Generally, a terrible book. But kind of fascinating? I mean... mostly quite predictable (duh, that awful cad Levison who stole away Lady Isabel is also the murderer who framed Richard Hare! It just took 800 pages to get there...)... but this reads like some moral soap opera for those times. The Lady Isabel decides to run away because a somewhat hot dude was like "hey, your husband's cheating on you I bet," and then because obvs she made the wrong move, she's suddenly the saddest person on the planet, pregnant with the cad's baby, deserted by said cad, and then in a horrible train accident that kills the baby and leaves her disfigured. Everybody thinks she's dead and then she tortures herself by disguising as a governess to be with her kids. And the last part of the book is just a bunch of "isn't this crazy? That she has to witness all this? But don't forget, she made the worst mistake a woman could make and now she's paying for it." COOL.


Also, Miss Corny is the worst. I'm so glad I don't have to read about her again. The fact that Isabel exonerates her in the end for not being part of the reason she was driven out was total bullshit.


You know, totally low-brow fun.

While I was reading this weird, literature-infused journey of an Iranian exile, I often found myself laughing at the downright obnoxious narrator and protagonist, Zebra. She's cerebral and smart and distrusting and in-your-face as much as I've seen any character in a book be—there were times I said out loud to the page, "dude, chill ouuuut," though, perhaps this might be due to having read this on a tropical beach? ¡Quien sabe!

Zebra calls herself a literary terrorist and believes herself to belong to no land after escaping Iran as a young girl in the 80s. She references Don Quixote A LOT through this novel, which I've never read (though know the general story and characters), and I wonder if that added context is needed. Because while I was always shaken awake by Zebra and her destructive ways full of strident monologues and interactions with people, I felt the way the plot moved forward a bit tepid. I love a weird book (you know me!), but whew, sometimes it exhausted me to travel with Zebra. And yet, there's that feeling of protection there within me, too, as a witness to her journey of exile as a child. There's the tragedy that permeates beneath her angering exterior.

At one point I thought about the nameless narrator from MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION and her similar brusqueness when dealing with people, also shaded with such wonderful dark humor. It isn't until now that I realize both of these authors are Iranian and I wonder if there's something to this style of fictional narrator and their backgrounds? Or all coincidence!

If you were to create a book for me, that fit into my special niche interests perfectly, you could do little better than OPTIC NERVE. It's a book told from a woman's perspective, and she's an art critic... which the author herself is, too, in Argentina. Each chapter focuses on a piece of art or an artist, and Gainza uses that art as a prism into her own (character's?) life and history; or even Argentinean history, world history. She treads on topics of how people choose to present themselves, the arc of a friendship, motherhood, family, marriage, and death. It's about how perception of art can shape lives; I mean, what do we do here but share how we perceive art (books)? It seems plotless, but it culminates in a particularly poignant last chapter. It welled my eyes with tears.

So:
✅ Meta-Fiction
✅ Art
✅ Applying One's Perception of Art to Life
✅ Women's Friendships
✅ Philosophical Meanderings

IT ME.

I'd recommend it if this description speaks to you, but I know it may turn a lot of people off. And that's fine. That's how art works—differently for everyone. It left me searching for the paintings online, and with a severe itch to spend an afternoon wandering in an art museum.