Checkout 19
Author: Claire-Louise Bennett
Published by: Jonathan Cape London
Pages: 216
Format: Hardback
My Rating ★★★
Published by: Jonathan Cape London
Pages: 216
Format: Hardback
My Rating ★★★
We read in order to come to life.
With fierce imagination, a woman revisits the moments that shape her life; from crushes on teachers to navigating relationships in a fast-paced world; from overhearing her grandmothers' peculiar stories to nurturing her own personal freedom and a boundless love of literature.
My thoughts:
Claire-Louise Bennett’s latest work is nearly impossible to summarise: this meandering novel traces a woman's life as she muses on
the books that she has read and stories she has written. The unnamed woman revisits the moments that shape her life; from crushes on teachers to navigating relationships in a fast-paced world; from overhearing her grandmothers' peculiar stories to nurturing her own personal freedom and a limitless love of literature. There is a lot of anger in there too.
Few concrete details are offered about the narrator revisiting her memories, except that she grew up in the southwest of England, studied in London, moved to Ireland and is a writer.
Claire-Louise Bennett is a unique and very confident writer, with an impressive ability to record uncanny observations and a stunning prose. Her writing is feminist, ambitious and deeply personal. When Bennett is on form, she's excellent. There are lots of themes in the book, and topics including feminism, class and social connections are all explored as the narrator recalls memories from throughout her life.
Checkout 19 is a moving book about meaning, reading and recalling, but most of all about coming to life. The narrator tends to run away with language and as a result the novel sprawls and drifts. Much of it feels like a stream of consciousness and is written in long dense paragraphs.
This can be quite confusing at times, but there are some wonderful moments worth sticking around for.
However, some of the sections felt a little too long and repetitive, so a tighter edit would have perhaps worked better in my opinion. I did like elements of the chapters, but I'm afraid I just didn't really connect with this one overall. I’m sure it mostly comes down to personal preference, but I just wasn’t sure how to interpret the author’s style of writing in third person plural and then moving back and forth between first and third person. Instead of heightening my intrigue, at times this method had me struggling to figure out where I was.
Even Bennett’s glimmers of brilliance weren't quite enough to pull this together as a whole in my view, and I didn’t feel as enthusiastic about Checkout 19 as I’d initially hoped to. I like the politicised take on life but I expected something more plot-driven.
A big thank you to Toppings booksellers of Bath for inviting me along to meet the author at one of their in-person events this September!
Overall reaction:
Claire-Louise Bennett’s latest work is nearly impossible to summarise: this meandering novel traces a woman's life as she muses on
the books that she has read and stories she has written. The unnamed woman revisits the moments that shape her life; from crushes on teachers to navigating relationships in a fast-paced world; from overhearing her grandmothers' peculiar stories to nurturing her own personal freedom and a limitless love of literature. There is a lot of anger in there too.
Few concrete details are offered about the narrator revisiting her memories, except that she grew up in the southwest of England, studied in London, moved to Ireland and is a writer.
Claire-Louise Bennett is a unique and very confident writer, with an impressive ability to record uncanny observations and a stunning prose. Her writing is feminist, ambitious and deeply personal. When Bennett is on form, she's excellent. There are lots of themes in the book, and topics including feminism, class and social connections are all explored as the narrator recalls memories from throughout her life.
Checkout 19 is a moving book about meaning, reading and recalling, but most of all about coming to life. The narrator tends to run away with language and as a result the novel sprawls and drifts. Much of it feels like a stream of consciousness and is written in long dense paragraphs.
This can be quite confusing at times, but there are some wonderful moments worth sticking around for.
However, some of the sections felt a little too long and repetitive, so a tighter edit would have perhaps worked better in my opinion. I did like elements of the chapters, but I'm afraid I just didn't really connect with this one overall. I’m sure it mostly comes down to personal preference, but I just wasn’t sure how to interpret the author’s style of writing in third person plural and then moving back and forth between first and third person. Instead of heightening my intrigue, at times this method had me struggling to figure out where I was.
Even Bennett’s glimmers of brilliance weren't quite enough to pull this together as a whole in my view, and I didn’t feel as enthusiastic about Checkout 19 as I’d initially hoped to. I like the politicised take on life but I expected something more plot-driven.
A big thank you to Toppings booksellers of Bath for inviting me along to meet the author at one of their in-person events this September!
Overall reaction: