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Dim
You’re alone in the bush. Your father’s gone surfing. And your mother wants to kill you. Named after darkness, Dim was born unlucky. Fated to live nine lives, one for every year it took to make her, she tries to turn her luck, one daring move at a time. This is her story. Not for the faint-hearted, this electric tale takes you into a surreal, incendiary world of nightmare, madness and dark humour.
- GenresFiction
267 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
5 people want to read
About the author
Carolin Window
3 books8 followersCarolin Window is an Australian writer. She lives in Seattle.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 7, 2014
I want to create a new bookshelf called 'weird' to put this book into!
I liked it. A lot. It was a book I got from a charity shop some time ago, when I used to go to charity shops weekly and come home with a whole stack of books. It may have stayed on my bookcase for much longer, because I didn't really know what to make of it from looking at the blurb at the back (is it horror? is it supernatural? is it about magical thinking? the vivid imagination of an abused child?), but as part of a challenge I had to read a 'hidden gem', which meant a book that people haven't heard of. The benchmark was that it had to have less than 100 ratings. Well, hey, this one had only 12 ratings (13 now that I've rated it) so it definitely counted.
I was kind of curious why it had so few ratings. Was it a really crap book? Or was it just so weird that people didn't know how to classifiy it, or what to say about it, so it didn't get much publicity?
Well, yes, it is weird. I like weird (I get easily bored with 'samey' books) so that's a plus. I am finding it impossible to define - the questions I initially had from reading the blurb are still in my mind after reading the book. I have no idea how much is in Dim's imagination, and how much is supposed to be true. I suppose we are not supposed to know - here is an unreliable narrator who at times addresses the reader and lets us know how much we are at her mercy, how we have to trust her, like it or not! This narrator, Dim, apparently sometimes 'throws' her voice like a ventriloquist, but not really like a ventriloquist, because she is also sometimes writing the perspective of other characters in the novel, being their 'voice', she says, but actually she has no way of knowing what is in their mind. Unless it is magic, of course, but since she also represents herself as a deceiver, pretending to be another person on the phone, for instance, we have no way of knowing.
It's kind of like a game, like the narrator is playing with us, showing us possibilities of realities and interpretations. She tells us about how she couldn't speak until a snake became her tongue for her, and that she has been given nine lives, and that she is cursed - there is a supernatural surreal feeling to it, but also it could be symbolism, or it could be her very vivid imagination, or trying to romanticise her life. It's all a bit of a bizarre whirl in my head when I try to sum up this novel and what it is about - 'weird' is the word I come up with!
Something that occurs to me is that this is an Australian book, which may explain to some extent why it's not well-known. I've been thinking lately that I hardly know of any Australian books. Lots of imports from the US and Canada and barely any from Australia. We get the Australian soaps, but not the novels! I suppose they don't get the international publicity. Which is a real shame, because the few Australian novels I've read have been incredibly good (well, except for The Rosie Project, but my main complaint about that was the stupid stereotypes about Aspergers - other than that, it was a pretty good book). And they all tend to involve a bit of weirdness, which is great. So I am now on a mission to find more Australian novels! If anyone knows of any good ones, please recommend them.
I liked it. A lot. It was a book I got from a charity shop some time ago, when I used to go to charity shops weekly and come home with a whole stack of books. It may have stayed on my bookcase for much longer, because I didn't really know what to make of it from looking at the blurb at the back (is it horror? is it supernatural? is it about magical thinking? the vivid imagination of an abused child?), but as part of a challenge I had to read a 'hidden gem', which meant a book that people haven't heard of. The benchmark was that it had to have less than 100 ratings. Well, hey, this one had only 12 ratings (13 now that I've rated it) so it definitely counted.
I was kind of curious why it had so few ratings. Was it a really crap book? Or was it just so weird that people didn't know how to classifiy it, or what to say about it, so it didn't get much publicity?
Well, yes, it is weird. I like weird (I get easily bored with 'samey' books) so that's a plus. I am finding it impossible to define - the questions I initially had from reading the blurb are still in my mind after reading the book. I have no idea how much is in Dim's imagination, and how much is supposed to be true. I suppose we are not supposed to know - here is an unreliable narrator who at times addresses the reader and lets us know how much we are at her mercy, how we have to trust her, like it or not! This narrator, Dim, apparently sometimes 'throws' her voice like a ventriloquist, but not really like a ventriloquist, because she is also sometimes writing the perspective of other characters in the novel, being their 'voice', she says, but actually she has no way of knowing what is in their mind. Unless it is magic, of course, but since she also represents herself as a deceiver, pretending to be another person on the phone, for instance, we have no way of knowing.
It's kind of like a game, like the narrator is playing with us, showing us possibilities of realities and interpretations. She tells us about how she couldn't speak until a snake became her tongue for her, and that she has been given nine lives, and that she is cursed - there is a supernatural surreal feeling to it, but also it could be symbolism, or it could be her very vivid imagination, or trying to romanticise her life. It's all a bit of a bizarre whirl in my head when I try to sum up this novel and what it is about - 'weird' is the word I come up with!
Something that occurs to me is that this is an Australian book, which may explain to some extent why it's not well-known. I've been thinking lately that I hardly know of any Australian books. Lots of imports from the US and Canada and barely any from Australia. We get the Australian soaps, but not the novels! I suppose they don't get the international publicity. Which is a real shame, because the few Australian novels I've read have been incredibly good (well, except for The Rosie Project, but my main complaint about that was the stupid stereotypes about Aspergers - other than that, it was a pretty good book). And they all tend to involve a bit of weirdness, which is great. So I am now on a mission to find more Australian novels! If anyone knows of any good ones, please recommend them.
August 10, 2015
This book is different, and interestingly weird. And confusing. Yet I didn't want to put it down.
April 8, 2015
This was the first book I read by Carolin Window. It's her writing style that I find so compelling. She tells stories with such verve and confidence. Even though it was written some years ago it feels very fresh, the child's eye perspective very gripping. Highly recommended for anyone interested in a story of a child's encounter with the collective Australian past.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews