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Crudo A Novel Olivia Laing Books

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Crudo A Novel Olivia Laing Books

It’s not often I abandon a book halfway through reading, but let’s face it: Life’s too short. I enjoyed the writing style and premise of the book at first, but the scrappiness of the writing, absence of almost any recognizable grammar, and lack of a distinguishable plot made this read like the first draft of someone’s hastily written book, not their final manuscript.


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Crudo A Novel Olivia Laing Books Reviews

Olivia Laing --- a journalist, critic and author of THE LONELY CITY --- has written a short, timely novel about… Well, that’s a little unclear.

Ostensibly narrated by a 40-year-old British writer a lot like Laing, CRUDO is in part about politics in the US and UK in 2017, where Trump and Brexit have sucked away public discourse on any other topics. And yet the novel is, seemingly, cross-narrated by American writer and feminist Kathy Acker, who died in 1997. (Interest in Acker’s work appears to have had a revival recently, and in her footnotes Laing cites a biography, Chris Kraus’ AFTER KATHY ACKER, that was published last year.)

The result of this mashup of auto-fiction and impersonation is a bizarre stream-of-consciousness chronicling by “Kathy” of her impending nuptials to a man who is 29 years older, along with her fearful concerns about the state of the world, aging (hers and his), traveling (to New York, on holiday), writing, caring too much and not caring enough “Numbness mattered, it was what the Nazis did, made people feel like things were moving too fast to stop and though unpleasant and eventually terrifying and appalling, were probably impossible to do anything about.” Numbness is not what the narrator experiences; on the contrary, she’s alive to every emotion, experience and observation.

While it’s impossible to separate out the voices of author, narrator and Kathy, CRUDO doesn’t seem to require that of the reader. The point is to remain in the stream, grasp what it’s like to worry about the macro and the micro with equal intensity, and absorb the sensibility. If the book was longer or had a more demanding plot, this might be too much to pull off, but at 150 pages (eight of them footnotes), the “narrator” invites the reader to experience --- without having to make sense of --- the workings of a complex, highly anxious but impressively sensitive human being.

Reviewed by Lorraine W. Shanley
This book was so scattered and incoherent. I have no idea what the plot is or what the point is.
I did not know who Kathy Acker was until I did some research. I think the Kathy in this book is really a nice person. She seemed to really love her husband. Her appreciation for nature and life came through so beautifully. She had fears about the world based on some of the negative characteristics of humans currently expressed. Her point about "numbness" on both sides is so true.
This book was definitely crudo! it was absolutely delicious, and I devoured it. Laing’s writing style in this book was so unique.

“Kathy, by which I mean I, was getting married.”

Sometimes, experimental writing makes its mark.

The narrator, by which I mean, Kathy makes things up on the fly and when doing so, the veracity of the current province of society is unveiled. Crudo, somewhat made me think of, John Boyne’s new book, A Ladder To The Sky. Although, I’ve not read it, I did read the premise, and both books are about writers who pull in stories by watching people. Stealing stories, so to speak.

Laing, by which I mean, Kathy, if Kathy was still alive, or was it Kathy Acker... touched on some very important themes. She talks about loneliness, gender, addiction, marriage, travel, obsessions with social media, the President, and a great deal more.

I can’t say too much without spoiling it for others, being that it is such a slim read. Nonetheless, I will say that it was very much an interesting and important read, and I’m glad I picked it up.
This is one of the most compelling books I've read. I know I've missed some of the allusions, but it reflected a lot of what I've experienced in the past two years. I'd recommend it to people with a college education who are inveterate readers
Almost a work of meta-fiction, this is Laing's first foray into fiction, but it is really more of a screed, a cry of frustration. The summer of 2017 is a scorcher in more ways than one for her. She is getting married for the first time at the age of 40, and is preparing shortly thereafter to return to New York to teach, so she is addressing both Brexit and the anticipation of living in the U.S. under the Trump administration. Her feelings about the man echo many of ours (constant questioning of how did this happen), and she does it so eloquently "This is how it is, then. Walking backward into disaster, braying all the way.") It is also an examination of mature love, in her marriage to a poet 29 years her senior. Theirs is a true companionship. Through him she examines the place of art in the modern world, but her character's vocation as a novelist apparently does not completely reflect her own history, but that of someone else. She apparently wrote this quickly, it being published nine months following the fictionalized events of her own life. In many ways the style and content reminded me of this year's output by Rachel Cusk and Ali Smith. But she is angrier. This truly is the Zeitgeist novel of the year.
It’s not often I abandon a book halfway through reading, but let’s face it Life’s too short. I enjoyed the writing style and premise of the book at first, but the scrappiness of the writing, absence of almost any recognizable grammar, and lack of a distinguishable plot made this read like the first draft of someone’s hastily written book, not their final manuscript.