Gigi Fenster
Auteur de The intentions book
A propos de l'auteur
Crédit image: The International Literary Quarterly.
Œuvres de Gigi Fenster
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Sexe
- female
- Nationalité
- New Zealand
South Africa (birth) - Lieu de naissance
- South Africa
- Lieux de résidence
- Wellington, New Zealand
- Études
- Victoria University of Wellington
- Professions
- author
Membres
Critiques
Listes
Prix et récompenses
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 2
- Membres
- 25
- Popularité
- #508,561
- Évaluation
- 3.5
- Critiques
- 3
- ISBN
- 7
But Sophie is increasingly hopeless with Michael, and to be honest, seems like more than a bit of attention soak, so Olga's calm competence seems to be exactly what Lara and Sophie need - to keep their own sanity and their relationship on an even keel. What mother and daughter don't seem to notice is that Olga is deeply jealous of Sophie and Michael's place in her new friend's life. The reader, on the other hand, is acutely aware of Olga's viewpoint - she takes the place of the first-person narrator of A GOOD WINTER which makes for a very discomforting experience. Olga's unhinged, Sophie is somebody that enjoys hopelessness too much, and Lara's simply not able to set the sort of boundaries her daughter (and Olga for that matter) desperately need.
Claustrophobic and very disconcerting, A GOOD WINTER seems to be pitched at maximum discomfort level, with all sorts of perceived slights, unintended meanings and over-reactions designed to conflate Olga's position in her own mind. She's obviously an unreliable narrator, but it's also pretty clear she's dangerous as well. Sophie is, not to put too fine a point on it, a drama queen of the highest order, and despite the reader seeing everything from Olga's skewed viewpoint, somebody that it was really easy to dislike intensely. Meanwhile Lara seems like a victim walking right from the start - before Olga starts to become increasingly fixated, before Olga works up a head of steam about her and Sophie's friends, before the inevitable happens.
A couple of things on form - for reasons which are never clear to me, this is another one of those novels that forgoes quote marks for speech. It also use repetition as a narrative technique. The former for reasons that escaped this reader, the latter adding to the overwhelming sense of claustrophobia, creating an odd feeling of flight or fight as Olga's obsession and weirdness got more and more pronounced. A reaction supported by the fact that these are all deeply unpleasant people, making a connection tricky for a reader, who is instantly caught up in a game of "who's worse" which spins around at a truly breathtaking pace.
A GOOD WINTER is an intense, discomforting, uncomfortable novel (on purpose), and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see readers reacting with praise or repulsion and not a lot in the middle-ground.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/good-winter-gigi-fenster… (plus d'informations)