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Meet Us by the Roaring Sea
In the near future, a young woman finds her mother's body starfished on the kitchen floor in Queens and sets on a journey through language, archives, artificial intelligence, and TV for a way back into herself. She begins to translate an old manuscript about a group of female medical students--living through a drought and at the edge of the war--as they create a new way of existence to help the people around them. In the process, the translator's life and the manuscript begin to become entangled.
Along the way, the arrival of a childhood friend, a stranger, and an unusual AI project will force her to question her own moral compass and sense of goodness. How involved are we in the suffering of others? What does real compassion look like? How do you make a better world?
Along the way, the arrival of a childhood friend, a stranger, and an unusual AI project will force her to question her own moral compass and sense of goodness. How involved are we in the suffering of others? What does real compassion look like? How do you make a better world?
304 pages, Hardcover
First published August 23, 2022
93 people are currently reading
9008 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews
September 21, 2022
I read this concurrently with Checkout 19, and let's just say, it's been a strange few days: stream of consciousness, second person narratives, first person singular narratives. unlikely juxtapositions, stories within stories. This is also a really impressive book, with well sustained voice and a wry wittiness despite the grimness of the situation. If I were to compare the two, I'd say that both bring a wealth of erudition and literary audacity to the task. Checkout 19 is a bit more ambitious literarily, while Meet Us by the Roaring Sea has a sharper sense of purpose in its world building -- a mysterious, provocative, and resonant read.
October 4, 2022
akil kumarasamy is one of my favorite writers!! her voice is so unique and intimate, and she navigates heavy stories with constant but appropriate humor. i love the way her books defy genres, or create their own, taking on elements of magical realism, sci fi, fantasy, historical fiction. the social commentary is so spot on it feels like satire. its been so fun to read and get lost in. highly recommend!!
August 23, 2022
“ A mother is a slippery thing: she brings you into the world and then departs. All your mother has left for you are these rough-cut memories that both sting and shimmer when held too closely.” – starts the novel. The protagonist lives in a future New York city and works in advanced AI, specializing in natural language processing.
“We were eighteen the summer of the drought, The cow’s milk tasted of water and the harvest had shriveled to half-formed things.” – starts the manuscript that the protagonist is translating.
The novel alternates between the future New York City and the manuscript that is being translated and the effect is stunning and beautiful.
“We were eighteen the summer of the drought, The cow’s milk tasted of water and the harvest had shriveled to half-formed things.” – starts the manuscript that the protagonist is translating.
The novel alternates between the future New York City and the manuscript that is being translated and the effect is stunning and beautiful.
January 28, 2023
A beautiful dumpling of a novel, the wrapper as tasty as the filling.
December 22, 2022
This book had some lovely writing but I had hoped it would also have a plot.
December 2, 2022
The protagonist is living in her recently deceased mother's house, which is crammed with objects of historical significance. She (or more accurately "You", since the narration is in second person) hasn't been coping well with the grief from her mother's death, so her cousin has moved in. The narrator works training AI models, and the cousin is developing a technology to extract memories. By night, the main character translates a Tamil manuscript about a group of female medical students practicing radical compassion on the edge of a camp where refugees arrive after escaping a civil war. Chapters of the manuscript appear between chapters about the protagonist, who reconnects with an old friend, an artist whose parents recently died as a result of the decision of an artificial intelligence.
All these elements set up at the beginning of the novel are fascinating, and I was excited by the story's potential and intrigued by the strangeness of the narrative. But by the end, I was frustrated that many of the most interesting threads weren't developed much and that despite all the different pieces, the story is fairly slow. This is a genre-bending, shape-shifting tale of grief and translation and artificial intelligence, and some readers are really connecting with that, but for me, this was the wrong combination of too much happening and not enough happening.
All these elements set up at the beginning of the novel are fascinating, and I was excited by the story's potential and intrigued by the strangeness of the narrative. But by the end, I was frustrated that many of the most interesting threads weren't developed much and that despite all the different pieces, the story is fairly slow. This is a genre-bending, shape-shifting tale of grief and translation and artificial intelligence, and some readers are really connecting with that, but for me, this was the wrong combination of too much happening and not enough happening.
September 12, 2022
MEET US BY THE ROARING SEA |
Is a mind-bending delve into the blurring overlap where language and the future of AI and machine learning blend
All things human made are human biased, this includes our constructions of common thought like philosophy, language, and tools. The limitations of language shape how we perceive, think and remember things:
"When does a war begin? Is it with a public declaration broadcast in the morning hours and the president's voice or is it more private? Watching your village burn down, your family slaughtered in their sleep by salaried soldiers?"
But it also takes on new mutations and permutations the more we reflect, shape the memory, alter the code. Like translations between languages, what we feed into machine learning as input data will try to make sense based on the tools available/what already exists as a known placeholder for an image, thing or idea. Can things spin out of control with AI? If humans are the source material, AI is the translated language and we are the translators, how much can get lost?
Our MC becomes transfixed with an old manuscript that she's translating from ancient Tamil to English, which we later learn she's done before. To some degree, it seems we all cycle on the same event, something that could be narrowed down to a staggering 15 second clip, and cycle through it over and over on repeat. Trying to make sense of it, glean something new from it, relive it, while losing it.
About 1/3 of the way through it dawned on me that the use of "you" for the MC was really quite eerie. It's quite different to use the 2nd singular. In the beginning, I had thought it was to show how disembodied she felt from the grief of her mother's death, detaching from herself. But then I began to consider - is there another entity that is in fact watching her and forming the narrative that we are now reading? If so, what is 'it?'
I don't think this book will be for everyone. There were a lot of things going on and I could not make sense of everything. It felt like a stretch read to try to understand why certain things were needed/useful. I'd be very interested to hear from others who have read this one! (3.75)
Is a mind-bending delve into the blurring overlap where language and the future of AI and machine learning blend
All things human made are human biased, this includes our constructions of common thought like philosophy, language, and tools. The limitations of language shape how we perceive, think and remember things:
"When does a war begin? Is it with a public declaration broadcast in the morning hours and the president's voice or is it more private? Watching your village burn down, your family slaughtered in their sleep by salaried soldiers?"
But it also takes on new mutations and permutations the more we reflect, shape the memory, alter the code. Like translations between languages, what we feed into machine learning as input data will try to make sense based on the tools available/what already exists as a known placeholder for an image, thing or idea. Can things spin out of control with AI? If humans are the source material, AI is the translated language and we are the translators, how much can get lost?
Our MC becomes transfixed with an old manuscript that she's translating from ancient Tamil to English, which we later learn she's done before. To some degree, it seems we all cycle on the same event, something that could be narrowed down to a staggering 15 second clip, and cycle through it over and over on repeat. Trying to make sense of it, glean something new from it, relive it, while losing it.
About 1/3 of the way through it dawned on me that the use of "you" for the MC was really quite eerie. It's quite different to use the 2nd singular. In the beginning, I had thought it was to show how disembodied she felt from the grief of her mother's death, detaching from herself. But then I began to consider - is there another entity that is in fact watching her and forming the narrative that we are now reading? If so, what is 'it?'
I don't think this book will be for everyone. There were a lot of things going on and I could not make sense of everything. It felt like a stretch read to try to understand why certain things were needed/useful. I'd be very interested to hear from others who have read this one! (3.75)
September 5, 2022
There’s a lot of interesting themes in this book. It’s a deeply introspective book about trauma, injustice, and radical compassion. Plot wise, Meet Us by the Roaring Sea is set in the future and follows our narrator who is developing a super-AI and translating a manuscript about a group of girls at a medical school. The narrator is dealing with her own trauma and encounters other people’s trauma throughout the course of the book. The AI portions were the most interesting to me but were focused on the least. I would have preferred to focus on that instead of our narrator’s relationships with some of the side characters.
Overall, I liked this book but I didn’t love the author’s prose and way of telling the story. Things are constantly flowing and I normally prefer a tighter and more concise story. Really it came down to my personal preferences as to why I didn’t rate this higher.
Overall, I liked this book but I didn’t love the author’s prose and way of telling the story. Things are constantly flowing and I normally prefer a tighter and more concise story. Really it came down to my personal preferences as to why I didn’t rate this higher.
August 25, 2022
I had hit a slump with my reading before finding this book - it really is sensational, a beautifully written, mind-bending novel that will take you out of yourself and plunge you into different kinds of selfhoods you didn't think possible (at least for me). Hard recommend for lovers of ambitious fiction.
January 8, 2023
This was really powerful and well crafted. Loved the unique prose and pov, really captures that odd grief state. I had checked this out from the library early December and my hold was due back end of December, I held onto it a little longer because I did really want to read it and I’m so glad I did. Really want to check out her linked short story collection now.
November 6, 2022
A strange, elliptical book for fans of Kazuo Ishiguro and Leslie Marmon Silko.
November 23, 2022
A unique, beautifully constructed journey in reading ☺️
November 8, 2022
This book will not be for everyone but it is for me! I could read this book 15 more times and come out with 15 different interpretations of it. I’ve never read a book that uses 2nd person like this. Half the book uses “you” and the other half uses “we” in a kind of dual POV between a future New York and a past that the main character is translating a manuscript from Tamil.
If you don’t like no real plot, just meandering thoughts, this is not for you. I couldn’t tell you what this book was about, just that I loved it. I would love to read someone’s thesis or deeper thoughts on this book. I definitely do plan on rereading this at some point and checking out Kumarasamy’s other works. The prose is so beautiful and so different to what I have read recently. It was mesmerizing. The no use of quotation marks and only italicized letters when people (or AI) are talking is a very good touch. The similarities between the main character’s POV and the manuscript POV are so cool once you catch on to them. I’m sure there’s tons of stuff that I missed on this read. I cant wait to read it again someday.
If you don’t like no real plot, just meandering thoughts, this is not for you. I couldn’t tell you what this book was about, just that I loved it. I would love to read someone’s thesis or deeper thoughts on this book. I definitely do plan on rereading this at some point and checking out Kumarasamy’s other works. The prose is so beautiful and so different to what I have read recently. It was mesmerizing. The no use of quotation marks and only italicized letters when people (or AI) are talking is a very good touch. The similarities between the main character’s POV and the manuscript POV are so cool once you catch on to them. I’m sure there’s tons of stuff that I missed on this read. I cant wait to read it again someday.
July 9, 2023
This was hard to finish. I think I understand the intentionality and the function of the stylistic choices here, but it sure did it make it hard to stick with this story. Like having someone tell you their dream, but the dream takes almost 300 pages to get through. I can see why reviewers have such lovely compliments about the writing. It is pretty and clever writing. But I'm wondering if that even matters. The story is just too disjointed. It's carrying so many themes and elements, and they're all misty and ephemeral. It's frustrating. This book was such an experience though that it has me reflecting on the function of writing and reading. Was this story more or less successful because of its stylistic choices? I'd wager less. But kudos to the author for an original premise and trying something new.
November 21, 2022
How do I describe this book? It really captured me. I am still processing and probably will be for a while.
October 3, 2022
I really loved this book. And if someone said "Oh yeah? What's it about?" I'd be like "iunno..."
When I originally read the synopsis I thought "Sounds interesting, kind of like House of Leaves." House of Leaves is a book where the main character reads a manuscript that was written by a blind man who watched a movie. Roaring Sea is about a main character who is translating a manuscript that no one will read, about a movement no one knows about. It wasn't that far off of a comparison, to be honest. Roaring Sea doesn't play with the medium the way House of Leaves did, but it has a deep dive into layers of connections that will appeal to anyone who likes to read into subtext.
Roaring Sea is a challenging read that will probably chase a lot of readers off. This felt like a capital-A-Art literature-style book which is something I do not normally do well with, but this time it really jumped out and spoke to me. I may not have understood what it was saying, but it spoke to me. The prose is beautiful, never straying too close to "purple prose" territory, and the themes are really touching and are as brutally relatable as they are uncomfortable. There are a lot of really interesting compare and contrasts between story elements, and I felt like I was missing a lot and wanted to know more about how it all interconnected. It's not just a book where you re-read it and pick up on more themes, it's more like a book where you read it dozens of times and then write a thesis about the themes. Basically, I felt like I need to read someone else's thesis on this book. I need someone to explain it to me, because there's no way I found all the nuances.
The book features a lot of strange, yet effective style choices. There are essentially two timelines: That of the main character (who may or may not be named Aya? There is a single line near the beginning that could have referred to them as 'Aya' but I wasn't certain if it was intended as a name), set in the near future, and that of the manuscript the character is translating, set in the 1990s.
In the main character's timeline, the POV is second tense. Reading everything described as "You are doing this" and "Your mother" and "You You You" is odd, but the author has a real knack for plausible ambiguity compounded by intensely human, relatable situations, and it all works almost like a brain worm where you start to feel like the book is somehow showing you a mirror of your own misremembered or forgotten actions. The book itself makes reference to the manuscript "taking over" the main character, making me feel that the use of second person was intended to have the same effect on the reader. In this timeline, all of the dialogue is presented in italics, which adds to the dreamlike feel of everything.
In the manuscript timeline, we are following a group of 17 medical students, and the POV is a collective "We" where we never follow a specific character, only the collective group. In this timeline, all dialogue is presented in quotation marks, making it feel much more present (even though it is occurring in the past...).
One of the challenges of the book is its structure. Scenes don't always seem connected, or sometimes even coherent. There are no chapters, just marks indicating the end of scenes. Events seem to happen out of nowhere and sometimes leave you wondering why they were introduced. At times the only way to tell you've switched from the Main Character timeline into the manuscript timeline is to notice that the POV has shifted. But somehow, this disjointed structure works to build the story, and even enhances the themes of the book—a major theme of the book is memory (along with grief, suffering, technology, and motherhood, among others) and the scenes in the book feel disorienting, almost mimicking the recollections of someone with memory loss.
I almost feel like it might be a bit too ambitious. Like I said: I want to read someone's thesis on it, because I found it difficult to follow, even after creating a list of characters and searching back through the Kindle to try to piece things together. The average reader isn't going to put in that level of effort, and they're likely to either give up or miss all the connections that are layered together, and for that reason I think I can't award a full 5 stars. But for those who want to dive in, you might have a legit literary masterpiece to dissect here. Or perhaps you will dissect it and proceed to let me know how wrong that statement is, but I still think it will be worth the time it takes to read.
When I originally read the synopsis I thought "Sounds interesting, kind of like House of Leaves." House of Leaves is a book where the main character reads a manuscript that was written by a blind man who watched a movie. Roaring Sea is about a main character who is translating a manuscript that no one will read, about a movement no one knows about. It wasn't that far off of a comparison, to be honest. Roaring Sea doesn't play with the medium the way House of Leaves did, but it has a deep dive into layers of connections that will appeal to anyone who likes to read into subtext.
Roaring Sea is a challenging read that will probably chase a lot of readers off. This felt like a capital-A-Art literature-style book which is something I do not normally do well with, but this time it really jumped out and spoke to me. I may not have understood what it was saying, but it spoke to me. The prose is beautiful, never straying too close to "purple prose" territory, and the themes are really touching and are as brutally relatable as they are uncomfortable. There are a lot of really interesting compare and contrasts between story elements, and I felt like I was missing a lot and wanted to know more about how it all interconnected. It's not just a book where you re-read it and pick up on more themes, it's more like a book where you read it dozens of times and then write a thesis about the themes. Basically, I felt like I need to read someone else's thesis on this book. I need someone to explain it to me, because there's no way I found all the nuances.
The book features a lot of strange, yet effective style choices. There are essentially two timelines: That of the main character (who may or may not be named Aya? There is a single line near the beginning that could have referred to them as 'Aya' but I wasn't certain if it was intended as a name), set in the near future, and that of the manuscript the character is translating, set in the 1990s.
In the main character's timeline, the POV is second tense. Reading everything described as "You are doing this" and "Your mother" and "You You You" is odd, but the author has a real knack for plausible ambiguity compounded by intensely human, relatable situations, and it all works almost like a brain worm where you start to feel like the book is somehow showing you a mirror of your own misremembered or forgotten actions. The book itself makes reference to the manuscript "taking over" the main character, making me feel that the use of second person was intended to have the same effect on the reader. In this timeline, all of the dialogue is presented in italics, which adds to the dreamlike feel of everything.
In the manuscript timeline, we are following a group of 17 medical students, and the POV is a collective "We" where we never follow a specific character, only the collective group. In this timeline, all dialogue is presented in quotation marks, making it feel much more present (even though it is occurring in the past...).
One of the challenges of the book is its structure. Scenes don't always seem connected, or sometimes even coherent. There are no chapters, just marks indicating the end of scenes. Events seem to happen out of nowhere and sometimes leave you wondering why they were introduced. At times the only way to tell you've switched from the Main Character timeline into the manuscript timeline is to notice that the POV has shifted. But somehow, this disjointed structure works to build the story, and even enhances the themes of the book—a major theme of the book is memory (along with grief, suffering, technology, and motherhood, among others) and the scenes in the book feel disorienting, almost mimicking the recollections of someone with memory loss.
I almost feel like it might be a bit too ambitious. Like I said: I want to read someone's thesis on it, because I found it difficult to follow, even after creating a list of characters and searching back through the Kindle to try to piece things together. The average reader isn't going to put in that level of effort, and they're likely to either give up or miss all the connections that are layered together, and for that reason I think I can't award a full 5 stars. But for those who want to dive in, you might have a legit literary masterpiece to dissect here. Or perhaps you will dissect it and proceed to let me know how wrong that statement is, but I still think it will be worth the time it takes to read.
September 24, 2022
Kumarasmy weaves together a tale of personal and political grief in surprising and telling ways. I was taken on a journey beneath the conscious level of knowing what loss is and brought into a labyrinth of the many paths that grief travels on and inhabits. In the near future we are no more equipped to deal with the tragedy of death then we are now, though the characters that live in that future moment attempt to find ways to deal with it, through technology, art and of course literature. Akil shows us the open roaring sea and all that we imagine could be possible on those distant shores, as we cope with the reality of the suffering that occurs within the present moment. This book will take you on journey to the ways that possibility is rendered and manipulated, and I highly recommend we all go for this ride.
January 9, 2023
I often struggle to connect with books that are set in the future (even the near future) but Kumarasamy does an excellent job of reaffirming that being human comes with the same joy and pain in any time period. The writing style was unique and told (mostly) through alternating chapters of 2nd person narrative and a manuscript that was (mostly) in the first person plural. I never found the switching confusing and the novel had a flow to it even with the changes. There was an intimacy to the writing, yet also a remoteness- possibly due to the futuristic setting. This book has interesting things to say about mothers, daughters, being a woman, etc. It has interesting things to say all around (war, technology, etc.) but I found the conversation on women especially affecting.
I've struggled with how to rate this book. While I'm reading it's solidly in the 5 star range but when I put it down those feelings dissipate. There were lines in this novel that pierced me to my core. I found myself re-reading lines in an attempt to hold onto them. I still have a sense of it, a whiff lingering in my nose, but I can't completely remember what it was all about and what I loved about it. I'm settling on 9/10 but could see myself bumping it up on a re-read with my own copy that I could mark up... however, I rarely find time to re-read.
Two examples from the end of the book... because that's where I've most recently been:
"Together we dug into the sand and wrote messages that would be visible only in the daylight, but we trusted our movements because, in the end, meaning was never the point. What we needed to convey was a feeling and it didn't matter if it was etched in something as temporary as sand." pg. 285
"Your child self lives on in a molecular way, and without warning the girl slips out of you and sits next to Sal. She soaks up the remaining sunlight, and Sal turns to her and says, Stay here, and the girl doesn't think about the future and what lies ahead but simply nods, and Sal rests an arm around her as they wait for the night to settle over them and everything they had lost." pg. 282
I've struggled with how to rate this book. While I'm reading it's solidly in the 5 star range but when I put it down those feelings dissipate. There were lines in this novel that pierced me to my core. I found myself re-reading lines in an attempt to hold onto them. I still have a sense of it, a whiff lingering in my nose, but I can't completely remember what it was all about and what I loved about it. I'm settling on 9/10 but could see myself bumping it up on a re-read with my own copy that I could mark up... however, I rarely find time to re-read.
Two examples from the end of the book... because that's where I've most recently been:
"Together we dug into the sand and wrote messages that would be visible only in the daylight, but we trusted our movements because, in the end, meaning was never the point. What we needed to convey was a feeling and it didn't matter if it was etched in something as temporary as sand." pg. 285
"Your child self lives on in a molecular way, and without warning the girl slips out of you and sits next to Sal. She soaks up the remaining sunlight, and Sal turns to her and says, Stay here, and the girl doesn't think about the future and what lies ahead but simply nods, and Sal rests an arm around her as they wait for the night to settle over them and everything they had lost." pg. 282
September 4, 2022
This story is set in the future and follows a young woman who is dealing with her mother's death and a whole new world. She begins to translate an old manuscript about a group of female medical students--living through a drought and at the edge of the war--as they create a new way of existence to help the people around them. In the process, the translator's life and the manuscript begin to become entangled. I've never read this author and it took me a few chapters to appreciate her style. I'm guessing the futuristic setting isn't my favorite read but the story was interesting. Aya and her family were interesting.
November 14, 2022
Hurray for me, finishing a book!
I enjoyed this, the themes of grief and love and translation and radical possibilities. It's one I wish I had a book club for though, because that ending!
I enjoyed this, the themes of grief and love and translation and radical possibilities. It's one I wish I had a book club for though, because that ending!
June 5, 2024
4.5, rounded up
September 24, 2022
So, I have no idea what I’ve just read and absolutely no way to articulate how I feel about it.
But I’m still gonna try.
This is a story about grief and how a parent can shape a child even after they are long gone. It is about memory and often reads with a sense of dementia; snapshots of things happening and the past cropping up far too frequently to be able to make sense of what’s occurring in the present. It’s about trying to find meaning and purpose but not about finding any answers. It’s simply about the journey of pursuit.
This is not a book written for the rational mind. If you want clear cut plots to drive your reads and goals to be achieved or character motivations to be actualized, then this is not for you. Reason doesn’t really have a role in this story; this is a tale that provokes you to think and feel and question but not with the intent to come to any sort of conclusion or to validate any sort of hypotheses.
This was a book of juxtapositions; a constant comparison between things which seem to have no business being bared naked to stand side by side with something entirely different only to see similarities in the contrasting results. It is about ghosts and memory and how they interconnect in a multitude of ways.
Which is why the writing in this is just that much more gorgeous. There’s this very visceral beauty to religion that the author has managed to create, and it’s almost as if these are events that have actually happened. It reads in that way with such moving prose.
The futuristic and speculative elements are woven in a manner that is so fluid. The pacing is so effective at driving the story along and it makes it so it doesn’t seem like there’s a natural way to stop reading. And this is by no means a bad thing, it simply means that you will not want to put the book down; both, because the story hooks you in almost immediately, and because once you start, it is too late to notice that there are no breaks available. And to be honest, you’re not sure you’d use them even if you had known.
The AI aspect was the most disappointing aspect for me. I wanted to explore Bogey as an entity and growing child a lot more than I was able. Which is a shame because it was juxtaposed with Aya, the narrator and aforementioned You being referred to throughout the novel, and her unborn fetus festering within the confines of her belly. The unborn felt like it was thrown in without much forethought, despite how well it was integrated into the tale upon its introduction, and I found myself completely uninterested in it in favour of Bogey who we get very minimal page time with.
There seems to be a lot trying to vie for the reader’s attention thematically, and I found it disorienting. But there are so many little things that this novel does well which I became completely infatuated with. For instance, I loved the use of the term houselessness in place of homelessness. It struck me immediately upon reading it. In fact, the book as a whole is very eclectic in nature but there’s order being forced upon the chaos within. I don’t fully understand it, and I don’t think I ever will.
Another aspect of the novel worth discussing is the translation. I feel like the idea of translation itself is tackled in such a bizarrely beautiful manner in this book. The translation occurs, and you get to read it, and you get insight into the translator and how they play with words and also their backstory but it all feels very disconnected at the same time. There is never any reaction to the translated work itself and very little impact described as to how the work affects the translator and it’s all very surreal.
There were parts of this story that I absolutely adored and parts I didn’t care for in the least. I’m not sure I would ever read it again, but I will say that my reading experience was unlike any book I’ve ever read before. I truly don’t know how I feel or how to feel about this story. It’s a bit of a methodical mess to be honest, but that’s all a part of its charm. There’s dry wit to the writing in one moment and then brutally hard truths that come out the next and it’s all delivered in this very intermittent and devastating manner. The writing is haunting. I’m emotionally wrought by this read and I could not tell you why.
There’s this idea of trying to force this emotional release in the narrator’s story arc which ties very neatly with how the girls in the manuscript are trying to force comprehension while exploring the notion of radical compassion. The radical compassion they focus on is in itself intriguing as a lot of the things that occur in the manuscript were uncomfortably grim and darkly sinister and they were still expected to practice their faith almost in vain.
Reading this at times felt like having an out of body experience. That alone should either entreat you to give this a shot or completely deter you. I can’t fault you for what you ultimately choose but I will say that for myself? I don’t regret it.
But I’m still gonna try.
This is a story about grief and how a parent can shape a child even after they are long gone. It is about memory and often reads with a sense of dementia; snapshots of things happening and the past cropping up far too frequently to be able to make sense of what’s occurring in the present. It’s about trying to find meaning and purpose but not about finding any answers. It’s simply about the journey of pursuit.
This is not a book written for the rational mind. If you want clear cut plots to drive your reads and goals to be achieved or character motivations to be actualized, then this is not for you. Reason doesn’t really have a role in this story; this is a tale that provokes you to think and feel and question but not with the intent to come to any sort of conclusion or to validate any sort of hypotheses.
This was a book of juxtapositions; a constant comparison between things which seem to have no business being bared naked to stand side by side with something entirely different only to see similarities in the contrasting results. It is about ghosts and memory and how they interconnect in a multitude of ways.
Which is why the writing in this is just that much more gorgeous. There’s this very visceral beauty to religion that the author has managed to create, and it’s almost as if these are events that have actually happened. It reads in that way with such moving prose.
The futuristic and speculative elements are woven in a manner that is so fluid. The pacing is so effective at driving the story along and it makes it so it doesn’t seem like there’s a natural way to stop reading. And this is by no means a bad thing, it simply means that you will not want to put the book down; both, because the story hooks you in almost immediately, and because once you start, it is too late to notice that there are no breaks available. And to be honest, you’re not sure you’d use them even if you had known.
The AI aspect was the most disappointing aspect for me. I wanted to explore Bogey as an entity and growing child a lot more than I was able. Which is a shame because it was juxtaposed with Aya, the narrator and aforementioned You being referred to throughout the novel, and her unborn fetus festering within the confines of her belly. The unborn felt like it was thrown in without much forethought, despite how well it was integrated into the tale upon its introduction, and I found myself completely uninterested in it in favour of Bogey who we get very minimal page time with.
There seems to be a lot trying to vie for the reader’s attention thematically, and I found it disorienting. But there are so many little things that this novel does well which I became completely infatuated with. For instance, I loved the use of the term houselessness in place of homelessness. It struck me immediately upon reading it. In fact, the book as a whole is very eclectic in nature but there’s order being forced upon the chaos within. I don’t fully understand it, and I don’t think I ever will.
Another aspect of the novel worth discussing is the translation. I feel like the idea of translation itself is tackled in such a bizarrely beautiful manner in this book. The translation occurs, and you get to read it, and you get insight into the translator and how they play with words and also their backstory but it all feels very disconnected at the same time. There is never any reaction to the translated work itself and very little impact described as to how the work affects the translator and it’s all very surreal.
There were parts of this story that I absolutely adored and parts I didn’t care for in the least. I’m not sure I would ever read it again, but I will say that my reading experience was unlike any book I’ve ever read before. I truly don’t know how I feel or how to feel about this story. It’s a bit of a methodical mess to be honest, but that’s all a part of its charm. There’s dry wit to the writing in one moment and then brutally hard truths that come out the next and it’s all delivered in this very intermittent and devastating manner. The writing is haunting. I’m emotionally wrought by this read and I could not tell you why.
There’s this idea of trying to force this emotional release in the narrator’s story arc which ties very neatly with how the girls in the manuscript are trying to force comprehension while exploring the notion of radical compassion. The radical compassion they focus on is in itself intriguing as a lot of the things that occur in the manuscript were uncomfortably grim and darkly sinister and they were still expected to practice their faith almost in vain.
Reading this at times felt like having an out of body experience. That alone should either entreat you to give this a shot or completely deter you. I can’t fault you for what you ultimately choose but I will say that for myself? I don’t regret it.
August 26, 2022
I bought this book after reading the review written in LA times by Ilana Masad and I am glad I did. I agree with Ilana Masad's statement: “ Kumarasamy is also such an assured writer that you trust her completely, sentence by sentence."
A beautifully written masterpiece.
A beautifully written masterpiece.
January 19, 2023
This was a super interesting read. I love the use of second person narration, and there were a lot of moments in this story that really packed a punch, like hundreds of lines i wish i could have underlined if this wasn’t a library book. Would buy it just to be able to underline things. Just wished that the plot felt a bit more succinct and cohesive in order to give 5 stars, but still thought it was a beautiful book, would recommend.
September 16, 2023
This book made me realize I have imagined writing with gates. I have erected maze walls around my own liberation. How silly and typical of me. Goodreads surely doesn’t help with this, but oh well.
Thank you, Akil, for stretching me.
Thank you, Akil, for stretching me.
July 16, 2023
Ugh PERSONALLY i did not like this. meme voice THATS JUST MY OPINION!! Its not bad its just too esoteric and im sooooo tired of books that are just "i have depression and also believe bodies are inherently sexual" 🥱
Read
October 22, 2023god it only took me two months but ahhh what a book that feels like it was made for me—dealing with the relationship between memories and translations, and maybe affirming to me why both these things feel so central to the way i think about and move through life
maybe a non-statement to make in this cultural moment but this novel is so intensely and entirely about trauma and grief, but specifically about the unspeakable way in which it can haunt and live on in you, in the histories of a people, how it transposes between the individual and the collective, the challenge to bear witness to the pain of others without being swallowed by it, the need to articulate and give shape to the suffering of oneself. in the particular ways that i love, this novel is swaddled in mysterious, vague, dreamy sequences where characters never say what they mean, suffer from dreamless sleeps, hollow, drifting lives, and seem to be puppets of strange, invisible currents of their past.
but it also deals with how melancholia is a product of diasporic movement and colonisation; how the inability to speak certain violences is shaped by the forces that create them, how that inability is itself violence, mixed in with the usual trendy stuff about AI and capitalism. and the novel is about how translation tries to bring all that back from the edges of being seen and understood, which is a variation on the ideology of “radical compassion” that a group of young medical students in tamil nadu begin to attempt to practice. part an attempt to cope with the overwhelming scenes of loss they witness, their own existential crises, their own sense of displacement, part a project of genuine solidarity and empathy, radical compassion becomes an ultimately tragic path that led me to think about what stopped these girls from being able to live fully and in each other’s company in the vital and loving ways that they so desired.
it’s a really achingly sad book, so soaked and drenched in melancholy that at times it gets a little too pretentious and melodramatic, and i definitely wasn’t a fan of some of the (i felt) overwrought descriptions of millennial urban angst, particularly once the narrator meets Sal and gets sucked into the silly art world that Sal is in. the novel definitely felt meandering and a little more of a painful chore to get through by its middle section, but it reminds me of a kind of writing and writer that i haven’t read in a long time and placed me in the emotional spot that i often resonate the strongest with and feel the most deeply in…and so i am grateful.
maybe a non-statement to make in this cultural moment but this novel is so intensely and entirely about trauma and grief, but specifically about the unspeakable way in which it can haunt and live on in you, in the histories of a people, how it transposes between the individual and the collective, the challenge to bear witness to the pain of others without being swallowed by it, the need to articulate and give shape to the suffering of oneself. in the particular ways that i love, this novel is swaddled in mysterious, vague, dreamy sequences where characters never say what they mean, suffer from dreamless sleeps, hollow, drifting lives, and seem to be puppets of strange, invisible currents of their past.
but it also deals with how melancholia is a product of diasporic movement and colonisation; how the inability to speak certain violences is shaped by the forces that create them, how that inability is itself violence, mixed in with the usual trendy stuff about AI and capitalism. and the novel is about how translation tries to bring all that back from the edges of being seen and understood, which is a variation on the ideology of “radical compassion” that a group of young medical students in tamil nadu begin to attempt to practice. part an attempt to cope with the overwhelming scenes of loss they witness, their own existential crises, their own sense of displacement, part a project of genuine solidarity and empathy, radical compassion becomes an ultimately tragic path that led me to think about what stopped these girls from being able to live fully and in each other’s company in the vital and loving ways that they so desired.
it’s a really achingly sad book, so soaked and drenched in melancholy that at times it gets a little too pretentious and melodramatic, and i definitely wasn’t a fan of some of the (i felt) overwrought descriptions of millennial urban angst, particularly once the narrator meets Sal and gets sucked into the silly art world that Sal is in. the novel definitely felt meandering and a little more of a painful chore to get through by its middle section, but it reminds me of a kind of writing and writer that i haven’t read in a long time and placed me in the emotional spot that i often resonate the strongest with and feel the most deeply in…and so i am grateful.
October 25, 2024
4,5 stars.
The writing style of this novel is exquisite! As poetic and powerful as the title would suggest. And also often pretty funny. It's a whirlwind of a story, about an American protagonist in the (not so distant) future, who has recently lost her mother and is navigating grief while translating a Tamil manuscript about a group of female medical students, probably in southern India during the Sri Lankan civil war. Day after day, refugees arrive at their shores. It's also a drought, so food is scarce. In the middle of these circumstances, the students start a movement of "radical compassion", that then splits off into different factions.
While the protagonist works on her translation, her cousin (who lives with her in her mother's old house) invites a homeless veteran - famous from a military tv-show - to live with them, in order to experiment on him with memory-inducing drugs. The protagonist also reconnects with a childhood friend who is an artist and who has recently lost her parents in an accident between self-driving cars.
On the whole, it's a book that's hard to summarize, hard to describe. But at it's core it seems to be an exploration of compassion, motherhood, grief and healing, of memories and the stories that make our lives, of how to deal with and relate to the suffering of the world. It's about the connection between all of these things and about the connection between humans.
The fragmentary nature of the story reflects the nature of memories well, and also the chaotic state of the protagonist's mind. Although I loved it overall, sometimes it did get a bit too meandering, unfocused, and slow (but I was also pretty tired when reading some of the parts, so that could explain it), especially in the parts about the main protagonist. On the other hand, some of the parts about the manuscript could have been longer maybe. I did feel the story was unnecessarily vague at times, that it might have been even more powerful if it had left some fewer things open to interpretation (but without sacrificing too much subtlety). Overall, I still loved this book, and I actually ordered the author's other book before I had even finished this one!
The writing style of this novel is exquisite! As poetic and powerful as the title would suggest. And also often pretty funny. It's a whirlwind of a story, about an American protagonist in the (not so distant) future, who has recently lost her mother and is navigating grief while translating a Tamil manuscript about a group of female medical students, probably in southern India during the Sri Lankan civil war. Day after day, refugees arrive at their shores. It's also a drought, so food is scarce. In the middle of these circumstances, the students start a movement of "radical compassion", that then splits off into different factions.
While the protagonist works on her translation, her cousin (who lives with her in her mother's old house) invites a homeless veteran - famous from a military tv-show - to live with them, in order to experiment on him with memory-inducing drugs. The protagonist also reconnects with a childhood friend who is an artist and who has recently lost her parents in an accident between self-driving cars.
On the whole, it's a book that's hard to summarize, hard to describe. But at it's core it seems to be an exploration of compassion, motherhood, grief and healing, of memories and the stories that make our lives, of how to deal with and relate to the suffering of the world. It's about the connection between all of these things and about the connection between humans.
The fragmentary nature of the story reflects the nature of memories well, and also the chaotic state of the protagonist's mind. Although I loved it overall, sometimes it did get a bit too meandering, unfocused, and slow (but I was also pretty tired when reading some of the parts, so that could explain it), especially in the parts about the main protagonist. On the other hand, some of the parts about the manuscript could have been longer maybe. I did feel the story was unnecessarily vague at times, that it might have been even more powerful if it had left some fewer things open to interpretation (but without sacrificing too much subtlety). Overall, I still loved this book, and I actually ordered the author's other book before I had even finished this one!
May 21, 2024
This book was recommended to me because it encompasses the key intersections of my academic interests: translation theory, philosophy of technology (particularly through the lens of AI), coloniality, race and gender studies, and a potential form of postmodern ethnography, even though it is fiction. The narrative's fragmented structure, unfolding in multiple temporal sequences, coupled with a subtle reversal of causality, marks it distinctly as a postmodern work. The author astutely highlights the cyclical nature of violence and human behavior by depicting deep patterns of a past violence that parallel future transgressions. In other words, the patterns that give rise to violence repeat themselves, which is what Nietzsche refers to as the eternal recurrence.
One of the most compelling themes in the book is compassion. The author invites us to envision its extreme form and explore how embodying such compassion could break the cycle of violence. This thought experiment engages visceral emotions and the physical realities of the human body, prompting us to seriously consider the transformative journey each individual would have to undergo.
Another significant theme revolves around the concept of screens. The author challenges us to reflect on how we perceive the world through technological screens. This mediation raises questions about whether screens replicate or represent reality, how they shape our understanding of distant events, and whether we have become desensitized to the point of viewing violence and war as mere entertainment. The book encourages us to contemplate how we might break through the screen's barrier to truly engage with reality.
The book also delves into themes highly relevant to our digital information age, such as surveillance, morality in the context of artificial intelligence, and the translation of the world through various media, which ultimately demands self-translation. It offers valuable insights for both casual readers and academics, providing a rich source of reflection that continues to inform my own scholarly work.
One of the most compelling themes in the book is compassion. The author invites us to envision its extreme form and explore how embodying such compassion could break the cycle of violence. This thought experiment engages visceral emotions and the physical realities of the human body, prompting us to seriously consider the transformative journey each individual would have to undergo.
Another significant theme revolves around the concept of screens. The author challenges us to reflect on how we perceive the world through technological screens. This mediation raises questions about whether screens replicate or represent reality, how they shape our understanding of distant events, and whether we have become desensitized to the point of viewing violence and war as mere entertainment. The book encourages us to contemplate how we might break through the screen's barrier to truly engage with reality.
The book also delves into themes highly relevant to our digital information age, such as surveillance, morality in the context of artificial intelligence, and the translation of the world through various media, which ultimately demands self-translation. It offers valuable insights for both casual readers and academics, providing a rich source of reflection that continues to inform my own scholarly work.
August 18, 2022
The protagonist Aya lives in a future of advanced AI, fully realized self-driving cars, eye scans and carbon scores. With the sudden death of her mother, she inherits her mother’s home and her archives, and her cousin Rosalyn moves in. As a way of grieving, she starts translating an old manuscript and a childhood friend shows up. Her Cousin Rosalyn who is working on a novel memory drug, decides to shelter a houseless veteran in their home. The past – the manuscript, archives, memories, and relationships seep into the present and intertwine in unexpected ways.
Loved the surrealism in the different dreams and in Aya’s ‘Foreign Memory’ trip. Overall, a fantastic novel! Loved It!
Loved the surrealism in the different dreams and in Aya’s ‘Foreign Memory’ trip. Overall, a fantastic novel! Loved It!
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