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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Bite-size reviews and a frozen flash

27/2/2021

10 Comments

 
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Much as I enjoy pontificating about books, there are times when I genuinely don't have much to say. It might be because I haven't connected strongly with the style or story. It might be that my mind is too busy elsewhere. But I do like using my blog and Goodreads as a kind of reading archive. This is my first experiment in using both for bite-size reviews.
Last FriendsLast Friends by Jane Gardam
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sadly not up to the standard of the other two novels in the trilogy (or maybe it works better if you don't leave a gap of ten years between reading them).

View all my reviews

LuckenboothLuckenbooth by Jenni Fagan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Magic realism meets dirty realism in an Edinburgh tenement across nine decades.

View all my reviews

Go, Went, GoneGo, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Reading this for my book group, this was my assessment two thirds of the way in:

White man needs a retirement project. Black men need to stay alive. Author wants to process her thoughts about Europe’s neglect of African refugees and asylum seekers. Reader is neither educated nor entertained.

While, in the discussion, we remained divided on the issue of Othering (they felt the novel was a process of de-Othering the refugees; I maintain that putting a white man between the refugees and the reader is Othering), their perspective helped me appreciate the remaining pages a little more. (Apart from the ending, which I found trite.)

So my overall assessment:

Schroeder’s cat, people made stateless, an ageing man holding unprocessed trauma from infancy, a body unretrieved from a lake: this is a novel about being simultaneously dead and alive.

View all my reviews

Touring the Land of the Dead (and Ninety-Nine Kisses)Touring the Land of the Dead by Maki Kashimada
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This consists of two novellas. In one, a woman who has been bullied by her mother and brother takes her disabled husband to a hotel she knew as a child. There, through his example, she learns acceptance. In the other, the youngest of four sisters who live with their mother observes how they compete for a man’s attention.

View all my reviews


I’m still intrigued by the notion of being simultaneously dead and alive, which I picked up from Go, Went, Gone, although the concept isn’t entirely alien to me. I thought it might be a good place to go with my 99-word story using the word frozen.


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Catatonia
 
It isn’t entertainment. It isn’t defiance. Yet they prod me, pinch me, pose me in increasingly awkward positions. I challenge their apothecary, so they challenge me.

They think I can’t feel, yet the ache in my muscles, the cramp, proclaims I’m alive. At night, when my head hits the pillow, I sleep like the dead.

In another life, I’d paint myself silver and wink at the children pitching coins in my hat. Or I’d serve as a sentry outside some palace. But I’m in the madhouse, frozen in sorrow, starved of volition. If an icicle bends, it will snap.
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.
10 Comments
Norah Colvin
1/3/2021 10:36:36 am

Your short reviews suited me this evening when it's time for bed. I like the title Go Went Gone, but I don't think any of these books appeals at the moment.
Your 99-word story is stark though. That type of frozen is/would be a sad place to be. I feel its horror.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
1/3/2021 06:44:09 pm

Yeah, scary. I don't think I've ever met anyone completely frozen in this way, but some have come close.

Reply
D. Avery link
2/3/2021 02:45:28 pm

I am just now making the rounds of reading. Only to find that the flash I wrote has some similarities to yours. Yikes.
I liked the niblet form of review this week.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
5/3/2021 05:47:32 pm

Hah, you started with the icicle and I finished. I wonder where Charli will place them in the compilation. Actually, I could check … I'm so far behind and not sure I'll get there. :-(

Reply
Colleen Chesebro link
2/3/2021 08:27:40 pm

Wow! I felt frozen in terror reading your words. The last line really grabbed me.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
5/3/2021 05:48:11 pm

Thanks, Colleen.

Reply
Charli Mills
3/3/2021 02:22:48 am

I relish your deeper reviews for multiple insights -- to stay apprised of contemporary fiction, better understand translations, and to consider the issues authors weave into their stories. It's also a cheap way for someone who reads fewer books get a broader look at what publishers are putting on the market. However, I find that your bites are effective if I were looking at reviews to decide what book to read or purchase. I think each style appeals to different audiences. Did you want to explore different options for your book reviews?

As for your story, I feel trapped in the character's inability to move and communicate. With that experience as a reader, I also feel empathy for anyone frozen in such a way.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
5/3/2021 05:53:33 pm

Thanks, Charli. I think it's a lot to do with time and enthusiasm, or lack thereof. A longer review does help me process my thoughts, which might feed into my writing – or not. I'm genuinely unsure where to go with this for the future. I guess I'll flail about until the solution arises from the ether!

Reply
Goldie link
4/3/2021 05:16:12 pm

What a tasty treat this piece was. The pain was so eloquently described and the use of prompt was genius.

Reply
Anne Goodwin
5/3/2021 05:55:25 pm

Thanks, Goldie, I sometimes go much lighter, but I think mental disturbance is my default setting.

Reply



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    My published books
    entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice
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    My third novel, published May 2021
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    My debut novel shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize
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    Anne Goodwin's books on Goodreads
    Sugar and Snails Sugar and Snails
    reviews: 32
    ratings: 52 (avg rating 4.21)

    Underneath Underneath
    reviews: 24
    ratings: 60 (avg rating 3.17)

    Becoming Someone Becoming Someone
    reviews: 8
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.56)

    GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4 GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4
    reviews: 4
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.44)

    The Best of Fiction on the Web The Best of Fiction on the Web
    reviews: 3
    ratings: 3 (avg rating 4.67)

    2022 Reading Challenge

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    Anne has read 2 books toward their goal of 100 books.
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    Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin: 
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