The Disinvent Movement

by Susanna Gendall

'Every week we would disinvent something. This week it would be plastic. Next week it would be the aeroplane. I stood outside the supermarket and handed out flyers, which people kindly refused as they left carrying large packs of bottled water.' The short history of the Disinvent Movement is told by its creator as she looks back on her life in New Zealand, France, Switzerland and other countries. Intertwined with the movement are her efforts to find a way 'inside' – an entry point to the system in which so many others seem to be living happily. But once you're in, what if you want to escape? How do you disinvent the all-encompassing structure of a violent marriage? The Disinvent Movement is a brilliantly original and poignant first novel, both elliptical and direct, about how we dismantle and remake our stories – and re-cast the people who occupy the most important roles in our lives – in hopes of finding sanctuary. 'Funny, sad, brilliantly observational' —Renee Liang, Kete Books 'a highly original and moving exploration of the division we all experience between who we are to ourselves and who we appear to be to others' —Rachel O'Connor, Landfall Review Online 'Like Olivia Lai

Genres: Novels

123 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2021

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

To kick off Novellas in November (#NovNov), let's start with a very interesting novella from New Zealand that nods to the real problem that underlies COP26.  The Disinvent Movement is the debut novel of poet Susanna Gendall, and it started life on The Friday Poem at The Spinoff, (a more intelligent NZ version of BuzzFeed).  Structured in 81 very brief chapters ranging from half a page to a page-and-a-half, at only 144 pages The Disinvent Movement can be read in an afternoon.  These fragments are narrated by an unnamed young woman trying to break free of a toxic marriage and a society whose values she does not share.

Plus, she's been just as complicit as everyone else, as her husband doesn't hesitate to point out when the climate emergency is declared.  She recognises the link between the personal and the political, and (like too many bruised victims of family violence) she's internalised his accusations that 'it's all her fault'. But he's not taking any responsibility:

...weren't words like growth, satisfaction and annual yearly profit the words we used to throw around on a weekday? If we didn't use them, we heard them.  We breathed them in and we breathed them out again.

'All I'm saying is, you didn't need to buy all those bottles of water,' he said, taking a bite out of the kouign-amann (p.49)

A Kiwi living in Paris, she has struggled with her identity since childhood, trying to find a way 'inside' the system which seems to suit everyone else.  In adulthood, she struggles with going to the supermarket, a place full of different versions of oneself which one avoided as best one could.  But her efforts at sustainable food production fail.  She has dug up soil from the neighbour's garden to fill tyres for seed-planting but nothing grows.

I stood in the queue at the checkout and fantasised about taking the person in front of me's groceries home — family packs of mince and bottles of bleach, cans of cassoulet, bottles of orange juice, boxes of biscottes and those pots of yoghurt that came seamed together in packs of eight — items that no matter how hard I tried I would never dream of putting in my trolley.  Some things you just couldn't do. (p.39)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/11/01/t...

[De Castro · Rating 5 out of 5]

A series of delightful snapshots in which a contemporary character lightly plays up and plays out levels of the feminine on a landscape peppered with magical realism.

[Colette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved The Disinvent Movement. the story of a woman searching for sovereignty over her life. It's set between New Zealand and France, and a deep knowledge of both countries and cultures comes across throughout the book. I liked the author's funny yet serious take on climate action. Reminds me of John Didion's early writing (Play it as it lays) or Deborah Levy's trilogy.