Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Last Words from Montmartre

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin

4 reviews

james1star's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This book is really hard to review… but I’ll give it a try. In essence, Last Words doesn’t have any real plot - intentionally so - but we’re given twenty letters bookended by two ‘witness’ sections, most are from the POV of an unnamed (or are they?) narrator and I believe there are other narrators too - it’s all rather confusing and experimental. The prominent story (if you can call it that) deals with the breakdown of an intense love between two women, the narrator and Xu, but there’s also elements of: coming of age, politics, gender discussions, love and other emotions, platonic and romantic relationships, and a dive into this concept of ‘human nature’ or the ‘human condition’ too. Another major topic is the narrator’s deteriorating mental health as the book progresses with her thoughts of suicide.

I don’t particularly think of this as a spoiler as it’s mentioned on the blurb and the first page of the English translation edition (I cannot speak for other translations and to my knowledge the New York Review Books is the only edition available) but the author Qiu Miaojin did die by suicide shortly after completing Last Words and it’s near impossible to separate this fact from the reading experience, and hence my review. There is speculation surrounding her suicide with questions about her motive, if this book can be read as her suicide note?; is it entirely fictional?; non-fictional?; a combination of both?; who were her lovers, and were they those depicted in this book?; and many more. The translator Ari Heinrich, in his/their afterword, stated how suicide can be and is viewed differently in East Asian cultures then in the ‘West’ and how Miaojin might’ve intended for her suicide to be a merging with her art in this final masterpiece. That being said - and I don’t want to sound ignorant - I feel the fact Miaojin classified herself as more of an international voice then purely Taiwanese and having been exposed to many ‘Western’ works, you have to take into account her mental health problems too, I can’t confidently say it was purely out of artistic expression. And unlike another author who died by suicide after completing a work, Mishima, she didn’t leave a note confirming this and requesting it’s publication so the reason will forever be a mystery. From my reading, I definitely got a sense of the realness and rawness and honestly that is portrayed and so I think a part of Miaojin’s personal life was injected in the story, how much I cannot say and again we won’t really know.

There are parts of this book I liked… sort of. The narrator does bring attention to many things, the writing was okay and there are some noteworthy quotes. My main problem would have to be with the experimental aspects that certainly confused me a lot. I’m not the most well read but have experienced many types of books and have for the most part been able to understand them. It was possible to interpret what was happening mostly but it was the narrator-change that I found most frustrating. I believe there is the main narrator, Xu, Yong, and Zoë (but she(?) might be the main one) and maybe more and all of them aren’t the most distinct in their letters (/journal entries/whatever it is that’s being presented to the reader) and aren’t that fleshed out so it’s hard to decipher who’s talking at times. The only ‘real’ character is Laurence whom we meet for only one or two chapters and it’s this part where’s the narrator is admiring her swimming in the Seine and their equal passion brewing which I thought was written very tastefully. Another thing I liked to a point was discussions on one’s mental health, thoughts of self harm and suicide which I think were again insightful and done well. As someone’s who’s struggled (that’s all I feel comfortable saying here), I could relate to parts and I understand people’s experiences are all different and I haven’t reached a point where the thought of ending my life seems the preferred option to continuing with living… BUT (and it’s a big one) I found some parts very unhelpful. I think around the 50% mark I was close to DNFing this rather short book because I was getting so infuriated with her outlook on things and it became a trudge to get to the end. Moving on from this topic to another I felt really irked me as the book progressed was how the narrator(s) spoke about their relationship in a rather immature way, a little like a recently broken-up-with teenager moping that their relationship really did mean something and they’ll never love anyone else like that again. I don’t know what to say? It did impact me to start but the repetition became far too much with convoluted and meandering passages that all rehashed the exact same thing. And finally for what I feel didn’t quite hit the mark was how the apparent insights Miaojin (via the narrator) was supposed to give us about her experience with language and culture being a lesbian/queer Taiwanese women living in Paris and having spent time in Tokyo too - there’s really nothing about this I could pick up on.

My final point I’d like to make concerns the translation. I think Heinrich certainly did a good job, it was readable (take into account my previous notes on the confusing nature but I mean the actual grammatical elements) and to my knowledge he put across what Miaojin wanted in the original Chinese. He makes a note about how translating will always lose some essence of the original with a point about how most readers who read it in Chinese did what the epitaph suggests and reading each letter in any order, but I chose to read it linearly so I might’ve missed something. Again other parts might have, and probably was, lost in translation.

Overall, I don’t think I really enjoyed reading this book. There were parts that were good and insightful but more weren’t to my personal liking. Would I recommend it? Not particularly… but for those who’s battled/is battening with mental illness and potential suicidal thoughts there might be more relatability but again I can’t exactly do so in confidence. I believe I might give this book a reread in the future (mostly because I’ve written in my copy so can’t really give it away) where it’s possible I’d get more out of it but for now it was more a sad non-realised masterpiece of a potential global literary talent in Qui Miaojin’s death by suicide.

Content Warnings

dycojams's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

Content Warnings

talonsontypewriters's review

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dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

gagne's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

Content Warnings

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