At the risk of being thrown out as a judge on Project Runway, I think the emperor is not wearing any clothes here. I didn't understand what was going on, and I pretty sure that nobody else who read the book understood what was going on either, but just didn't want to let on. In particular, on second reading of the review in the New Yorker that initially intrigued me enough to read it, I think the author of the review had no idea what was going on but didn't want to admit it. The review in the New Yorker pointed to the author's "inscrutable but compelling logic." I'll give it inscrutable, but I was not compelled. And now I also don't understand how something that is inscrutible can ever be compelling. The New Yorker points to the "elusive parables." I'll give it elusive, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what it was a parable of. Or how you can even tell it's a parable if it's so elusive. The New Yorker says the author "narrates with total seriousness events that might otherwise seem precious." Translation: It reads like a fairy tale written by an author with extreme Aspergers and no affect. I usually try to judge the book for what it was, not for what I wanted it to be, but in this case it fails on both grounds. I like the idea of a book steeped in magic realism set in a dirty mid-20th-century Polish factory and mining town, rather than the rural countryside like most magic realism is. But here there was no pattern to the magic realism that marked it as "urban" (or "Polish" or any other overarching theme of magic.) The magical parts were random enough that it just sort of felt like deus ex machina after unrelated deus ex machina plot devices rather than the invisible hand of the uncanny. I'm pretty sure that there may have been a vampire story in there, too, but if so it was so subtle and unscary that it made Twilight seem like Nosferatu. As best as I can gather, a character's heart stopped beating, but she didn't die. She just hung out in her room for a while. Then, later on, after her character failed to appear for most of the book, the townspeople turn on her for no apparent reason, stormed her room, staked her, and carried her off in a coffin. There might have been a love story involved, but not in the sense of rising to something as tangible as a lost heart/ stopped heart metaphor. It could have just as easily been an aneurysm. I got the idea that the author had some cool images in her head, and tried to come up with a story that would let her include the images -- but all that I was left with was the "inscrutible" and "elusive." I don't recall having read a novel that short that held together more poorly.
Tulli engages torment by disengaging. A young maiden, pursued simultaneously by the town's two most eligible bachelors, has her heart suddenly stop beating yet continues to live and holes up in her father's house reading French romance novels never having to decide between the two. A father of a newly married bride drops mid-meal. Occupying German commanders from the first World War die without ever carrying out their purposeful plans for the conquered town of Stitchings. Tulli does not spend more than a single sentence on a given death. This keeps In Red moving quickly and darkly comedic. The rampant deaths (on par with a Shakespearean tragedy) are also always punctuated by a new paragraph. Her writing is poetic in this way. She uses the page break much the way a poet uses line breaks to force new evaluations of the words. In this case, their quick passage. Her words, too, are poetic. Expressing all the beauty and nervousness of the desire, the voice of a new lover "follow[s] him down the stairs in a warm cascade of colorartura, finally flowing down the middle of the street quiet as a memory, freezing in the chill and marking the way from Neumann's house to the barracks with an icy trail, so that in the evening, when Kazimierz returned beneath Stefania's window, he slid and had to take care that the ground didn't slip from under his feet." (25)Tulli's use of the seasons is a particular tour de force aptly accompanying the wars that beleaguer the Polish village. The first World War takes place entirely in winter. Reconstruction begins in spring and the eventual rise of the Nazis is an uncharacteristically warm summer brought to a very sudden end by the return of snow. In Red reminds much of Safran-Foer's Everything is Illuminated. Both are set in Slavic Europe and unite otherwise disparate stories by lineage and love while remaining fixed (in Tulli's case) entirely on one location. Tulli invests more in language than sex, Safran-Foer's main appeal. The transient feel of Everything is Illuminated sits well next to In Red. Description is heavy and conversation is terse and the theme of war sets this novel near to A Farewell to Arms. Again though, Tulli steers clear of the sexual moments Hemingway was wont to and uses infinitely more poetic verbiage.
Do You like book In Red (2011)?
I've had this one on my shelf for a bit & tried reading it a couple different times, but just couldn't get into it. I decided to give it one last try & have now read it in one day. It's a strange story, unsettling, though sometimes beautiful too. I like this review/description of it & it describes it better than I can. Even with the unusual & bizarre happenings, I can't really say this story is magical realism, but in a sense, it may be. Partly it reminded me of the old, scary, dark fairy tales from Europe but with a modern edge where the evil beings are war (the two world wars bookend the novel), inertia, & cold-hearted business. There's a coldness & distance in the presentation style, but it is also deeply touching & makes you feel the futility of war (among other things).I will say that, for some reason, I can see this story as a modern dance ballet with a very neutral color palette (white, gray, black) with symbolic slashes of red throughout. There's definitely a stage/scenery bent to the writing that makes me picture it in motion on stage. I think it could be a grand & dramatic ballet.I know my review sounds disjointed, but I'm afraid that may the best I can do with this book.
—Stacia
Spotted entirely via the lovely Archipelago book design (and the vitriolic strength of Tranquility) and grabbed on impulse, this is the condensed history of Europe told in a notional arctic reach of Poland over the first half of the 20th century, reading with a deft fairy-tale lightness that smooths the bitter realities grinning blackly behind its surrealized story-surfaces. Tulli's narrative attempts to cover an incredible amount into 150 pages, leaving most of the characters stuck via plot mechanics somewhat out of reach of direct empathy, but her prose dances through the levels of the story with a unique grace, smoothing an incredible amount of material into a careful, rhythmically measured, eerily placid (inevitable?) yet tumultuous unspooling of events. Looks like Archipelago has a number of her books in circulation with is excellent news.
—Nate D
"Stories are not subject to anyones will,for they have their own;it is unbreakable,like a steel spring concealed in the depths of mechanical instrument...." asserts MT on p158.Not a perfect analogy,for the steel spring requires setting subject to the limits imposed on it by its makers will,and it will sooner or later"play its melody to the end." Thirty pages earlier she had presented her conclusion"The truth is a fraud",and I can only understand this to refer to the dizzying rate of change her characters are made to undergo. I think she is claiming,not that there is no such thing as truth, but that truth is variable.In Red is a fable-like presentation of history as stream of consciousness,zooming in on its broad rivers,rushing tributaries,eddies,backwaters and canals,all joining in the illusion of progress.Her unsentimental,robust lyricism has translated so well,I cannot imagine that the original Polish could be more compelling. Still, I was aware that I was probably missing at least half of the allusions,puns, and context that any Polish reader would inherit."The coarse guffaw of drumrolls set the rhythm for the self-assured trombones, the trumpet announced that life was beautiful,while the violin...wept drunkenly that it was too fleeting" p37
—Magdelanye
