annethology
  • Home
    • About me
    • Author talks
    • Contact me
    • Sign up for my newsletter
  • Annecdotal
  • Articles
    • Print journalism
    • Where psychology meets fiction
  • Sugar and Snails
    • Acknowledgements
    • Blog tour, Q&A's and feature articles >
      • Birthday blog tour
    • Early endorsements
    • Events >
      • Launch photos
      • Launch party videos
    • in pictures
    • Media
    • If you've read the book
    • Playlist
    • Polari
    • Reading group questions
    • Reviews
    • In the media
  • Underneath
    • Endorsements and reviews
    • Launch party and events
    • Musical accompaniment
    • Pictures
    • Questions for book groups
    • The stories underneath the novel
  • Short stories
    • Print and downloads
    • Read it online
    • Quick reads
    • Virtual annethologies
  • Reading and reviews
    • Themed quotes
    • Reviews A to H
    • Reviews I to M
    • Reviews N to Z
    • Fictional therapists
    • Nonfiction
    • Debut novelists >
      • 2013 >
        • Shelley Harris
        • Claire King
        • Harriet Lane
        • Alison Moore
        • Anthea Nicholson
        • Susie Nott-Bower
        • Charlotte Rogan
        • Gavin Weston
      • 2014 >
        • Carys Bray
        • Emma Chapman
        • Emma Healey
        • Johanna Lane
        • Mary Costello
        • Audrey Magee
        • Kathryn Simmonds
        • Aria Beth Sloss
      • 2015 >
        • Sarah Armstrong
        • Claire Fuller
        • Peyton Marshall
        • Gavin McCrea
        • Lisa McInerney
        • Jamie Mollart
        • Anna Smaill
        • Fleur Smithwick
        • Philip Teir

People studies: Sight & Consent

19/2/2018

2 Comments

 
Although these two novels couldn’t be more different in tone – the first a literary exploration of a young mother’s development; the second tricksy thriller – I can’t resist pairing them for the other factors they have in common. Both feature thoughtful, philosophising, unnamed narrators; both take as their subject matter how we explore the inside and outside of other people, and ourselves. Both are ambitious and unusual in their approach; both are the author’s second book and a cracking read.

Picture
Picture

Sight by Jessie Greengrass

How do we see inside ourselves and is it beneficial to do so? A young woman ponders these issues as she visits London’s medical museums while pregnant with her second child.
 
The narrator had a lonely childhood. An only child, conflict between her parents led to her father drifting out of her life in her teens. Her grandmother, known to everyone as Doctor K, was a psychoanalyst who seems to have used the analytic stance as a way of avoiding intimacy with her family. As a young child, the narrator’s mother was interrogated on her dreams at the breakfast table until she gave up having any; the narrator, on her annual visits, is invited to sit under her gaze for half an hour every evening in the consulting room, only the presence of drinks and the absence of the sign on the door differentiating it from therapy.
 
Like the
early analysts whose work the narrator explores, she has a strange concept of boundaries: renting the ground floor of her house to a former patient; continuing some analyses by letter during the Christmas break she spends with the narrator and her mother; working through the month of August (which psychoanalytic psychotherapists usually take off) despite her granddaughter coming to visit. She does, however provide the narrator a lovely description of what analysis is about (p80-81):
 
The analyst … is not a tour guide, leading their client through those vast and vaulted galleries, the cloisters of the mind, and nor is it their task to point out shadows, but rather they must provide instruction in the mechanics of such shadows’ investigation. It is only … when a person has gained the skills necessary to explore the territory for themselves, to unpack their own minds and begin to understand the contents, that they might start the work necessary to make their experience, their behaviour meaningful; and then at last they might start to become transparent to themselves.
 
Not long after she graduates from university, when she’s still finding her feet in the adult world, she has to nurse her mother through a terminal illness, after which she develops excruciating headaches. Cue the opportunity to explore the development of technologies to look inside the body, this time to the brain rather than the mind, with musings on the discovery of x-rays (Rontgen’s poor wife fearing she’d seen herself dead when shown an x-ray of her hand), as she undergoes an MRI scan. Later, after much understandable dithering about whether or not she should have a child, she attends the hospital for ultrasound appointments while learning about 18th-century research into the anatomy of pregnant bodies.
 
Jessie Greengrass debut novel (and second book after a prize-winning short story collection) is a thoughtful plotless literary novel about the development of technologies through which we might see into ourselves. It’s no surprise to read that the author is a philosopher! An unusual and ambitious novel; thanks to John Murray for my review copy.

Consent by Leo Benedictus

When he inherits a fortune from his aunt’s estate, the unnamed narrator no longer needs a job. But he does need to do something useful with his time and, when he starts observing other people, the reader-writer can easily identify with him. Although he didn’t start off as a writer, he quickly becomes one: his book, Consent, giving purpose to his scrupulous field notes; the writer identity the perfect cover for his outlandish behaviour. But real writers (I hope) don’t stalk their subjects, and they don’t plant listening devices in their homes. They don’t mess with their subjects’ lives – except in fantasy – as this man does with Frances, a successful management consultant until he starts to interfere.
 
Leo Benedictus gradually pulls the reader in to his character’s nightmare mind. At the beginning, he’s odd, but engagingly so, and, like any scientist, unflinchingly honest, obsessed with detail and concerned with experimental procedure. He muses on what it means to be a person, and frets about the impact of the observer on the observed. For me, the violence was a little too gruesome and I didn’t need to be told that the narrator was mad. But, overall, it’s a clever and satisfying second novel, the creepy narrator slightly reminiscent of Steve in my own second novel,
Underneath. Thanks to Faber and Faber for my review copy.
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
2 Comments
Charli Mills
20/2/2018 09:21:54 pm

An interesting pair of reviews, Anne. An unnamed narrator -- that sounds like a technique to create mystery or provide distance from the reader and unfolding event. I'm not sure I like plot-less stories, although maybe I do. If it has meaning. Thanks for the reviews!

Reply
Annecdotist
21/2/2018 01:21:00 pm

I think a plotless novel has to work harder to hold your interest in other ways so perhaps whether it works depends on the topic.
I find I’m happy with an unnamed narrator until I come to write the review! Originally I didn’t want to give my narrator and name in Underneath, but I succumbed.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Annecdotal is where real life brushes up against the fictional.  
    Picture
    Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin: 
    reader, writer,

    slug-slayer, tramper of moors, 
    recovering psychologist, 
    struggling soprano, 
    author of two novels.

    Picture
    My second novel published May 2017.
    Picture
    My debut novel shortlisted for Polari First Book Prize
    LATEST POSTS HERE
    I don't post to a schedule, but average  around ten reviews a month (see here for an alphabetical list), 
    some linked to a weekly flash fiction, plus posts on writing and my journey to publication and beyond.  
    Your comments are welcome any time any where.
    Get new posts direct to your inbox ...

    Enter your email address:

    or click here …

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Or follow the link to sign up for my newsletter with updates 3-4 times a year.
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    2018 Reading Challenge

    2018 Reading Challenge
    Anne has read 8 books toward their goal of 100 books.
    hide
    8 of 100 (8%)
    view books
    Picture
    Picture
    Tweets by @Annecdotist
    Picture
    Read The Arrangement my latest short story hot off the press.
    Picture

    Popular posts

    • Compassion: something we all need
    • Do spoilers spoil?
    • How to create a convincing fictional therapist
    • Instructions for a novel
    • Looking at difference, embracing diversity
    • Never let me go: the dilemma of lending books
    • On loving, hating and writers’ block
      On Pop, Pirates and Plagiarism
    • READIN' for HER reviews
    • Relishing the cuts
    • The fast first draft
    • The tragedy of obedience
    • Writers and therapy: a love-hate relationship?
    Looking for something in particular? Sorry the blog has no search facility, but typing Annecdotal plus the keyword into Google usually works.
    Or try one of these:

    Categories/Tags

    All
    Animals
    Annecdotist Hosts
    Annecdotist On Tour
    Articles
    Attachment Theory
    Author Interviews
    Becoming Someone
    Being A Writer
    Blogging
    Bodies
    Body
    Books For Writers
    Bookshops
    CB Book Group
    Character
    Childhood
    Christmas
    Classics
    Closure
    Coming Of Age
    Creative Writing Industry
    Creativity
    Debut Novels
    Disability
    Editing
    Emotion
    Ethics
    Family
    Feedback And Critiques
    Fictional Psychologists & Therapists
    Food
    Friendship
    Futuristic
    Gender
    Genre
    Getting Published
    Giveaways
    Good Enough
    Grammar
    Gratitude
    Group/organisational Dynamics
    History
    Humour
    Identity
    Illness
    Independent Presses
    Institutions
    International Commemorative Day
    Jane Eyre
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Live Events
    Marketing
    Memoir
    Memory
    Mental Health
    Microfiction
    Motivation
    Music
    Names
    Narrative Voice
    Nature / Gardening
    Networking
    Newcastle
    Nonfiction
    Nottingham
    Novels
    Peak District
    Poetry
    Point Of View
    Politics
    Politics Current Affairs
    Presentation
    Privacy
    Prizes
    Psychoanalytic Theory
    Psychology
    Psycholoists Write
    Psychotherapy
    Racism
    Rants
    Reading
    Real Vs Imaginary
    Religion
    Repetitive Strain Injury
    Research
    Reviewing
    Romance
    Satire
    Second Novels
    Settings
    Sex
    Shakespeare
    Short Stories General
    Short Stories My Published
    Short Stories Others'
    Siblings
    Snowflake
    Storytelling
    Structure
    Sugar And Snails
    Technology
    The
    Therapy
    Tourism
    Transfiction
    Translation
    Trauma
    Unconscious
    Unconscious, The
    Underneath
    Voice Recognition Software
    War
    WaSBihC
    Weather
    Work
    Writing Process
    Writing Technique

    Archives

    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    BLOGGING COMMUNITIES
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    I'm honoured to receive these blog awards:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    but no more, thanks, your comments are awesome enough
Powered by
Photos used under Creative Commons from romana klee, Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It., adam & lucy, Joybot, Hammer51012, jorgempf, Sherif Salama, eyspahn, raniel diaz, E. E. Piphanies, scaredofbabies, Nomadic Lass, paulternate, Tony Fischer Photography, archer10 (Dennis), slightly everything, impbox, jonwick04, country_boy_shane, dok1, Out.of.Focus, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region, Elvert Barnes, guillenperez, Richard Perry, jamesnaruke, Juan Carlos Arniz Sanz, El Tuerto, kona99, maveric2003, !anaughty!, Patrick Denker, David Davies, hamilcar_south, idleformat, Dave Goodman, Sharon Mollerus, photosteve101, La Citta Vita, A Girl With Tea, striatic, carlosfpardo, Damork, Elvert Barnes, UNE Photos, jurvetson, quinn.anya, BChristensen93, Joelk75, ashesmonroe, albertogp123, >littleyiye<, mudgalbharat, Swami Stream, Dicemanic, lovelihood, anyjazz65, Tjeerd, albastrica mititica, jimmiehomeschoolmom
✕