#nell zink

[holdoncallfailed]

Her body and mind were already wobbly, and for an instant they became fifteen. She remembered what it had felt like to be herself. An amoeba of longing. An unformed thing that loved.

Doxology, Nell Zink

[judgingbooksbycovers]

Doxology

By Nell Zink.

Design by Jack Smyth.

[theblackestofsuns]

Avalon (2022)

Nell Zink

Alfred A. Knopf

[shesey]

Excerpts from The Wall Creeper by Nell Zink

If I tell myself stories, I get very sentimental very fast. So I didn't. I had hypnotized myself because Stephen had a job that could support us both and secretarial work bored me. I saw that I had followed the chief guiding principles of the petty bourgeoisie in modernity and made a virtue of necessity in telling myself my husband was a good lover. ... are you saying that what makes our relationship valuable is my willingness to suffer for you?

I don't see what that has to do with having a good relationship. It should be about getting through difficult stuff together. Difficult stuff the world throws at you, not difficult stuff you do to each other. I'm asking you right now to risk your life and health for my reproductive success.

If I put a picture of you and a baby on my desk, I can get promoted.

I'm sure there are couples that are fated to be together, like they meet each other in kindergarten and date on and off for twenty years, and finally they gie up because they realize they've gotten so far down their common road that there's nobody else in the entire universe they can talk to, because they have a private language and everything like that.

Have kids and turn so weird from the stress that nobody else ever understands another word we say. A couple that's completely wrapped up in each other can get through anything, because they don't have a choice. Right now we have the option of floating through life without b eing chained to anybody, but instead we pile on a ton of bricks and go whomp down to the ground.

I'm sorry. I figured human beings are curious. I try not to avert my eyes when life throws new experiences my way.

... my marriage was starting to feel like an exercise in opportunity cost.

Stephen's grief humanized him. I began to fall in love.

Maybe she was the kind who feels guilty when she commits adultery in her heart?

For the first time in years - or perhaps since infancy, when I hadn't known other people existed - I was certain I was alone, and my prompt gut reaction was to abandon all hope.

Consequently, Stephen was physically revolted by her. As if her failure to notice what was going wrong with the planet was linked to a black, spongy degeneration of her brain that might be contagious.

People talk a lot about midlife crisis, the momentary stress that arises when you finally slack off... It has nothing on unrequited love. Stephen stopped sleeping. He spent his nights staring at the TV with the sound off. He took Provigil so he could go to work. He looked weak and ashen as a ghost. On my knees by the couch, I begged him to take a few weeks off.

Even men in their seventies, talking to me after meetings about an impending block party or the proper sorting of garbage, would raise their eyebrows when I saw I had followed my husband from Philadelphia to Berne and then Berlin. I couldn't come up with a step I'd taken in life for my own sake. On my own behalf, to make myself happy, I'd done all kinds of things, all of them with the aim of staying close to a man. It hadn't occurred to me to be ashamed of myself. I'd thought love was a socially acceptable motivation.

Like me, she had moved to Berlin to be with her husband. The key difference was the kids. I envied her with a pang. An educated woman with little kids (I didn't imagine her having acquired them by any other means than hot sex) is a model of feminist, as well as feminine, virtue. Even her struggle to get strangers to take the kids off her hands is a feminist cause. Her work, bringing up the model citizens of tomorrow, is something society feels it ought to value and is constantly proposing as potentially eligible for pension benefits, unlike my work, which neither involved actual labor nor was anything but an end in itself, on good days, and otherwise not even that.

She hand't planned to drop out, but it was absolutely impossible to be an adequate mother and have a life, she said.

Stephen never had a strategy about anything. He just went ahead and did stuff, then tried retrospectively to figure out why.

[sbbarnes]

Avalon by Nell Zink My rating: 3 of 5 stars Avalon follows Bran, an orphan raised by her not-abusive-on-a-technicality common-law-stepfamily. It's a coming of age story about a girl with very little understanding of the world, which is an interesting perspective to inhabit, and the matter-of-factness with which she takes in opinions and worldviews she gets from her friends shows that. The supporting cast of characters is equally kooky, and frequently painted in a not very flattering light. I would call the tone of the book cynical, especially regarding Will's parents and anything to do with intersectionality, with the constant jokes-but-not-jokes about fascism. The ending feels fairly abrupt and unclear, although based on the narrative voice, I like to hope she eventually ditched Peter. View all my reviews

[alexsfictionaddiction]

Review: Avalon by Nell Zink

I do occasionally enjoy a literary fiction novel that takes me to another place and shows me a new way of life, while being somehow relatable. That’s what I wanted from this book and in some ways, it delivered.

After her mother joined a Buddhist colony, Bran was raised by her common-law stepfather on a plant nursery that is also a hangout for local bikers. While dreaming of a different life and spending time with her band of misfit friends, Bran meets Peter, a college student who introduces her to art and literature and they begin an ill-fated relationship. Bran spends the next few years trying to find her place in the world.

The book has a very dry sense of humour that did make me laugh a few times but it was always tinged with tragedy, which stoppered the comedy. Bran really has been abandoned by the very people who were supposed to take care of her and I did find it heartwarming that she could see the funny side of it.

The big love of Bran’s life is perhaps her gay best friend, Jay. I really felt that hopeless yet still delusionally hopeful feeling of unrequited love emanating from her and I loved how Bran’s confession that she loved Jay didn’t tamper their friendship. She just quietly understood that they couldn’t ever be together in the way that she wanted and carried on being in his life in any way that she could.

Bran was escaping into books before Peter came along, so I didn’t really know what Peter brought to her life. It’s not like he opened up the idea of reading and creativity for her. Bran sees herself as a ‘world in trouble’ and I think that encapsulates her life perfectly. There is a lot of uncertainty and very few prospects open to her because of the manner in which she has been raised.

The men at the nursery treat Bran like a maid rather than her stepfather’s ward. She gets into some really scary situations around them and I actually think she was pretty strong to come out of them as level-headed as she did. I really didn’t know what would become of her but I had my fingers crossed that she wouldn’t become a product of her environment.

This is why I was so frustrated when she is called back to the nursery to take care of her ailing grandfather. Her stepfather can’t possibly do it (probably because nursing is a woman’s job) and Bran is the only person who can ever look after him. This happens just as Bran has left the place and is finally discovering what she could be. The fact that she acquiesces broke my heart because it just proved that she is riddled with loyalty that her family don’t deserve. However, sacrificing her fledgling self-discovery felt like a very authentic thing to do. Many of us are far too weak to resist the pull of family when they call.

Avalon is a brief glimpse of a girl’s story to rise from the ashes of her upbringing. I did lose interest around halfway through, which I’m sad about because it isn’t a long book. I hated Bran and Peter’s relationship, which I think was the intention but I wasn’t convinced of that intention most of the time. However, I was very pleased with the ending and finished it full of hope.

[smute]

what an introduction lmao

It’s not fair to generalize, even about myself. Were a team of grad students to spend years preparing a detailed sociological analysis of my life, complete with statistical tables, I would appreciate it. All I can offer in its place are snippets of experience that rubbed off on my brain as it was being dragged through a long wormhole from 1964 to the present; as evidence, they could hardly be more anecdotal or less disinterested. Furthermore, to quote Fyodor Tyutchev (1803–73), ‘A thought, once spoken, is a lie.’ An essay, which as a rule consists of two or more thoughts, is at best doubly mendacious; at worst, a big steaming heap of self-serving fantasy.

[ponyoisms]

Can you drop your fav reads upto now please :D

omg yes i can thank YOUUU for asking me

my absolute favorites if i had to narrow it down would be the wall by marlen houshofer, the vagabond by colette, ice by anna kavan, nightwood by djuana barnes and all the lovers in the night by mieko kawakami

other books i really enjoyed are sexing the cherry by jeanette winterson, tipping the velvet by sarah waters, nevada by imogen binnie, i love dick by chris krauss, the first bad man by miranda july, heaven by mieko kawakami, avalon by nell zink, and made for love by alyssa nutting

also i reread franny and zooey by jd salinger and hangsaman by shirley jackson both of which i would always recommend

[thediverismylove]

23 books I want to read in 2023

how to sell a haunted house by grady hendrix

i feel bad about my neck by nora ephron

jazz by toni morrison

life on mars by tracy k smith

american psycho by bret easton ellis

i am, i am, i am by maggie o’farrell

bliss montage by ling ma

getting lost by annie ernaux

what purpose did I serve in your life by marie calloway

the berlin stories by christopher isherwood

gods of want by k ming chang

indelicacy by amina cain

assembly by natasha brown

nightbitch by rachel yoder

the hop by diana clarke

strange rites by tara isabella burton

babysitter by joyce carol oates 

the millstone by margaret drabble

i love you but i’ve chosen darkness by claire vaye watkins

mislaid by nell zink

dog flowers by danielle geller

edinburgh by alexander chee

virtue by hermione hoby

tagging @entertheaardvark, @redactedmatopoeia, @babettegladney, @selkielore, and @hjarta to do this too. i feel like this post was a thing last year so I thought why not do it again 🤷‍♀️ also tagging anyone who wants to do it

[weirdgirlification]

2022 book list

favorites bolded, sorted by dates read

catch the rabbit by lana bastasic

grandmaster of demonic cultivation, volume 1 by mo xiang tong xiu

heaven official’s blessing, volume 1 by mo xiang tong xiu

cassandra at the wedding by dorothy baker

ms ice sandwich by mieko kawakami

like by ali smith

annihilation by jeff vandermeer

sarahland by sam cohen

drive your plow over the bones of the dead by olga tocarczuk

problems by jade sharma

winter by ali smith

a novel obsession by caitlin barasch

mislaid by nell zink

milk fed by melissa broder

asymmetry by lisa halliday

certain american states by catherine lacey

heaven official’s blessing, volume 2 by mo xiang tong xiu

spring by ali smith

girl meets boy by ali smith

either/or by elif batuman

nightshift by kiare ladner

tin man by sarah winman

white ivy by susie yang

acts of service by lillian fishman

sea of tranquility by emily st. john mandel

time is a mother by ocean vuong

fates and furies by lauren groff

girls can kiss now by jill gutowitz

jade legacy by fonda lee

the accidental by ali smith

i’m glad my mom died by jennette mccurdy

crimson by niviaq korneliussen

our wives under the sea by julia armfield

the answers by catherine lacey

babel by r.f. kuang

history of wolves by emily fridlund

the bell jar by sylvia plath

second place by rachel cusk

my brilliant friend by elena ferrante

everything i need i get from you by kaitlyn tiffany

[ergothereforethus]

finished evelyn hugo. now I need something literary to read. my library does not have any nell zink books but I am willing to drive to the next town over. unless of course my lovely tumblr mutuals have any recs?

[all-lined-up]

2023

Getting Lost, by Annie Ernaux

The Rag and Bone Shop, by Veronica O’Keane

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

Really Good, Actually, by Monica Heisey

Empire of Pain, by Patrick Radden Keefe

The Husband, by Maud Ventura

High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby

Stray, by Stephanie Danler

Strong Female Character, by Fern Brady

Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton

The Happy Couple, by Naoise Dolan

All the Beauty in the World, by Patrick Bringley

The Rachel Incident, by Caroline O’Donoghue

Yellowface, by Rebecca F. Kuang

The Years, by Annie Ernaux

Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan

Swimming in the Dark, by Tomasz Jędrowski

Lanny, by Max Porter

The Wager, by David Grann

Foster, by Claire Keegan

Avalon, by Nell Zink

Bellies, by Nicola Dinan

An Uneasy Inheritance, by Polly Toynbee

Conversations on Love, by Natasha Lunn

I’m a Fan, by Sheena Patel

The Girl with the Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier

Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann

The Stranger in the Woods, by Mike Finkel

Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again, by Katherine Angel

Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata

Good Material, by Dolly Alderton

Prima Facie, by Susie Miller

20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth, by Xiaolu Guo

The Crane Wife, by CJ Hauser

Your Face Belongs to Us, by Kashmir Hill

The Promise, by Damon Galgut

[wheretheeternalare]

Books I read in 2022

just posting this for my own amusement but if anyone’s looking for recs I’ve bolded what I really liked. I read 44 books this year, plus 3 rereads (The Secret History, Maurice, and Detransition, Baby lmao) which is by far the most I’ve ever read in a year! feeling rly good about that!

Time's Monster by Priya Satia The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis Females by Andrea Long Chu Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler Nevada by Imogen Binnie Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher A Room With a View by E. M. Forster Female Husbands: A Trans History by Jen Manion On Beauty by Zadie Smith Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov The Wedding by Dorothy West My Education by Susan Choi The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien  The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien  Goodbye Without Leaving by Laurie Colwin Among the Isles of Shoals by Celia Thaxter Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton Rip It Up: Rock 'n' Roll Rulebreakers Drawing the Line by Erich Matthes She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen The Blackhouse by Peter May How to be both by Ali Smith Raven Black by Ann Cleeves Autumn by Ali Smith Winter by Ali Smith The Smiths: Songs That Saved Your Life by Simon Goddard The Black Friend by Frederick Joseph A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraquib Spring by Ali Smith The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918 by Stephen Kern Eternity by the Stars by Louis-Auguste Blanqui The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce Summer by Ali Smith The Scent of Time by Byun-Chul Han The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything by Jonn Elledge Doxology by Nell Zink The Idiot by Elif Batuman Ghosts of My Life by Mark Fisher Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers Whose Body by Dorothy Sayers

[ophelia-thinks]

2, 12, 17, 22?

2. Did you reread anything? What?

the wallcreeper by nell zink, which i love abidingly; and the sparrow by mary doria russell, which i reread because, follow me here, i had just read shusaku endo's silence and thought, "this is exactly the same book as the sparrow," so then i had to reread the sparrow and found it both a worse book the second time around and a more interesting one. it's still the perfect first contact novel, i just can't stop thinking about the ending of silence and how in the sparrow we're supposed to believe that emilio's confession to the church is purifying in some way, and about how strong the throughlines really are between histories of colonization and displacement and first-contact/alien invasion scifi.

12. Any books that disappointed you?

i thought less is lost was pretty bad. the beginning, with robert's funeral and the columbarium, was lovely; i wish greer had written that book, about less and marian and the aftermath of their mutual loss, rather than try to recreate less as a Commentary on America, which is, among other things, extremely corny.

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

honestly, yiyun li's dear friend, from my life i write to you in your life. i was half-expecting a kind of depression memoir, something a little more trendy and self-conscious... nothing could have prepared me for what this book is really like. "who are you? what makes you think of yourself as innocuous?"

22. What’s the longest book you read?

already answered!

[shookupshookup]

Nell Zink, Avalon

[itsathingandyoucandoit]

Nell Zink, Doxology, p. 194.