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Obres de David Collard

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Jesus, where to begin? This is an encomium to Eimear McBride written by a literary critic who takes himself (somewhat correctly, if bloviatingly) to be directly involved in her rise to literary glory, and yet he admits that A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing "ruined me as a critic."

I would not disagree. As a critic, I hope Collard himself can acknowledge that his book is disorganized, repetitive, wholly reliant on others' more interesting interpretations, longer than the book it remarks upon, tone-deaf to the lauded author's own stated intentions (she is not interested in critical theory), and--bless his heart--entirely condescending and self-congratulatory.

I love Eimear McBride's debut novel. I do not find it "difficult" as many reviewers do (who are intent on staking out--on McBride’s behalf--her place in the canon of modernist literature). In fact I find the book quite easy to read, syntactically, despite its periodic interruptions. I am not tripped up by her form. What I find difficult is feeling and experiencing the trauma along with the narrator; the interior nature and slippage of McBride's language which runs underneath the narrator's attempts to own (or exert some control over) her body.

It seems so many of the reviewers (especially Collard, our "guide") are so busy placing McBride between Beckett and Joyce, that they completely miss that--with her pared down prose--McBride's protagonist is utterly relatable to women everywhere.

We don’t need a (male) critic telling us that this is an important and experimental woman’s voice, who in nearly the next breath proclaims its universality by telling us that he wasn’t sure if it was written by a woman or man on his first pass. Eimear McBride doesn’t need a male critic to explain the history and significance of women’s writing to her, nor should she have to endure Collard’s repeated questions about whether or not she has read x or y “feminist” authors, and if they served as influences (which they clearly must have). McBride’s response was a simple, “No, I have not read her.”

There’s not much to commend in this book. It offers some interviews (often unhelpfully truncated and unclearly cited) with McBride’s family and friends, it reproduces several early reviews in their entirety, and there is a chapter of painful back and forth emails that consistently demonstrate Collard’s wearisomeness. The one thing I found of value was the chapter on the publication of the book by a tiny indie press in Norwich, after nine years of rejections from major houses. But even that chapter is filled with unnecessary detail. Basically, this “guide” reveals little, and all in all I deem it a gigantic waste of time. Read McBride, not Collard trying to capitalize on McBride.
… (més)
 
Marcat
reganrule | Jun 3, 2016 |

Estadístiques

Obres
3
Membres
12
Popularitat
#813,248
Valoració
1.0
Ressenyes
1
ISBN
5