For in the end, alcohol is merely us, a materialization of our own nature. To repress is to repress something we know about ourselves but cannot celebrate or even accept. It is like having a dance partner we cannot trust with our wallet
-Lawrence Osborne
THE REVIEW
ASUNDER by Chloe Aridjis
KIRKUS REVIEW
A self-effacing life devoted to obsessive minutiae is cracked open in this oblique, disturbing, yet oddly compelling tale.
Surreal and haunting, Aridjis’ (Book of Clouds, 2009) understated second novel, set in London, traces a decisive phase in the life of Marie, a 33-year-old museum guard who has worked at the National Gallery for nearly 10 years. With her days spent almost invisibly among the visitors and paintings, her free time is passed in similarly low-key fashion, hanging out with a poet friend, Daniel, or working on a collection of peculiar sculptures—landscapes made inside eggshells. Marie’s hypnotic half-life is dotted with eccentric characters—a taxidermist; her flatmate, who is obsessed with moth strips—and brief yet telling descriptive sidebars about strange details, like the causes of craquelure (cracked varnish on old paintings) or the destruction of a famous work of art at the gallery by a suffragette, an act witnessed by Marie’s great-grandfather. Prisons, mental institutions and peculiar visions of decay crop up repeatedly, while actual events are few. But during a strange, vaguely unpleasant holiday in Paris with Daniel, a chance encounter in a dilapidated chateau pushes Marie over an invisible line.
Dark and peculiar, simultaneously sinister and playful, Aridjis’ modern gothic vision will charm those prepared to linger in her cabinet of curiosities.
Pub Date:Sept. 17th, 2013
ISBN:978-0-544-00346-0
Page count:208pp
Publisher:Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online:July 30th, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue:Aug. 15th, 2013
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