{"id":115,"date":"2006-02-18T14:31:18","date_gmt":"2006-02-18T22:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/?p=115"},"modified":"2007-05-19T09:55:48","modified_gmt":"2007-05-19T16:55:48","slug":"kate-atkinsons-emotionally-weird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2006\/02\/kate-atkinsons-emotionally-weird\/","title":{"rendered":"Kate Atkinson\u2019s \u201cEmotionally Weird\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate Atkin\u00adson\u2019s \u201cEmo\u00adtion\u00adally Weird\u201d (Amazon link<\/a> link, Pow\u00adells<\/a> link) is anoth\u00ader book\u00adclub selec\u00adtion, and is per\u00adhaps not the easi\u00adest book to write about. As befits the title, the entire book is weird both in plot and in con\u00adstruc\u00adtion, and at times feels a little over-clev\u00ader, as if parts were intro\u00adduced as some sort of game the author plays with the read\u00aders. To me the book was worth read\u00ading, but if you look at the reviews on Amazon, you\u2019ll see a lot of people dis\u00adagree (everything from 1 to 5 stars).<\/p>\n

Effie, the cent\u00adral char\u00adac\u00adter (I\u2019m not sure wheth\u00ader she really ful\u00adfills the require\u00adments of the word \u201cheroine\u201d, since she mostly is cata\u00adpul\u00adted into situ\u00adations rather than tak\u00ading charge of any\u00adthing) is a stu\u00addent at the Uni\u00adver\u00adsity of Dun\u00addee in the early 1970s. Effie\u2019s fam\u00adily cir\u00adcum\u00adstances are mys\u00adter\u00adi\u00adous, she has no idea who her fath\u00ader is, she and her moth\u00ader Nora spent her child\u00adhood mov\u00ading from small town to small town, and she finds the solu\u00adtion to the mys\u00adtery once she and her moth\u00ader spend some time togeth\u00ader on a remote Scot\u00adtish island. <\/p>\n

The book is con\u00adstruc\u00adted as inter\u00adleaved pas\u00adsages of talks between Effie and Nora, and the nar\u00adra\u00adtion of Effie\u2019s life at the uni\u00adver\u00adsity. The pleth\u00adora of char\u00adac\u00adters is dis\u00adtract\u00ading; it\u2019s hard to tell who will be import\u00adant to the plot, and who is simply func\u00adtion\u00ading as the clas\u00adsic\u00adal mys\u00adtery red her\u00adring (the yel\u00adlow dog men\u00adtioned on the dust\u00adjack\u00adet being one good example). Nora sums it up when she says there are too many minor char\u00adac\u00adters and also com\u00adplains about the lack of plot (Effie: \u201cnot neces\u00adsary in this post-mod\u00adern day and age\u201d). But of course there is a plot, a plot about who Effie\u2019s moth\u00ader is (open\u00ading line: \u201cMy moth\u00ader is a vir\u00adgin.\u201d and later on \u201cmy moth\u00ader is not my moth\u00ader\u201d), who her fath\u00ader is, how all these threads may or may not interconnect.<\/p>\n

The descrip\u00adtions of uni\u00adver\u00adsity life and stu\u00addents in the 1970s, when it was much easi\u00ader to get into uni\u00adver\u00adsity and many people felt no oblig\u00ada\u00adtion to actu\u00adally do any work once there, are bit\u00ading and have the ring of truth. The pom\u00adpos\u00adity and self-right\u00adeous\u00adness that seems to inhab\u00adit many uni\u00adver\u00adsit\u00adies, the tend\u00adency of ivory towers to find things import\u00adant that make no sense to out\u00adsiders, are described and lam\u00adpooned. The con\u00adver\u00adsa\u00adtion\u00adal style also helps with this as it allows lots of room for \u201cexag\u00adger\u00ada\u00adtion for effect\u201d. In fact much of the time I found myself won\u00adder\u00ading how much was truth, how much exag\u00adger\u00ada\u00adtion for effect, and how much out\u00adright lies in Effie\u2019s nar\u00adrat\u00adive. Most of the appar\u00adent con\u00adtra\u00addic\u00adtions were resolved by the end of the book, the oth\u00aders were not of major import\u00adance to the plot. As an example, I nev\u00ader did quite fig\u00adure out the plot\u00adline with the yel\u00adlow dogs, but that was prob\u00adably because I did\u00adn\u2019t put much effort into it.<\/p>\n

The book\u00adclub mem\u00adbers enjoyed the book, not great lit\u00ader\u00adat\u00adure, but a fun read with some sat\u00adis\u00adfy\u00adingly weird twists and turns. One of our bet\u00adter picks, I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kate Atkin\u00adson\u2019s \u201cEmo\u00adtion\u00adally Weird\u201d (Amazon link link, Pow\u00adells link) is anoth\u00ader book\u00adclub selec\u00adtion, and is per\u00adhaps not the easi\u00adest book to write about. As befits the title, the entire book is weird both in plot and in con\u00adstruc\u00adtion, and at times feels a little over-clev\u00ad\u00ader, as if parts were intro\u00adduced as some sort of game \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cKate Atkinson\u2019s \u201cEmo\u00adtion\u00adally Weird\u201d\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}