing reviews. Not a waste of time. But decidedly not for me.
The next two books are much weaker, so don’t even try them in the hopes you might enjoy it as a whole! And I liked this part! :)
nastya wrote: "The next two books are much weaker, so don’t even try them in the hopes you might enjoy it as a whole! And I liked this part! :)"Hahaha thank you! It feels like sacrilege to set the whole trilogy aside but...
Emily wrote: "Katia wrote: "I loved this one; and I actually would argue that it was the best part out the total 7 parts for me, Emily. But I can get where you are coming from - if you are not into all transcend..."You made me properly Lol with "mythical waffling":-) But yes - if it is so different from the way how you see the creative process, it would not work for you. I kind of getting black stuff, though I would not necessary need to involve God in all of this. I know only a bit of visual art and poetry, but I think I know what he talks about when at some stage something kind of becomes obvious in your mind either the lines of verse or the whole poem even or a picture, the way of seeing.. I can easily relate when he says he has got a set of images in his head and he choses which one to draw. But for me it is more like a psychological phenomena which we cannot explain at the moment with science, maybe we will one day, maybe never.. Ok, I think we are getting far from the book in any case. I agree it is better to cut the loses in your case:-) Even with the doppelgangers you would not lose that much:-) (view spoiler)
Maybe it's becoming mystical at the point when you start painting crosses and calling it art? I also love how he started to paint and instantly was the genius whose whole first exhibition was sold instantly. I suppose that was also god's doing.
I adore the way you explain to us why a book doesn't work for you. Well done.
Enjoyed reading this review so much Emily, and thanks for confirming my suspicions, so I can happily continue to avoid this author's work.
Alwynne wrote: "Enjoyed reading this review so much Emily, and thanks for confirming my suspicions, so I can happily continue to avoid this author's work."Happy to take this one for the team. You've saved me from a few!
nastya wrote: "Maybe it's becoming mystical at the point when you start painting crosses and calling it art? I also love how he started to paint and instantly was the genius whose whole first exhibition was sold ..."Nastya yes! In addition to mystical painting guy, he was also preternatural child genius guy. All the art clichés.
