This book is terrible. It hurts like a bitch in a very quiet, understated way, it does not have the grace of tying the themes in any of the expected or more hopeful ways, and does so in a excellently written way. "Beat me while I love you" much?... Feels like a meta-theme.

There are: parallels between the government and Kambili's father's tyranny, between her aunt dithering on leaving the country while urging her mother to leave her father, the friend's questions on what is to be done if the strong leave, the children as reasons for leaving, where to go as the mother asks.

There are: commentaries about privilege, and the amount of issues it conceals, about the difference between public and private image, about having for others to see but not enjoying, about compassion not being something deserved, or related to station.

There are: questions about internalized colonization, the way religion opens paths for oppression and culture erosion (I raged so hard at the baptism and confirmation names thing), how a nation's identity gets eaten.

The motto of a university being "to restore dignity", like dignity has been lost, and higher education is what "gives" it... I have so many issues with the pretentiousness of that motto even while I think education does empower a people.

There is frankly a lot, and it left me so sad.

The first tenth is a mastery of the ominous. There is no overt violence, but the atmosphere itself is violently oppressive, and you can feel how the silence was bred into this girl. There is a moment where Jaja talks about another girl that saw her father murdered just starting to talk after 4 months, and he says she'll never heal from that, and it stayed with me that none of this characters ever will. The mother drank the love sips and was grateful that there was no second wife. Jaja paid heartily for his inner guilt. Kambili still yearns for her father's approval in her dreams, and that's how terrible and binding this twisted mockery of love is. They still do not talk. But maybe they have some hope of laughter.

I'm not touching that other priest with a ten foot pole because she's freaking 15.

There are six stories in this volume and they all work on that eerie maybe-normal-maybe-fantastical/grothesque/horror line.

The Birds is excellent at suspense and the daily made unnerving. And it leaves you there.

Monte Veritá reads almost like one of those non-Cthulthu's Lovecraftian tales. I really like the beginning, and the maybe-magical-maybe-mundane and expansive tone. The thing is, though, that much like in Lovecraft's writings, I had issues... I don't know, it was not... It felt like it was written by a man trying to be fair-for-his time but still...

The Apple Tree was a perfectly done unreliable narrator. He makes you despise the dead woman, but at the same time, you can read between the lines his own "polite" chauvinism, and so you feel for her. And then the layers peel, and oh my. Another that treads the line between the real and the fantastical for disquiet, and it's a gruesome poison study that you can see coming and still...

The Little Photographer ... Well, talking about poison-study. Ennui does not make good councilors. A bit of tragedy with some karma.

Kiss Me Again, Stranger was the eerie of prototype modern goths with some sauce.

The Old Man is interesting because you don't question it.

That was a trip and a half.

For being such and unwieldy mammoth, the tension never lets up. Everything goes to shit fats and through infinite pages. Something to have in mind before taking a stab at it. Gave me quite the bit of anxiety (which is part of what I liked but, you know).

The set up had my mind working. I was raised in a small town, so I could more or less envision most of the human-failure troubles to come (though here they were running on a rocked fueled schedule), but some of the environmental issues I had not considered till I read about the stream. Then I knew that even in fairytale land everyone was fucked. And King does not write "friendship is magic" worlds. He likes to put the devil at the wheel.

There are many bit thoughts running through my head theme wise, like cooperation vs dictatorships, the cruelty of children, the old terrible memories of shame and guilt, that remark about how skewed the numbers between genders were (because who do you think gets scalded first, when the water starts heating? Duh), their positions (librarians, doctors, press, liberal priests, smart kids), guilt for bad deeds vs guilt for having enjoyed them. Also, the surprising bits that made me laugh (mostly bleak Gilligan's cuts that proved I have a very dark sense of humour) and the bits that made me suck my snot (most of Sammy Bushey, Ollie and Ames).

I don't know that it is a book for everybody, even King's fans, and many of the paths trailed are a rehash of The Stand in a way, but I actually liked this one's pace a lot better (grueling is not always my choice, but it's a good one when I go for thrillers or scares, so plus).

On the whole, there were no big surprises, but I quite like it. And I'm exhausted.

When I was around two thirds in, I started idly concocting a review in my brain, about how the almost surreal elements and characters was what gave this narrative such a verisimilitude. Cue me over the 80% mark, just going to search for a detail, and finding out this is nonfiction. Sure, there are artistic licenses, but in essence?

I love it when knowing absolutely nothing about a book pays up in such ways.

As I mentioned previously in an update, the general tone reminded me a lot of latinoamerican writing. This has a lot to do with the conservative (and quirky) societies that brew in relatively small, isolated towns. You have the sedate and beautiful surface, and the decades/generations long ugly undercurrents. Everyone "behaves" in public out of a certain need for society and peace, and whomever "pops" may as well go the whole nine-yards and wear it like a flag.

So, that's basically the aim: to illustrate Savannah. The plot as it were serves the theme. We go into the deep ugly undercurrents. Almost every ugly you can imagine. Sometimes you are enraged and amused at the same time from the sheer hypocrisy rampant. I spent most of the book in some queer state of entertained stupefaction because it is so grotesque you almost can't believe it. But you do. You recognize it. It is your hometown.

There was inside him, like a flaw in a jewel, not visible on the surface, a fear and anticipation of failure that he had never been able to mend. At times, failure was a possibility that fascinated him, as at times, in high school and college, when he had allowed himself to fail examinations he might have passed; as when he married Miriam, he thought, against the will of both their families and all their friends. Hadn’t he known it couldn’t succeed? And now he had given up his biggest commission, without a murmur.

And here Bruno was looking like the sick cookie.