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The Beguiling
An electrifying debut from the Giller Prize-shortlisted author of Better Living Through Plastic Explosives that takes readers for a wild ride with urban-gothic flair and delectably wicked humour.
Lucy is a lapsed-Catholic whose adolescent pretensions to sainthood are unexpectedly revived.
It all starts when her cousin Zoltan, in hospital following a bizarre incident at a party, offers her a disturbing deathbed confession. Lucy's grief takes an unusual turn: Zoltan's death appears to have turned her into a magnet for the unshriven. Lucy is transformed into a self-described "flesh-and-blood Wailing Wall" as strangers unburden themselves to her. She becomes addicted to the dark stories, finds herself jonesing for hit after hit.
As the confessions pile up, Lucy begins to wonder if Zoltan's death was as random and unscripted as it appeared. She clutches at alarming synchronicities, seeks meaning in the stories of strangers. Why do the stories seem connected to each other or eerily echo elements of her life? Could it be because Lucy has her own transgressions to acknowledge? And then there is that stubbornly resurfacing past, like a tell-tale ribbon of hair snagged on a fish hook.
With ruthless wit and dizzying energy, The Beguiling explores blessings and curses, sainthood and sin, mortality and guilt in all its guises. Weaving together tales of errant mothers, vengeful plants, canine wisdom, and murder, it lays bare the flesh and blood sacrifices people are willing to make to get what they think they desire.
Lucy is a lapsed-Catholic whose adolescent pretensions to sainthood are unexpectedly revived.
It all starts when her cousin Zoltan, in hospital following a bizarre incident at a party, offers her a disturbing deathbed confession. Lucy's grief takes an unusual turn: Zoltan's death appears to have turned her into a magnet for the unshriven. Lucy is transformed into a self-described "flesh-and-blood Wailing Wall" as strangers unburden themselves to her. She becomes addicted to the dark stories, finds herself jonesing for hit after hit.
As the confessions pile up, Lucy begins to wonder if Zoltan's death was as random and unscripted as it appeared. She clutches at alarming synchronicities, seeks meaning in the stories of strangers. Why do the stories seem connected to each other or eerily echo elements of her life? Could it be because Lucy has her own transgressions to acknowledge? And then there is that stubbornly resurfacing past, like a tell-tale ribbon of hair snagged on a fish hook.
With ruthless wit and dizzying energy, The Beguiling explores blessings and curses, sainthood and sin, mortality and guilt in all its guises. Weaving together tales of errant mothers, vengeful plants, canine wisdom, and murder, it lays bare the flesh and blood sacrifices people are willing to make to get what they think they desire.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published September 22, 2020
20 people are currently reading
979 people want to read
About the author
Zsuzsi Gartner
15 books39 followersZsuzsi Gartner is the author of the short fiction collections Better Living Through Plastic Explosives and All the Anxious Girls on Earth, the editor of Darwin’s Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow, and the creative director of Vancouver Review’s Blueprint BC Fiction Series. Her stories have been widely anthologized, and broadcast on CBC and NPR’s Selected Shorts. Better Living Through Plastic Explosives was shortlisted for the 2011 Giller Prize.
Zsuzsi is a long-time contributing reviewer for The Globe & Mail, and has appeared on CBC’s Canada Reads. A former senior editor at the now-defunct Saturday Night, she has received numerous nominations and awards for her magazine journalism, and a 2007 National Magazine Award for fiction. She has been on faculty for the Banff Centre’s Literary Arts Programs and has been an adjunct faculty member for UBC’s Optional Residency MFA in Creative Writing. Zsuzsi lives in Vancouver.
Author Representation: Westwood Creative Artists
Zsuzsi is a long-time contributing reviewer for The Globe & Mail, and has appeared on CBC’s Canada Reads. A former senior editor at the now-defunct Saturday Night, she has received numerous nominations and awards for her magazine journalism, and a 2007 National Magazine Award for fiction. She has been on faculty for the Banff Centre’s Literary Arts Programs and has been an adjunct faculty member for UBC’s Optional Residency MFA in Creative Writing. Zsuzsi lives in Vancouver.
Author Representation: Westwood Creative Artists
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
June 13, 2020
It was only when he came to in the hospital three days later to find his hands amputated that Zoltán recalled what movie the whole sordid incident had reminded him of: But in The Beguiled, a bizarre 1970 Civil War gothic, Clint Eastwood's horndog Yankee soldier who wakes up to discover both his legs missing got what audiences thought he deserved: the Valkyrie-like wrath of woman scorned.
I remember reading Zsuzsi Gartner's previous book of short stories (Better Living Through Plastic Explosives) and loving it, so was excited to see what she would do with the novel form here in The Beguiling; in my experience, authors don't always excel equally at both formats. And Gartner pulls off a slick trick here: By conceiving of a fascinating and original frame story, the main character meets a bunch of other people who essentially tell her a wide range of beguiling short stories, and we readers get to have our cake and eat it too. And to be sure, the frame story felt increasingly tricksy for tricks' sake to me as it went along, but it eventually got to a place that proves the entire tale couldn't have been told any other way. Funny, bizarre, thoughtful, and jolting; this was a weird and satisfying ride. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
If this were merely another story of domestic or maternal discontent, there would be little point in dredging back through it all as if dragging a lake for a long-decomposed body. Oh, wretched me oh my, first-world problems, smart women bad choices, blah blah blah. Leave it to the fishes, the bottom-dwellers with their prickly whiskers. Leave the bones in peace to settle into the silt and accumulate barnacles.
Lucy's favourite person growing up was her cousin Zoltán – a soft-bodied, perennially friend-zoned lover of old movies and all around good boy – and shortly after Kinkos, the laughing yoga instructor, the Thing and its aftermath, strangers started approaching Lucy and telling her their darkest secrets: some criminal, some merely embarrassing, Lucy somehow becoming “a confession magnet, a lay confessor. A flesh-and-blood Wailing Wall.” Whereas Gartner's earlier book was (as I remember) a collection of strange stories centered on Canadian suburbia, the stories that the confessants share in The Beguiling are more global: still strange, still plenty of Canadiana, but also set in places like Denmark, Ireland, and Australia, too. We follow along with Lucy for thirteen years into her future, witnessing how the confessions – as much as she grows to crave them – disrupt her life, and despite me not wanting to give away any spoilers, I think I can add how delighted I was when the ending made me reconsider everything that had happened up to that point.
“If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was.” Maybe it's like that with unicorns and boyfriends, but words, once loosed into the world, become wild animals. When you flee from a wolf, you run into a bear.
With a blend of the surreal and the Gothic, words matter here. Gartner invokes the mythic and folkloric (Little Red Riding Hood, mermaids, the cave witch) and recurring, curious themes like wabi-sabi (that's how the light gets in), small men, tall women, and missing limbs. She makes social commentary:
These days the erasure of history, once the province of despots, is easily available to anyone with a Twitter account and a sense of outrage. The past is fair game all over the political spectrum; history in flux, as mutable as the future. The past a choose-your-own-adventure story. Each of your lives a deck of cards shuffled and reshuffled until the ace of spades turns up. If you're playing poker, that is, and not solitaire. If you can afford a deck of cards.
And conjures imagery that resonated deep within me:
The heart beats on the wrong side: somatic dyslexia. The spine a winding railway track unconnected to any stations. The hips smart as if bruised at the bone, but the skin remains unmarked. Bones themselves porous as coral skeletons. The freighted liver, a bulbous fangtooth fish. And the rest of my organs like more of those creatures found in the darkest depths of the oceans: the gulper eel, the baleful black sea devil, the tubeworms and other abyssal giants.
I don't want to risk spoilers by saying too much more but will reiterate that this novel is a little twisted but paid off in the end for me.
December 28, 2020
I am not entirely sure what I just read but I know I liked it. This is one of those books where you can never quite get your feet under you, it's always shifting. But it's mesmerizing, I couldn't really stop. (If you write a book like this and you aren't mesmerizing, well, not many people are going to get through it.) It is more of a feat, a performance, than a narrative, but not many books can successfully pull it off so I tip my hat.
I liked Lucy's voice, I liked tagging along with her through all the strange stories people force upon her. I did this book on audio and the reader was great, but with a book this complex and twisty I'm not sure audio is your ideal format.
Note, there are a lot of recurring themes here and disability is one that shows up again and again, and like everything else in the book it's not treated with much sensitivity because that is not who our narrator is. It's not particularly awful but worth mentioning. Also dogs die.
I liked Lucy's voice, I liked tagging along with her through all the strange stories people force upon her. I did this book on audio and the reader was great, but with a book this complex and twisty I'm not sure audio is your ideal format.
Note, there are a lot of recurring themes here and disability is one that shows up again and again, and like everything else in the book it's not treated with much sensitivity because that is not who our narrator is. It's not particularly awful but worth mentioning. Also dogs die.
January 6, 2022
4.5 stars
"To beguile: To distract the attention of; divert; To amuse or charm; delight or fascinate."
Zsuzsi Gartner's novel is full of beguilement: distracting and amusing, fascinating and delightful. Reading it felt like looking through a kaleidoscope at the surreal world of Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" while riding a tilt-a-whirl. Quite often, I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but I knew I was enjoying the ride.
The story (as I understood it): Lucy, our protagonist, is overwhelmed with grief over the strange and untimely death of her beloved cousin. Abandoning husband and newborn, she moves to Vancouver and, while patching together a new life and trying to make sense of her past, begins to notice that strangers are compelled to confess their deepest, inky-black secrets to her. She becomes a sort of sin-eater, addicted to numbing her grief and shame through listening to others' tales of past misdeeds. One tale leads to the next, taking the reader on a sometimes dizzying quantum journey through space and time.
This skeletal summary sounds rather gloomy yet Gartner's novel pulses with life and laugh-out-loud humour. Her prose has a snap-crackle-pop to it that's all too rare, and her characters--especially Lucy--brim with life.
"To beguile: To distract the attention of; divert; To amuse or charm; delight or fascinate."
Zsuzsi Gartner's novel is full of beguilement: distracting and amusing, fascinating and delightful. Reading it felt like looking through a kaleidoscope at the surreal world of Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" while riding a tilt-a-whirl. Quite often, I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but I knew I was enjoying the ride.
The story (as I understood it): Lucy, our protagonist, is overwhelmed with grief over the strange and untimely death of her beloved cousin. Abandoning husband and newborn, she moves to Vancouver and, while patching together a new life and trying to make sense of her past, begins to notice that strangers are compelled to confess their deepest, inky-black secrets to her. She becomes a sort of sin-eater, addicted to numbing her grief and shame through listening to others' tales of past misdeeds. One tale leads to the next, taking the reader on a sometimes dizzying quantum journey through space and time.
This skeletal summary sounds rather gloomy yet Gartner's novel pulses with life and laugh-out-loud humour. Her prose has a snap-crackle-pop to it that's all too rare, and her characters--especially Lucy--brim with life.
March 17, 2021
Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for the review copy in exchange for an honest review!
There’s something really mesmerizing and lyrical about Gartner’s writing that just makes time pass when you read! This was such an interesting and complex story - it really doesn’t JUST fit into the literary fiction category. It’s so much more than that!
A mandatory, interesting Canadian book to read when you’re in the mood for something completely mind-blowing and different!
There’s something really mesmerizing and lyrical about Gartner’s writing that just makes time pass when you read! This was such an interesting and complex story - it really doesn’t JUST fit into the literary fiction category. It’s so much more than that!
A mandatory, interesting Canadian book to read when you’re in the mood for something completely mind-blowing and different!
March 3, 2021
This was February's pick for the Dominion City Beer and Book Club and this is one of those books I'd never pick up myself. I appreciate the style, but this story leaves the reader lost and without any rope to grab onto. Really lovely writing and passages at times, but this book just wasn't for me. I can definitely see value in it for the right reader, but that was definitely not me.
January 15, 2022
the girls that get it, get it. the girls that don't, don't. unfortunately, i was a girl that didn't.
October 23, 2020
The Canlit community is abuzz over Zsuzsi Gartner’s debut novel, The Beguiling. Despite this being her first novel, Gartner is a well-established pillar of the Canadian writing community. She’s been shortlisted for a Scotiabank Giller Prize for her short story collection Better Living Through Plastic Explosives, she’s edited a zany collection of science fiction titled Darwin’s Bastards and she’s won numerous awards for her journalism. Even if you’ve never heard of her, the titles of her books alone are an indication of what you’ll find between the pages. Her writing is bizarre as she frequently lapses into the absurd, but there’s a light humour to her work that keeps it entertaining and accessible. The Beguiling is complicated, the reader tumbles down wormholes of narration from characters that come and go, yet it’s still enjoyable, even for me who generally prefers a straightforward read. I frequently found myself re-reading sentences, wondering to myself “how would someone even think of that”? Her imagination is boundless, so if this sounds like a ride you’d like to join, buckle up.
Plot Summary
Lucy is mourning the loss of her cousin Zoltan. He died young from an infection that began in the stumps on his arms, as he lost his hands in a strange accident that occurred at a warehouse party he doesn’t have much recollection of. Once he is buried, Lucy, a lapsed Catholic, finds herself caught in a strange pattern; strangers approach her and confide their deepest darkest secrets to her. The overall narrative acts as a frame for these confessions; many of them run for multiple pages so the experience of reading this novel is more like a collection of linked short stories. These secrets vary widely, some are simple confessions of infidelity or malice while others stray into absurd territory, like plant life plotting a takeover of planet earth. Instead of being horrified by this, Lucy finds herself looking forward to them, even entering into a form of withdrawal as the disclosures dry up. Noticing strange coincidences among the stories, Lucy ends up in a disorientated state, leaving the reader both shocked and puzzled by what occurs in the last few pages.
My Thoughts
I’m a lazy reader in so many ways, and I usually struggle with books that purposely disguise their character’s true motivations. Lucy is a frustrating, complicated and polarizing character who I never fully understood. She gives birth to a young girl that she never really bonds with, but becomes overly attached to a dog she inherits from a friend. She recalls a memory of kissing Zoltan on the mouth, joking it off after he reacts uncomfortably, but his death continues to haunt her for the majority of the book. She travels around the world for a never-ending march of jobs, but her career is never a priority in her life. I found it particularly amusing when Lucy worked for a failing children’s book publisher and would make fun of the sad writers who weren’t getting paid; it comes across as sort of ‘meta’ considering Gartner’s own profession. Despite tagging along for these milestones, Lucy remains a mystery to readers, even by the end of the book. Each new situation she finds herself in further entangles her development as a character until you’re unsure of just about every observation she’s made. Normally I’d find this frustrating, but instead I saw it as a challenge, and I was entertained the entire way through.
The plot may sound daunting (or just plain convoluted) but I promise you, the writing is worth it. The sentences that you will read are like none other. I know I’ve spoken about this theory in the past, but writers who begin with short stories and excel at that form of writing are the best kind of novelists. They use words sparingly, their attention to detail is miles above the authors who take 700 pages to tell a story. Unless you’re writing a generational saga that spans centuries, a book doesn’t need to weigh more than a newborn baby. Gartner’s plotline meanders, but her writing never does. My favourite phrases are the ones that made me cringe and laugh at the same time: “She pushed out each word as if giving birth to a radioactive turd (which, she once confided to you, was exactly what childbirth felt like)” (p. 88). Or this one: “And at a Toronto film festival party for Moneyball the head caterer came up behind me and announced that she had squirted her own breast milk into the cold mint-pea-soup shooters. She was just that tired of it all” (p. 26). Don’t you love it? It disgusts and delights me all at the same time, I can’t help but give this book five stars.
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Plot Summary
Lucy is mourning the loss of her cousin Zoltan. He died young from an infection that began in the stumps on his arms, as he lost his hands in a strange accident that occurred at a warehouse party he doesn’t have much recollection of. Once he is buried, Lucy, a lapsed Catholic, finds herself caught in a strange pattern; strangers approach her and confide their deepest darkest secrets to her. The overall narrative acts as a frame for these confessions; many of them run for multiple pages so the experience of reading this novel is more like a collection of linked short stories. These secrets vary widely, some are simple confessions of infidelity or malice while others stray into absurd territory, like plant life plotting a takeover of planet earth. Instead of being horrified by this, Lucy finds herself looking forward to them, even entering into a form of withdrawal as the disclosures dry up. Noticing strange coincidences among the stories, Lucy ends up in a disorientated state, leaving the reader both shocked and puzzled by what occurs in the last few pages.
My Thoughts
I’m a lazy reader in so many ways, and I usually struggle with books that purposely disguise their character’s true motivations. Lucy is a frustrating, complicated and polarizing character who I never fully understood. She gives birth to a young girl that she never really bonds with, but becomes overly attached to a dog she inherits from a friend. She recalls a memory of kissing Zoltan on the mouth, joking it off after he reacts uncomfortably, but his death continues to haunt her for the majority of the book. She travels around the world for a never-ending march of jobs, but her career is never a priority in her life. I found it particularly amusing when Lucy worked for a failing children’s book publisher and would make fun of the sad writers who weren’t getting paid; it comes across as sort of ‘meta’ considering Gartner’s own profession. Despite tagging along for these milestones, Lucy remains a mystery to readers, even by the end of the book. Each new situation she finds herself in further entangles her development as a character until you’re unsure of just about every observation she’s made. Normally I’d find this frustrating, but instead I saw it as a challenge, and I was entertained the entire way through.
The plot may sound daunting (or just plain convoluted) but I promise you, the writing is worth it. The sentences that you will read are like none other. I know I’ve spoken about this theory in the past, but writers who begin with short stories and excel at that form of writing are the best kind of novelists. They use words sparingly, their attention to detail is miles above the authors who take 700 pages to tell a story. Unless you’re writing a generational saga that spans centuries, a book doesn’t need to weigh more than a newborn baby. Gartner’s plotline meanders, but her writing never does. My favourite phrases are the ones that made me cringe and laugh at the same time: “She pushed out each word as if giving birth to a radioactive turd (which, she once confided to you, was exactly what childbirth felt like)” (p. 88). Or this one: “And at a Toronto film festival party for Moneyball the head caterer came up behind me and announced that she had squirted her own breast milk into the cold mint-pea-soup shooters. She was just that tired of it all” (p. 26). Don’t you love it? It disgusts and delights me all at the same time, I can’t help but give this book five stars.
To read the rest of my reviews, please visit my blog:
https://ivereadthis.com/
Sign up for my newsletter here: https://ivereadthis.com/subscribe/
Or follow me on social media!
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January 6, 2022
This book started with some compelling themes and ideas but unfortunately started meandering and never got out of the weeds. There are times when the narrative is simply frustrating, I was invested early on but there was no help from the narrator. Characters are just spoken about as if you already know who they are but they are never introduced causing you to go back in case you missed something but - no, that’s just the writing style. It’s like being in a group of people that are all sharing inside jokes but never letting you in on them. The end was woefully underwhelming. There is no meaningful resolution for any of the plot lines that develop throughout the book. I’m glad I read it, this was certainly a challenging read but I cannot recommend it beyond that.
February 14, 2023
C'est terrible. This is likely the worst book I have ever read in my life. There were some poetic and impactful lines but they were lost in the chaotic and convoluted narrative. The addition of a plethora of artistic and religious references made this seem more pretentious then enjoyable. I tortuously finished this book, simply because I thought there may have been a plot twist or amazing ending. I was wrong. I would never recommend this to a soul.
April 13, 2021
I don't know what I read but I think it was great??
January 15, 2022
this was so weird but intriguing and the prose was amazing. it’s not dark academia but if you like that i feel like you would like this.
4.5 stars
4.5 stars
November 24, 2020
Well this was a quirky read. I enjoyed it quite a bit but don't know who I'd recommend it to. I downloaded it from the library because the synopsis sounded a bit like a friend of mine, who seems to have an invisible neon sign on her forehead that announces to people that she's open to hearing your deepest secrets. Nothing as dark and bizarre as the secrets shared in The Beguiling, but still. Thankfully, I don't give off the same vibes, but I've seen hers in action. (That was a fun spa trip, let me tell you.)
The story meanders through a number of revelations shared with the protagonist, Lucy, almost but not quite like a string of separate short stories connected by Lucy's story. By the end, this book goes places I won't spoil but definitely was not expecting.
As well as the general quirkiness of the story, I loved Zsuzsi Gartner's writing style. The book is awash with allusions, far-ranging and fun. The author's Goodreads bio doesn't give her age, but based on the scope of things alluded to, I'd guess she's relatively close to my age (I'm in my late 50s). This is no Ready Player One, steeped in the culture of young'uns. She references Gatsby, Gollum, and Gumby and Pokey, the cracks that let the light in in Leonard Cohen's poetry and the cracks in Japanese pottery mended with gold, mythology, the "Merrie Melodies' high-stepping ragtime frog," and a million other things. I've read some novels where frequent allusions felt forced and ended up annoying, but in this case, it all just flowed over me, giving me a sense that the author lived in the same world I did, with the same cultural reference points, however out there the story was.
Gartner also has a way with writing about the dark side of our psyches. To give just a few examples:
Here's her take on childhood:
"Mothers think they know everything, but they know sorely little about their own flesh and blood, who cleave to them the moment they're born. Newborns would sever the umbilical cord themselves with their teeth if they had any and flee as fast as their rubbery little limbs would allow before letting themselves fall prey to the Stockholm syndrome that is childhood."
Here's her description of labour pains:
"The pain came screeching into the station right on schedule -- at first bold and show-offy, a Norma Desmond, a Lady Gaga of pains; then cavernous, voracious, lacerating my nerve sheaths like a skua gull tearing apart a baby penguin."
Lastly, her description of a male adolescent's brain:
"Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned, but the hot, churning rage birthed from a male adolescent's bubbling hormonal cauldron is a thing to be reckoned with as well. A ghastly, dripping, monomaniacal amygdala-shaped golem, divorced from prefrontal cortex and all the rest of his thinking machinery."
That kind of writing and delving into darkness either appeals to you or doesn't. I lapped it up.
Finally, a couple of random sentences I jotted down simply because they struck me:
"The crows all had something to say. None of it good and only some of it true." I want to read a fairy tale that starts with that sentence!
And, "Someone's freedom is always someone else's damage." Maybe just me, but I heard this in the voice of Wynona Ryder in Heathers. Shouldn't some emo or goth chick be getting that tattooed on their arm?
So, a quirky book with lush, allusive, dark, dark, dark writing that meanders and ultimately goes to some very unexpected places. If you're the type of reader who thinks they would enjoy that, you know who you are.
The story meanders through a number of revelations shared with the protagonist, Lucy, almost but not quite like a string of separate short stories connected by Lucy's story. By the end, this book goes places I won't spoil but definitely was not expecting.
As well as the general quirkiness of the story, I loved Zsuzsi Gartner's writing style. The book is awash with allusions, far-ranging and fun. The author's Goodreads bio doesn't give her age, but based on the scope of things alluded to, I'd guess she's relatively close to my age (I'm in my late 50s). This is no Ready Player One, steeped in the culture of young'uns. She references Gatsby, Gollum, and Gumby and Pokey, the cracks that let the light in in Leonard Cohen's poetry and the cracks in Japanese pottery mended with gold, mythology, the "Merrie Melodies' high-stepping ragtime frog," and a million other things. I've read some novels where frequent allusions felt forced and ended up annoying, but in this case, it all just flowed over me, giving me a sense that the author lived in the same world I did, with the same cultural reference points, however out there the story was.
Gartner also has a way with writing about the dark side of our psyches. To give just a few examples:
Here's her take on childhood:
"Mothers think they know everything, but they know sorely little about their own flesh and blood, who cleave to them the moment they're born. Newborns would sever the umbilical cord themselves with their teeth if they had any and flee as fast as their rubbery little limbs would allow before letting themselves fall prey to the Stockholm syndrome that is childhood."
Here's her description of labour pains:
"The pain came screeching into the station right on schedule -- at first bold and show-offy, a Norma Desmond, a Lady Gaga of pains; then cavernous, voracious, lacerating my nerve sheaths like a skua gull tearing apart a baby penguin."
Lastly, her description of a male adolescent's brain:
"Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned, but the hot, churning rage birthed from a male adolescent's bubbling hormonal cauldron is a thing to be reckoned with as well. A ghastly, dripping, monomaniacal amygdala-shaped golem, divorced from prefrontal cortex and all the rest of his thinking machinery."
That kind of writing and delving into darkness either appeals to you or doesn't. I lapped it up.
Finally, a couple of random sentences I jotted down simply because they struck me:
"The crows all had something to say. None of it good and only some of it true." I want to read a fairy tale that starts with that sentence!
And, "Someone's freedom is always someone else's damage." Maybe just me, but I heard this in the voice of Wynona Ryder in Heathers. Shouldn't some emo or goth chick be getting that tattooed on their arm?
So, a quirky book with lush, allusive, dark, dark, dark writing that meanders and ultimately goes to some very unexpected places. If you're the type of reader who thinks they would enjoy that, you know who you are.
January 9, 2021
Reading this book was like being blindfolded and placed on a rollercoaster that you’ve never been on before. All of the twists and turns coming out of nowhere. You hear screams not knowing if they’re yours or someone else’s. You’re taken along for a ride not knowing what’s going on. I wanted to enjoy it but I felt like I was always scrambling to stay on board. With that being said, this book was good. If you can get past how confusing and complicated the story is, it’s incredibly insightful. It was a beautiful commentary on life and death and sin and what constitutes a “normal” life. This is a read at your own risk kind of book.
skimmed-the-end-or-dnf
November 26, 2020DNF at page 55. I couldn't get into this one as much as I tried. I can't find a connection with the main character at all, and it's weird, but not interesting. Decided to set this one down, I hate DNFing so much 🙈. Thank you Penguin for sending a review copy, sorry this one didn't work out for me.
Read
June 25, 2021Weird, unsettling, disjointed, confusing, rambling, non-sensical. I finished hoping it would come together and say something to me... nothing. I think people call stuff brilliant when they don’t want to just say this is weird crap that makes no sense.
On to my next read!
On to my next read!
June 27, 2021
4 1/2 stars
abandoned
April 7, 2022Abandoned. I just couldn't get into the story.
July 12, 2022
The Beguiled is a clever book and I enjoyed the read, although I found the ending messy and couldn’t entirely make sense of it. Gartner’s writing is entertaining, to be sure. Hooks and foreshadowing are used to good effect and she comes up with some delightful metaphors/similes which always satisfy my soul. There is also plenty of philosophizing woven into the story which is to my liking (ie. commentary around the randomness of life and the import of chance, the idea of remembering the past and imagining the future as perhaps more accurate the other way around, etc.).
Lucy, the protagonist, is not a reliable narrator. She is not honest with herself or with others. One thing that becomes abundantly clear as the story progresses is that she sees commitment as a burden and prioritizes freedom above all else.
The story details the death of her cousin, her “spiritual twin”, and the unusual events that follow, namely that wherever she goes, strangers approach and share their most intimate struggles with her. These confessions tend to center on the anguish of love and how the confessor is driven to subvert/deny himself for the sake of the loved one. These confessions come to comprise the bulk of the novel.
In the final pages, Lucy herself makes a confession which catches the reader entirely off guard. It becomes apparent that with the compilation of earlier confessions Lucy was in fact building a defense. Did her confession make me like her any better? No, but it tied the story together nicely in a way that was completely unexpected.
The novel begs the question, “Does love even exist without commitment?” Gartner doesn't address this question head on, but leaves it for the reader to mull over.
Lucy, the protagonist, is not a reliable narrator. She is not honest with herself or with others. One thing that becomes abundantly clear as the story progresses is that she sees commitment as a burden and prioritizes freedom above all else.
The story details the death of her cousin, her “spiritual twin”, and the unusual events that follow, namely that wherever she goes, strangers approach and share their most intimate struggles with her. These confessions tend to center on the anguish of love and how the confessor is driven to subvert/deny himself for the sake of the loved one. These confessions come to comprise the bulk of the novel.
In the final pages, Lucy herself makes a confession which catches the reader entirely off guard. It becomes apparent that with the compilation of earlier confessions Lucy was in fact building a defense. Did her confession make me like her any better? No, but it tied the story together nicely in a way that was completely unexpected.
The novel begs the question, “Does love even exist without commitment?” Gartner doesn't address this question head on, but leaves it for the reader to mull over.
October 5, 2020
This novel is well-named. It is beguiling. At times it is witty and brimming with a slightly twisted wisdom. At other times it balances on the rim of despair and depression. At all times, however, it tosses at the reader a grand collection of characters who flit in and out of the life of the narrator Lucy.
Zsuzsi Gartner has a deft touch with language and character creation . Her merry-go-round of people, places, and events keeps the reader’s interest. It was not far into the book when I became aware of the constant appearances of intertextual references. As Gartner spun the web of her characters there was a constant haunting of other books, poems, music lyrics and social touch points. This was a delightful addition to the book.
The question of how a person becomes whole through interactions with others was explored with both sensitivity and creativity in the book. How do we carry love? How do we love? Is love ever enough, ever complete? These questions weave throughout the book.
I eagerly await Gartner’s next book.
Zsuzsi Gartner has a deft touch with language and character creation . Her merry-go-round of people, places, and events keeps the reader’s interest. It was not far into the book when I became aware of the constant appearances of intertextual references. As Gartner spun the web of her characters there was a constant haunting of other books, poems, music lyrics and social touch points. This was a delightful addition to the book.
The question of how a person becomes whole through interactions with others was explored with both sensitivity and creativity in the book. How do we carry love? How do we love? Is love ever enough, ever complete? These questions weave throughout the book.
I eagerly await Gartner’s next book.
September 17, 2023
I wanted to like this bc I think the concept was very interesting but unfortunately this book was basically incomprehensible to me. probably user error but I found the structure really shifty and difficult to follow and I was never able to actually settle in to anything. typically I enjoy a place based novel but I found the Vancouver of it all distracting in this case. idk! interesting in theory but in execution this was not for me
October 31, 2024
Big fan of weird f*cked up contemporary fiction books I can’t help it
November 17, 2024
This was interesting but a little hard to follow. I had no idea what I was reading a lot of times because it felt like a different story but it was enjoyable. I liked it.
February 12, 2022
This book is well written and clever in it's references, though it did confuse me at some points. I still don't fully understand the ending and would like to re-read this at some point but overall I enjoyed The Beguiling and want to explore more of Gartner's work.
Read the full review on my blog!
Read the full review on my blog!
July 4, 2021
I can see why that book received high ratings, but I did not not enjoy it.
I found the story droll and pretentious. The amount of references to historical literature and the repetitive use of the word “miasma” came across as trite. Show boating as of to say “I’m no run of the mill novelist clamouring for a mini series, I’m an INTELLECTUAL”
The novelist is pretty well known for her short stories, and you can tell. The whole novel is a labyrinth of interconnected monologues retold by an unreliable narrator. The themes are ghastly, gruesome, and thought provoking. The individual story lines really hook you in, but none of them amount to much in the end. And that’s my largest criticism: I don’t need all my stories neatly wrapped up in a bow, but I would have been much more impressed (and frankly, satisfied) if the author had resolved this meandering dialogue with some sort of plot resolution, or even an over arching message!
The novelist shines in creating realistic dialogue. You almost believe the book was written by Lucy and that her family history is that of the novelist.
Overall, it’s a highly intellectual book, but I didn’t enjoy it. It was intellectual for the sake of being intellectual, but the ending left me feeling dry and disappointed. I could have used more cleverness than book smarts on this one!
I found the story droll and pretentious. The amount of references to historical literature and the repetitive use of the word “miasma” came across as trite. Show boating as of to say “I’m no run of the mill novelist clamouring for a mini series, I’m an INTELLECTUAL”
The novelist is pretty well known for her short stories, and you can tell. The whole novel is a labyrinth of interconnected monologues retold by an unreliable narrator. The themes are ghastly, gruesome, and thought provoking. The individual story lines really hook you in, but none of them amount to much in the end. And that’s my largest criticism: I don’t need all my stories neatly wrapped up in a bow, but I would have been much more impressed (and frankly, satisfied) if the author had resolved this meandering dialogue with some sort of plot resolution, or even an over arching message!
The novelist shines in creating realistic dialogue. You almost believe the book was written by Lucy and that her family history is that of the novelist.
Overall, it’s a highly intellectual book, but I didn’t enjoy it. It was intellectual for the sake of being intellectual, but the ending left me feeling dry and disappointed. I could have used more cleverness than book smarts on this one!
December 11, 2021
I was a little bit disappointed by this, I won't lie. I like Gartner's writing, I thought it was funny and lush, and I was into the concept of the novel, but it just didn't quite hit the mark for me.
I felt like there were a lot of ideas and stories-within-the-story that were interesting and absorbing but we didn't get quite enough time with them and they went by so quickly I wasn't even fully able to absorb them. I thought there was a lot of streamlining that could have been done to make the novel more effective and pack a punch rather than a limp hand flutter.
But throughout the whole novel I enjoyed Gartner's keen remarks about other characters, they were droll and perfectly encapsulated the character they were in reference to, ie. 'Blur-haired boy was loudly admiring its 'feminist integrity' while glancing to his girlfriend for approval. Good job, Eva thought, she'll fuck your tiny brains out tonight.' Sadly, Gartner's skill prose didn't quite salvage the wobbly structural integrity of the rest of the plot.
I felt like there were a lot of ideas and stories-within-the-story that were interesting and absorbing but we didn't get quite enough time with them and they went by so quickly I wasn't even fully able to absorb them. I thought there was a lot of streamlining that could have been done to make the novel more effective and pack a punch rather than a limp hand flutter.
But throughout the whole novel I enjoyed Gartner's keen remarks about other characters, they were droll and perfectly encapsulated the character they were in reference to, ie. 'Blur-haired boy was loudly admiring its 'feminist integrity' while glancing to his girlfriend for approval. Good job, Eva thought, she'll fuck your tiny brains out tonight.' Sadly, Gartner's skill prose didn't quite salvage the wobbly structural integrity of the rest of the plot.
December 28, 2020
The Beguiling: intriguing, extravagant and, yes, beguiling!
We think we remember the past & imagine the future. What if in reality it’s the other way around?
“I’ve long believed that people ought to have licenses for having children. It’s more difficult, more dangerous, and there’s more potential for wholesale destruction than with driving or flying a plane. The shocking negligence with which we procreate!”
When everything starts confessing/speaking to you, the cacophony is overwhelming.
The cave witch “’the blessed materfamilias of the flora, Madonna of the fields. Our Devi of blue agavae… Demeter, Kupala of loosestrife and fern, Mama Zara, saviour of the corn and lover of the pocked and the broken.’”
The avenging plants: “Far from insensate, we feel much too deeply.’”
“Everything was so alive, so excruciatingly alive and clamouring to be heard. So let the dead remain dead to make room for the stories of the living.”
We think we remember the past & imagine the future. What if in reality it’s the other way around?
“I’ve long believed that people ought to have licenses for having children. It’s more difficult, more dangerous, and there’s more potential for wholesale destruction than with driving or flying a plane. The shocking negligence with which we procreate!”
When everything starts confessing/speaking to you, the cacophony is overwhelming.
The cave witch “’the blessed materfamilias of the flora, Madonna of the fields. Our Devi of blue agavae… Demeter, Kupala of loosestrife and fern, Mama Zara, saviour of the corn and lover of the pocked and the broken.’”
The avenging plants: “Far from insensate, we feel much too deeply.’”
“Everything was so alive, so excruciatingly alive and clamouring to be heard. So let the dead remain dead to make room for the stories of the living.”
March 19, 2021
Well I'm glad it's over. It wanted to be poetic and it perhaps was. It was also dark and reading it felt like walking through a dream filled with molasses. Not my cup of tea. So depressing/sad and draining with a few good chuckles. I really was rooting for this to be good.
Read
January 3, 2021I appear to be of the minority opinion on this one… Another one I was excited to read - having loved Better Living - but where the marketing buzzwords and taglines are just trying way too hard. Electrifying? Ruthless wit? Dizzying energy? I’m bailing after pg 44…
Maybe it’s that I’m irreligious and therefore it’s that the entire (Catholic) premise means nothing to me - and perhaps I’m not following the ‘in’ jokes - but, I am bored. I don’t care about the characters and I don’t care about what’s happening.
I have lots of other books on my TBR pile waiting for me....
Maybe it’s that I’m irreligious and therefore it’s that the entire (Catholic) premise means nothing to me - and perhaps I’m not following the ‘in’ jokes - but, I am bored. I don’t care about the characters and I don’t care about what’s happening.
I have lots of other books on my TBR pile waiting for me....
March 31, 2021
this book took me so long to read because i just couldn’t connect with the main character. it felt like i was stumbling around in a dark room trying to follow this plot, all the different characters and time lines were extremely hard to follow and i could never fully grasp the extent of the plot. i can see how this book would be insightful but the repeated metaphors never really meant anything to me and again i never connected with the characters. overall i didn’t enjoy it.
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