Book No. 1 of 2020
Despite the summary that bills the book as a murder-mystery, I found the story and writing utterly charming. The narrator is, simultaneously, mildly exasperating and incredibly endearing. The use of William-Blake-esque capitalization is a delightful device that distinguishes the narrator’s point of view from that of the characters she encounters.
Big props to the translator—there’s a point where the characters translate William Blake’s poetry to Polish, and the passage laying out the original poetry in English and the different Polish options (translated to English for the benefit of the English reader) is a masterpiece of meta-translation. 👏 I had to re-read that passage multiple times in sheer awe.
Similar Reads
Other books with themes of polite alienation: Sayako Murata’s Convenience Store Woman, Elif Batuman’s The Idiot.