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3.3 AVERAGE
3.3 AVERAGE
I diligently read the first 180 pages trying to wait for it all to gel together, but it never did. It took 120 pages before I recognised anything from the blurb, which gives the impression that this is a story with a bit of a suspenseful mystery, however, the more important but very last paragraph in the blurb which gives a truer insight into what this book really is was:
It takes a better mind than my own to join together this kaleidoscope of descriptive images to form a story or understanding of whatever this novel is meant to represent. I had to take some heart from one of the reviewers here who experienced living in the era this novel is said to describe and was equally unable to relate to anything of what was portrayed here, so it's not just a matter of history and experience, it's a writing style that I believe is only accessible to the few.
It was written by Herta Muller who in 2009 won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
images of photographic precision combine to form a kaleidoscope of reflections, deflections and deceit
It takes a better mind than my own to join together this kaleidoscope of descriptive images to form a story or understanding of whatever this novel is meant to represent. I had to take some heart from one of the reviewers here who experienced living in the era this novel is said to describe and was equally unable to relate to anything of what was portrayed here, so it's not just a matter of history and experience, it's a writing style that I believe is only accessible to the few.
It was written by Herta Muller who in 2009 won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
When Olga Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature, I immediately remembered another laureate who won a decade ago. The connection was more of an intuition than a logical conclusion. Both were women authors who are also literature icons both in their country of origin and in Germany. But what I feel connect them the most is the longing to escape the entrapment of boundaries set up by ideologies and state power that is apparent in their works.
Herta Muller writes mostly about Romania under Ceausescu. Her early work, Nadirs, is a short story collection that reflects the hardships and paranoia of living under a totalitarian regime. It is only available in Romania after redaction by the state. A few years later, she emigrated to Germany and wrote masterpieces such as The Land of Green Plums, The Appointment, and The Hunger Angel. This book is an early work, but it foretells her powerful prose, evocative depictions, and her frequent motifs: nails, hair, sack, gunshot, and suicide.
The Fox was Ever the Hunter chronicles the lives of Adina, Clara, and Paul during the last months of the Ceausescu regime. They are subject to state surveillance due to their friend’s subversive activities. The secret police, the Securitate, made their presence known by breaking into Adina’s apartment, and gradually mutilate the limbs of the titular fox fur. One day the tail, the next one foot, and so on. If war makes monsters of men, then throughout the novel, we learn that state surveillance makes a prison of a nation and the people, wardens.
Such is the craft of Herta Muller that the paranoia and claustrophobia are palpable. The book is leaden with the weight of betrayals, with the knowledge that actions and words are recorded, archived for future use. In a totalitarian society, inanimate objects hold power, denounce their objectiveness, and swear their allegiance towards the supreme leader. A passage at the beginning of this book illustrates the corrosive fear that such a familiar and ubiquitous object instigates:
"The newspaper feels rough to the touch, but the dictator’s forelock stands out smooth and glossy, slick and shiny with pomade. The big flattened curl pushes all the smaller curl to the back of the head, where they get swallowed by the paper. On the rough newsprint are the words: the beloved son of the people.
Everything that shines also sees.
The forelock shines. It peers into the country every day, and it sees."
To complete the picture of life under Ceausescu, Herta Muller also chronicles members of the society such as the tinsmith, fishers, factory director, school teachers, and even a member of the Securitate. As the story goes, however, readers will not be able to distinguish who are the victims and who are the collaborators. The system of corruption and oppression has been so ingrained such that when the dictatorship topples, life does not improve that much. “Because the tanks are still scattered throughout the town, and the bread line in front of the store it still long.”
The Fox was Ever the Hunter is an authoritative account of life under totalitarianism. An early masterpiece that nonetheless showcases how Herta Muller “with the frankness of proses and the concentration of poetry, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed.”
Herta Muller writes mostly about Romania under Ceausescu. Her early work, Nadirs, is a short story collection that reflects the hardships and paranoia of living under a totalitarian regime. It is only available in Romania after redaction by the state. A few years later, she emigrated to Germany and wrote masterpieces such as The Land of Green Plums, The Appointment, and The Hunger Angel. This book is an early work, but it foretells her powerful prose, evocative depictions, and her frequent motifs: nails, hair, sack, gunshot, and suicide.
The Fox was Ever the Hunter chronicles the lives of Adina, Clara, and Paul during the last months of the Ceausescu regime. They are subject to state surveillance due to their friend’s subversive activities. The secret police, the Securitate, made their presence known by breaking into Adina’s apartment, and gradually mutilate the limbs of the titular fox fur. One day the tail, the next one foot, and so on. If war makes monsters of men, then throughout the novel, we learn that state surveillance makes a prison of a nation and the people, wardens.
Such is the craft of Herta Muller that the paranoia and claustrophobia are palpable. The book is leaden with the weight of betrayals, with the knowledge that actions and words are recorded, archived for future use. In a totalitarian society, inanimate objects hold power, denounce their objectiveness, and swear their allegiance towards the supreme leader. A passage at the beginning of this book illustrates the corrosive fear that such a familiar and ubiquitous object instigates:
"The newspaper feels rough to the touch, but the dictator’s forelock stands out smooth and glossy, slick and shiny with pomade. The big flattened curl pushes all the smaller curl to the back of the head, where they get swallowed by the paper. On the rough newsprint are the words: the beloved son of the people.
Everything that shines also sees.
The forelock shines. It peers into the country every day, and it sees."
To complete the picture of life under Ceausescu, Herta Muller also chronicles members of the society such as the tinsmith, fishers, factory director, school teachers, and even a member of the Securitate. As the story goes, however, readers will not be able to distinguish who are the victims and who are the collaborators. The system of corruption and oppression has been so ingrained such that when the dictatorship topples, life does not improve that much. “Because the tanks are still scattered throughout the town, and the bread line in front of the store it still long.”
The Fox was Ever the Hunter is an authoritative account of life under totalitarianism. An early masterpiece that nonetheless showcases how Herta Muller “with the frankness of proses and the concentration of poetry, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed.”
To steal an Amazon reviewer's words, the plot of this book can be said to encroach more than it can be said to grow linearly. For 100+ pages of the 230 page book, the reader has no sense that there is a plot. In fact, they're so caught up ping-ponging between short scenes featuring a cast of a half dozen minor characters and vignettes about the town the story takes place in, that they grasp around for orientation that doesn't come until much later.
Despite some beautifully poetic writing, the lack of path in this book sunk it for me. I'm glad I made it through, but I can't think of a single person I know whom I'd recommend this to (even if I'd read it again given the chance to remake my choice).
Despite some beautifully poetic writing, the lack of path in this book sunk it for me. I'm glad I made it through, but I can't think of a single person I know whom I'd recommend this to (even if I'd read it again given the chance to remake my choice).
Language, language, language. The pain of reading something so disorienting that beautiful is the only way to describe it. The beauty of seeing the world in an entirely new way, of being encouraged to uphold my own worldly observations. Nothing bad comes from reading this book, this book, from which nothing good comes, either. A diamond in the shadowy basement of totalitarianism.
That was intense. Pure setting and atmosphere, beautiful, murky and full of nausea. Genius stream-of-consciusness 'poetry prose'. Herta Muller truly deserves a Nobel. I gave this book 4 stars only because I didn't truly like it - will read 'The Hunger Angel' before I state if I really like her writing or not that much. But, on the positive side, this was very, very good: Herta Muller is a genius and you can clearly see it from her works. For me this wasn't 5 stars good, but somewhere around amazing Golding's 'The Spire' good. Why? 'The Spire' didn't get 5 stars because of the writing style that had some flaws - everything else was almost perfect - it was a powerful and depressing, but magnificent story; 'The Fox Was Ever The Hunter' didn't get it because there is no story at all, just nothing there - but writing style, setting and descriptions were fabulous. 4.3 stars. Here I am 'Light in August'.
Herta Müller's newly translated novel is a luscious mosaic depicting the last days before the fall of Ceausescu. Read more in my review of this book here. https://tcl-bookreviews.com/2016/06/11/capturing-the-fear/
I love novels filled with poetic metaphors but the metaphors need to make sense. This book was full of description after description that left me thinking scratching my head. Almost every sentence felt schizophrenic and disconnected from reality. I wanted a story, not an acid trip.
"The Fox Was Ever the Hunter" follows several characters but mostly the main character is Adina, a woman who believes that the Romanian secret police are following her at the end of the totalitarian regime of Ceausescu. I was fascinated by this look at a history that I was not all that familiar with.
What kept me reading this book is the writing. The writing is absolutely gorgeous and engaging. It does make you feel like there is a little bit of space between you and the characters and I never really felt like I got to know the characters very well and I wish I would have gotten to know them a little bit better throughout the book. There were several parts of the narrative that I read a few times simply because they were so well written.
The story itself left me wanting. Again, I think much of that had to do with feeling like I did not know the characters very well. It was hard for me to feel like I was very engaged with them. I wish there had also been a little bit more about the political situation of Romania at the time. You certainly get a taste of it but I wanted more.
Overall, the writing kept me reading and I will be on the lookout for some of Muller's other books! This story was a good taste!
What kept me reading this book is the writing. The writing is absolutely gorgeous and engaging. It does make you feel like there is a little bit of space between you and the characters and I never really felt like I got to know the characters very well and I wish I would have gotten to know them a little bit better throughout the book. There were several parts of the narrative that I read a few times simply because they were so well written.
The story itself left me wanting. Again, I think much of that had to do with feeling like I did not know the characters very well. It was hard for me to feel like I was very engaged with them. I wish there had also been a little bit more about the political situation of Romania at the time. You certainly get a taste of it but I wanted more.
Overall, the writing kept me reading and I will be on the lookout for some of Muller's other books! This story was a good taste!
This is an odd one - brief but so unusual in its language that it takes some fairly deep reading to get into; there are weird repeated motifs, mixed metaphors, anthropomorphic description and cultural references that don't quite translate. A story about living in Communist Romania and the surreal, paranoid tone of existence under dictatorship; it's very lyrical and discursive, one of those novels that's obviously written by a poet. I admired it more than I enjoyed it.
Beautiful, eerie, the airlessness of authoritarianism.