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rated it 3 stars
Dec 13, 2021 03:00PM
space to discuss TOB 2022 contender "Subdivision" by J. Robert Lennon
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What...did I just read?I ended up giving this 4 stars, although I could've just as easily have given it 2. My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
It took me so long to get through...I enjoyed it well enough when I picked it up, but my mind kept wandering, and each time I put it down again I'd leave it sitting because I just didn't care.
I did like the ending, though. I wonder if anyone can explain the meaning of a couple of things?
(view spoiler)
Elizabeth, it looks like it's just you and me so far who've read it. I'm not sure how to do spoilers in here -- when I figure it out, I'll post what I think about your questions. I also gave it 4 stars. At one point -- when Cylvia was telling her first bedtime story -- I fell hard in love with it, but then it dragged on too long, I thought, and got too esoteric. I still really liked it, though.
There were times where I really enjoyed the mystery and the puzzle, but was just an ok read for me.
I really liked this one because I enjoyed the puzzle of it. I found myself really wanted to get back to it to find out what happened next. To your questions Elizabeth, here’s my two cents. But I think there are a variety of interpretations that are possible, another thing I really like about the book. (view spoiler)
Wow. I don't know if I agree with you totally, Ruthiella, but some of your thoughts are truly intriguing, especially the last one.
I'm about a third in, listening to the audio in Hoopla. This book is crazy!
I've been going back and re-reading sections of this one to try and puzzle out all the details.(view spoiler) I haven't figured out everything else yet but I think more clues are there, which is why I keep going back to it!
Mo, that's interesting. (view spoiler) There's certainly a lot that could mean different things, and I appreciate that they weren't all spelled out for us in the end, leaving us to wonder and answer for ourselves.
This one just returned to the library for me and I’m trying to get another copy back as soon as possible. It’s so weird but blasé about being weird - feels a little like the Jesse Ball book we ready a few summers ago.
Yes, it does feel a lot like Census where everything feels like a metaphor and you leave feeling like you got about 25% of them. It also reminded me of Helen Oyeyemi's White is for Witching.
When it started I really wanted it to feel like Piranesi, which had a similar puzzle feel, so maybe my expectations were set too high since it wasn't Piranesi.
Ruthiella wrote: "I really liked this one because I enjoyed the puzzle of it. I found myself really wanted to get back to it to find out what happened next. To your questions Elizabeth, here’s my two cents. But I ..."
Woah, that's deep.
This was a very quick read, and though I think the overall metaphor of what was happening with her felt a little obvious (I think I'd figured it out halfway through) there's still a lot that COULD be metaphorical, as you all said. Like, what's the mall? What's the deal with the Judge and Clara? I'm sure there was some intent there...
I enjoyed this for reasons mentioned here, mostly the unfolding puzzle. But I didn't love it. I think mainly because I didn't connect with the protagonist, the writing from her perspective felt somewhat cold and detatched. I'm sure it's intentional and related to her state of confusion /lack of awareness. I just didn't forge an emotional tie to the story. Having said that, it's very funny in parts and I did enjoy trying to make sense of it all. I see why it was chosen for the ToB, it's a book that screams for discussion.
I’m halfway through this book and came here just to make sure others are as confused as I am. I can sense there’s something strange going on here with our protagonist, but I haven’t figured out the clue or metaphor or whatever it is. I’m not reading the spoilers for now. Once I finish it, I’m sure I’ll be back to try to figure it out.As an aside, this feels a bit like Helen Oyeyemi’s Peaces (the fantastical novel about a train journey), but I’m liking it more than that novel. I loved Census, though, and this one isn’t rising to that level for me yet.
Worth it for this alone: "I quickly realized that it wasn't a brownie at all, but a piece of meat loaf."
Jason wrote: "Worth it for this alone: "I quickly realized that it wasn't a brownie at all, but a piece of meat loaf.""Well, that's one of the more disappointing sentences in English literature ;)
Jason wrote: "Worth it for this alone: "I quickly realized that it wasn't a brownie at all, but a piece of meat loaf.""There were some great weird moments! I am totally perplexed by (judge) Clara and (Clara)The Judge, though I think I kind of enjoyed The Judge's grouchiness.
I didn't end up loving this but i think it's because I felt discomfited by the dreamlike, metaphorical things bumping up against weirdly specific details. It made me keep questioning myself if I was on the right track for what it all meant. To be fair, I really dislike Alice in Wonderland-type stories for their incongruities and that was the tale seemed most akin to - but that at least is one running acid-trip while this would zoom in and out in terms of the scale of consciousness.
Anyone else think the ending very Charon-crossing-the-river-Styx like? (Again a detail I didn't love as nothing else reminded me of Greek mythology and the rest of the Subdivision, while magical, was very modern).
I had really mixed feelings about this one -- I loved the weirdness, but I kept expecting it to go somewhere, and... it didn't really? (view spoiler)Amy, agreed about the Styx -- I didn't mind it as a detail but I did notice it. I thought Clara and the Judge were (view spoiler)
So, the Subdivision is a type of Bardo? I have a lot of thoughts, and a lot of questions. The more I think about this book, the more I like it. I'm gonna change my rating.Near the end, (view spoiler)
Bob wrote: "I have a lot of thoughts, and a lot of questions. The more I think about this book, the more I like it...."(view spoiler)
Argh, I can’t read the spoilers on my mobile device! I wish GR had a solution for that. I need some help understanding this one, and I think reading all your full posts would help.
Bob wrote: "So, the Subdivision is a type of Bardo? I have a lot of thoughts, and a lot of questions. The more I think about this book, the more I like it. I'm gonna change my rating.Near the end, when the b..."
Yes, I also interpreted it as a kind of Limbo.
Every encounter with the bakemono is a representation of the abusive relationship. Also later she recounts how her partner made her give up contact with her family and friends - a very common tactic among many abusers.
I like this idea but listening to the audio, all these things were too difficult to track!
Do you think this would count as a book about the afterlife? Also, I did not get it. I mean, I got the main thing quickly, but I didn’t get what we were supposed to understand the story was *about*. All just a fever dream?
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I like this idea but listening to the audio, all these things were too difficult to track!"Agreed. I got lost a bit and in the end didn't appreciate the story as much as I think I would have reading it.
I just finished this and I liked it so much. It doesn’t really bother me that I don’t understand what happened. It was a ride that I enjoyed taking and I keep thinking about it. I like that one of you compared it to “Peaces.” To me it was a less joyful and exuberant version of that novel. “Peaces” may have been my favorite read of last year. And damn it, it’s not in the tournament!! Maybe the bakemono was her abusive husband, father of the child and the subdivision was a kind of bardo as you said and the husband is now dead and she is getting used to a life without him. But there were so many weird things. The drug store and the weather stuff and the park and the puzzle. What did it all mean? And the electronic gadget that turned into a bird. Weird book. I can’t stop thinking about it.
I read this over the weekend (listening to the audio while following along in the print version was a good system for this one). I enjoyed the experience but really didn't understand what was going on. The comments here are super helpful, and I'm glad I wasn't alone in my confusion. I think most points have been covered, but what was the deal with the hamster? And was 4B/Forby supposed to represent another aspect of the abusive relationship, where the man was getting credit for the narrator's accomplishments? And what was happening when she seemed to have multiple blackouts in the bathtub? I couldn't help but stress over the first time when she was staying in a guest house and ran TWO FULL BATHS IN A ROW - oh the waste of water! I was surprised the Judges/Claras didn't kick her out with that. ;)
I'm on the mobile app and not sure I can hide spoilers so consider this a warning!!.
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I did enjoy this book; though it was a bit slow to start the ominous creepiness drew me in. I started to figure out what was going on part way through and just leaned into the weirdness as the dreams of a dying brain. I have had bizarre and vivid dreams when sick with fever that were notably different than normal ones. For me the blackouts and temporal weirdness fit into that concept, and I thought maybe at the end there would be some sort of tidy reveal that the protagonist was a physicist or something and that's how her unconscious brain was trying to interpret the signals of trauma from the accident. But I like the actual ending better.
I'm just now finishing up my TOB books, albeit late. So, here are my thoughts on this one. WARNING - my entire post contains SPOILERS. I'm interested in discussing this more with those who have finished the book.
I felt so disappointed at the end because I was really into it and was waiting to find out all the things that were happening and for them to fit together... and then by the end, they totally didn't. I had more questions than answers.
I felt like I was too stupid for this book and like the book was making fun of me. So that was part of what made it disappointing at the end, ha.
But then I started thinking that maybe there is no way for the book to make sense if it was a non-sensical dream. I hope it does somehow fit together though because I hate things like that. I don't like to waste my time reading things that have no explanation or that are left open to interpretation so much that there's no real way to know if I'm even in the ballpark of where the author meant for it go. I like when there is at least a basic way to see where it all makes sense even if there are parts that could be debated or are up to an individual's interpretation.
The things that I thought I was able to make out of it conflict with each other. And they conflict with what some have said in this discussion. I do appreciate the discussion because it has made me not hate the book as much and has given me some things to think about.
What I thought this book was about was:
A woman was abused by her alcoholic husband and they had lost a son to cancer but first he had witnessed a lot of their fights and likely domestic abuse. (Or perhaps the woman had witnessed her own parents fighting and witnessed domestic abuse as a child, instead of, or in addition to, as a married adult. She had a sister and it affected their relationship as well but now she and her sister were more on the same page about their upbringing and their parents.)
The woman was then pregnant again but her husband was so worried that something would happen to their baby (perhaps because the first one died of cancer as child?) that he wouldn't let her tell anyone. Then she did, and he was mad and tried to commit suicide, but lived. Once he got out of the hospital he tried to kill her and/or their unborn baby.
There was also a car wreck. The consensus in this discussion seems to be that the woman is in a coma from the car wreck. I didn't really get that from it until the end when the doctor was asking if she was okay, etc. But if so, then it's possible she is in the hospital from being in a car wreck and/or being attacked by her husband. (But which one?)
The man trying to bring a woman flowers could be her husband trying to apologize for abuse. Or bringing her flowers in the hospital. It's possible that she survived one thing and is now in the hospital for the other thing, or perhaps he was rushing her to the hospital after trying to kill her and then they're hit by the truck, so she's kind of in the hospital for both things at once?)
Until that part I had thought that the woman was in a mental hospital and/or undergoing a psychotic breakthrough and resulting therapy, due to so much trauma she had been through in life. I thought that Sylvia was her therapist and/or guide to get through the Subdivision, which was a maze of her tangled memories and trauma and find her way to the city, which would mean her healing and her escape from the abuse by her husband and/or father. (There were a few references to sexual abuse of a child, which I found disturbing.)
The consensus here also seems to be that the woman died at the end but I thought she had lived. That she had made her way out of the subdivision and back to life, or out of her trauma and/or psychosis and had reclaimed her own life. Or out of the coma and back to the living.
I still have no idea what the guesthouse represented or who the Claras and the Judges were supposed to be. I kept thinking her parents for some reason. Especially when they argued over how to "parent" her. Or maybe they were supposed to be the angel and the devil if this is looked at as Purgatory and she is headed to an afterlife. (I thought that perhaps they were judging her and she was judging herself, especially during the time she was working at the courthouse as a judge and it seemed she was looking back over her memories and life.)
And maybe since their guesthouse was where she was staying while at the subdivision it was therefore was supposed to represent either the hospital where she was physically at during her coma or the mental hospital where she was staying during her crisis or maybe just her therapist's office.
I get that the man-creature was supposed to be her ex but then I was confused at her attempts to care for him, save him and view him as a good man, even up until the end, so I guess it's possible that she did NOT come out of her psychotic break-down, or her coma, and instead died/failed to recover.
Or I wondered if the author was trying to point at the ability for anyone, even the most awful abuser, to change, because she seemed convinced that he did want to change or had tried to change or something. I was waiting for her to realize he was a broken man incapable of truly loving her (and I was unsure if "he" represented her husband or father- or probably both of them) and to leave him behind and start living her own life for herself instead of thinking she was responsible to care for others, like the work report kept asking her. But the story never said that she did so I guess if she ended up dying, it's a cautionary tale about what happens if someone is unable to see their abuser as their abuser and truly escape from them?
I also kept thinking this was somehow the tale of both her parents and herself/her own marriage, and that somehow the little boy was also her, or was her ex as a child, or something like that. I thought the author wanted the male character to be redeemed or at least understood. I also thought her baby had died in utero but she had survived and was trying to cope with that loss. The tennis ball and quantum tunneling and the entire "quantum physics"/parallel worlds aspect of the book could be her attempt to make sense out of a situation that was non-sensical- the loss of a pregnancy, baby and/or child. But that might be a spin my own loss mom brain puts on things. Perhaps the whole point of the book is that life makes no sense and there's no good way to explain bad things that happen.
I'm back to feeling a bit better about this book but I'm still mad at it for not making itself clearer to me, ha. Part of me wants to read it again (perhaps in book form this time) and see if any of my theories I'd reached by the end and/or from reading the rest of everyone's comments here make more sense the second time around (kind of like trying to fit together a part of a puzzle, realizing it's kind of wrong but also kind of right, and then starting over with that knowledge gained, ha), and part of me feels that I'll be even madder if I waste MORE time trying to figure it out and still can't! I think I'd give it 2.5 or 3 stars but am going to think about it some more.
Caveats - I listened to this on audiobook so maybe things would have been made clearer with the text version of the book. For instance, I thought the other housemate's name was Mr. Laurie, not Mr. Lorre, so that explains him being the truck driver!
(Sidenote - Does anyone else think it's weird that there are two books in this year's TOB in which someone [possibly?] dies as a result of being hit by a truck? There was The Book of Form and Emptiness and this. And that part also kind of reminded me of The Sentence, during the part where she was moving her friend's boyfriend's body in a grocery delivery truck.)
I also agree with those who said they thought this was going to be like Piranesi. I agree and maybe that's why I kept thinking this was a psychotic break and that a therapist/psychologist was helping her make a break-through, etc. Also I loved the way things started off weird and confusing in Piranesi but then kept getting clearer and by the end I basically understood the gist of what was supposed to be happening in the book, even though there were different interpretations of different parts of it and some questions I still had.
That probably led to my feeling of extreme disappointment to get to the end of this book (and not even know it was the end, since I had been listening to it intently and lost track of where I was at in it... I thought more explanations would be coming, ha) and still be feeling pretty clueless!
I just finished listening to this audiobook and avoided reading any discussion beforehand. The Tournament leads me to books I would never consider..and this is one of them. This discussion helped me put together some of the pieces. Bardo meets Murakami. I loved all your thoughts...so good.
@Gail - I agree!I'm grateful this group/discussion exists and I was wishing we could all read more books together and discuss them now that TOB is ending.
TOB Monthly Book Club - where we read books we think might make the long list or that by majority vote we hope make the long list or something like that? LOL
Anita wrote: "...I'm grateful this group/discussion exists and I was wishing we could all read more books together and discuss them now that TOB is ending...."You're in luck, Anita!
There is already a discussion begun for books we think/hope/dream might make it into next year's 2023 ToB, here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
And Maggie is ginning up for us a GR tourney to be held in the fall (October-ish, I think) of this group's favorite ToB long listed books that didn't make it to the shortlists, here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
That's awesome, Phyllis! Thank you so much. :)
Tournament of Books
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Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass (other topics)
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