Olya Z > Recent Status Updates

The Central European setting feels deliberately unglamorous, and the events that define István’s childhood are really disturbing. Thanks to that uncomfortable authenticity, the book feels genuine, and very hard to read.

“Lately he had realised he was learning to live with non-existence. He could not mourn for long the passing of something–himself–that he could no longer quite recall.”

“They could manage your descent, but they couldn’t prevent it. Stay away then, monitor your own decline, then when it was no longer possible to work, or live with dignity, finish it yourself.”

“I was lying down, but could not sleep. I felt myself burning with a kind of happy fever, which was none other than life.”

“As a man, did I know myself? I was only just born and could not yet know what I was being born into. That is what had to be learned.”

“Was it finally that morning that I was going to be born?”

I have thus been that little wretch who knew only hunger, physical humiliation, poverty, fear and degradation.

From such galling attitudes as these I have drawn reasons for glory. “That's probably what I am,” I would say to myself, “but at least I'm aware of it, and such awareness destroys shame and affords me a feeling that few know: pride.

“In short, the greater my guilt in your eyes, the more whole, the more totally assumed, the greater will be my freedom. The more perfect my solitude and uniqueness.”

over 300 pages without a single moment of anticipation, fascination, or discomfort, even. but you can, obviously, recognise Byatt’s erudition and craft clearly while feeling nothing

“I become so good. Then, even better. I choose music, cheap white wine, porn. I read books, get jobs, get a flat. I meet Josh. We’re best friends. He takes care of me. I take care of him back. It’s all good. It’s all great. I survive.”

“I am … I stuttered. I am … At first I could get no further than this. I am … I am the Beloved Child of the House. Yes. Immediately I felt calmer. Was any other identity even necessary? I did not think that it was.”

I almost forgot to breathe. For a moment I had an inkling of what it might be like if instead of two people in the World there were thousands.

“You are impertinent, Magician, and your heart will taste the sweeter for it. I will ask again—what are you? A Spirit mistaken in transition? A magician’s bargain gone awry? A chimera of the soul? What Abject dealing gave rise to such a delicious freak?”

I believe the appeal of this book is in its very gloomy yet aesthetic imagery, unexpected plot twists, mystery, and mysticism rather than elaborate characters and psychological depth. The plot is twisted, dark, and bloody, resembling Poe’s style; it also has a feverish and darkly erotic tone, but it fits the narrative perfectly.

The subject of art forgery is truly fascinating when combined with the history of famous forgers, the technical process of replicating a painter’s style, and the philosophical questions about authenticity and the value of a fake piece if it is technically indistinguishable from the original.

Here, you have a potentially interesting plot architecture with almost no psychological or atmospheric depth to fill it.

“so one beauty melted in another, surviving youth and exquisite decline.”

feels like this sentence contains the entire novel’s aesthetic compressed into eleven words

In the calm after David had gone he thought lucidly of the Goyle that he’d seen and would perhaps never now own. His collector’s obsession seemed mere consolation, a sad shadow of his obsession with David, whom he would never own, but had borrowed for an astonishing few hours.

The novel opens in Oxford in 1940. The blackouts, the sense of young men living with awareness that their world is about to change. Time is limited and uncertain. The wartime Oxford atmosphere is rendered with Hollinghurst’s unique aesthetic taste and precision. Beauty feels especially sharp in a contrast to the darkness gathering around.

you can’t have a relationship with a work of art…

I perched on the edge of the bed and looked minutely at his stomach as it dropped with the long-delayed breaths of deep sleep, the tongue-tempting crevice of his navel…When he opened his eyes I was the first thing he saw. His arms circled my head and brought me down to him.

When I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was a pair of shoes...