Books 2014 - Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

[byslantedlight]

As he arrives with his family at the villa in the hills above Nice, Joe sees a body in the swimming pool. But the girl is very much alive. She is Kitty Finch: a self-proclaimed botanist with green-painted fingernails, walking naked out of the water and into the heart of their holiday. Why is she there? What does she want from them all? And why does Joe's enigmatic wife allow her to remain?

This book was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2012, and I thought it would make a nice contrast, having read the light fluffy The Longest Holiday, and various YA stories before that. It would surely be well-written, I would feel the characters, and the hills above Nice, and it would be a good think-y read. Profound and thrilling, Swimming Home reveals how the most devastating secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves says the blurb, and I do like strange and new things.

Swimming Home really just reminded me though that there's a reason I rarely read books that have been nominated for the big literary awards! They might make us think, but they invariably seem to do so by also making us feel rather grubby and depressed, and reminding us that people are shits to each other, from one end of life to another. So not why I read - you can see and feel all that out there in real life!

I don't read books just to feel good, or only as light entertainment etc., but I think that what I do want from any book, however bleak the subject matter, is some kind of redeeming hope in people and the world, some message, however briefly spotted, that it's all worth going on with. I really couldn't find that message in Swimming Home, for all that there were some vivid lines and thoughts in it that I liked. Life is only worth living because we hope it will get better and we'll all get home safely says Kitty Finch in the story more than once, and so the fact that, while everyone in the story may technically "get home", as witnessed by the really irritating plot device of cutting off the the story at its climax, and then fast-forwarding 15 years or so and letting us know, may technically be true, they don't at all seem to be "safe" even if they've recovered enough to keep plodding on, and that only suggests to me that, by Kitty's words, life really isn't worth living then...

Not quite the feeling I want from my holiday reading challenge!

Key West, USA - The Longest Holiday by Paige Toon
Nice, France - Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

Comments

[solosundance.livejournal.com]

Ah, this was a book that caught my eye a while ago (the cover, probably, and the title!) but I never got around to pursuing it. I still might, although there are a number of reviews around that suggest it's not a very 'warm' book. When I did a quick tally in my head I thought that probably I enjoy about 60-70% of the literary prize books I read, but that yes, a feature of the ones I tend not to like would be anything with an icy core, or, however beautifully written, lacking some kind of redeeming hope in people and the world as you say.

I've just read (on holiday!) a Sebastian Faulks which I'm in two minds about. There's a lot of the awfulness of people in it, but I think there's a redemptive message there. Thank you for this post - it will make me ponder that very good question for when I do my next book post!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so sending you this book! Save me taking it to Oxfam... 📓Interesting that I wasn't the only one who didn't find it warm read (what a good way of describing it) Don't think I'll be trying the new Faulks either from what you've said though... Actually I've not been mad on the couple of his books I've read either - but I'm sure I have read literary prize books I've liked a lot... I'm sure I have... (Sorry, I keep being distracted by Buzzcocks as I type this and it barely makes sense any more...)

[solosundance.livejournal.com]

Thanks again for sending me this - I just read it this morning. And although there were times during it that I felt a bit impatient and thought I was only going to read on because it was so short, actually I ended up thinking it was rather good. Hee, I did keep reading 'Kitty Fisher' instead of 'Kitty Finch', and was a little irritated with the rather kooky way of her, but the whole thing was rather wonderfully dreamy I thought, in terms of language and the overall effect. It sort of mesmerised me. And as long as it's done well (which, subjectively, I thought it was) I can be a sucker for sex/death metaphors and all that :) Already I'm flashing back to parts and want to read them again! I do agree that the device at the end with the fast forwarding wasn't great although I did like the "life must always win us back" line in relation to dreams - and didn't feel it was a 'life isn't worth living' book at all, but more 'life is so very fragile'.

Anyhow, I'm glad to have read it, so yay to book posts! (And, actually, to all of us liking different things!)

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Rats - I only replied in my head again, didn't I...

I'm really glad you liked it, because I wanted to, and to feel mesmerised by the writing and all, but it just didn't work for me... As you say - yeay to us all liking different things! *vbg*

[caffyolay.livejournal.com]

I'd say well done on finishing it! It's not a book I've seen around at all and I'm glad about that as that cover might have tempted me... it won't now. I tend to be a genre reader though don't mind the odd literary volume. There was mention of Sebastian Faulks in a previous comment. I read Birdsong and was glad I'd read it but have not been tempted by any more of his.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I've got to admit that it felt a bit like that... I liked the cover, and thought the blurb sounded fine, and I even read the first few pages before I bought it - but it just never really picked up...

I'm sure I've read some Sebastian Faulks that I enjoyed - and I know I've read other "literary" fic that I've liked (Donna Tart springs to mind) but I'm not always keen on his writing, so I'm not really tempted by him any more either. I'm never entirely convinced that "literary" is a genre to start with - what does it mean (and I know that's a whole controversial question to start with!), and surely there are so many people who could be classified as both "literary" and yet also "genre" for it to make sense? (What about Joanne Harris, for instance - she's surely "literary", and yet also "magic realism"...)

Off to read in bed now - and then tomorrow is another Monday... but at least I finished that book! *g*

[caffyolay.livejournal.com]

I know some literary writers and readers can be a bit sniffy about genre books. Which is no end of ridiculous in my opinion. I read somewhere that so called literary writers who write a science fiction novel do not like these books to be called that. I can't remember whether the article referred to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale or Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. One of those authors got quite offended when told their book was science fiction and wouldn't have it. It's just too silly. They ought to be pleased, the science fiction community is both intelligent and really rather picky.

ETA: Sorry, edited this twice!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I'd be curious to go right back to whoever coined the term "literary fiction" and find out exactly what they were talking about and in what context - I strongly expect they did it in a sniffy kind of way, and suddenly people had something to call themselves that sounded better than just "an author" when they wanted to think of themselves as a cut above other authors...

I suppose I can understand if someone writes a story that just happens to be set in a science fiction world, but they don't feel that the science fiction is the focus - but I don't see why they'd object to be called science fiction by people who didn't know have their authorial intent behind it, that makes no sense! I think it was Atwood who was particularly sniffy about being called SF... as you say, bizarre... Surely it should be just fabulous enough to know that hundreds and thousands and more people are going to read your story and enjoy it!

[caffyolay.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure the term 'literary fiction' is that old. I don't remember it from my youth for certain. Books were books. I wonder if it was termed to differentiate themselves from genre fiction, on the basis that they considered their writing to be more serious, and thus more worthwhile, than for instance sci-fi or crime yarns. The term certainly has the whiff of snobbery about it to me. Genre fiction is also hugely popular and I suspect there may be some resentment of that fact.

Yes, I think you're right, it was Atwood. And I agree, she should be thrilled and delighted that her book has reached a far wider audience than it might otherwise have done.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I can't really think when the term "literary fiction" seemed to pop up, but then I tend to assume that I just don't hear about things for ages and ages... In my head I don't hear it in the eighties, but I did hear in in the nineties. That could have just been me, but...

I went googling, and found an interesting definition by Neal Stephenson, quoted in wiki: while any definition will be simplistic there is a general cultural difference between literary and genre fiction, created by who the author is accountable to. Literary novelists are typically supported by patronage via employment at a university or similar institutions, with the continuation of such positions determined not by book sales but by critical acclaim by other established literary authors and critics. Genre fiction writers seek to support themselves by book sales and write to please a mass audience. So according to that it's got nothing really to do with the writing itself, but is defined by who effectively pays for the writing, and the power they have to call it "good"... Interesting...

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

I tend to avoid these types of books, too. Mainly because big literary awards usually means a book that's pretentious as hell. So just another reason to avoid this one.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Well I have read "literary fiction" books that I really liked, but I rather think their label was in spite of their content/how good they were, rather than the result (if you see what I mean... *g*) I don't like pretentious books either, and I think sometimes it depends on how much fame and accolade might have gone to a writer's head, even subconsciously...