Mona
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Description
'Enjoyably mischievous and daring' Financial Times
'Ruthless, very funny' New York Times
Mona is a Peruvian writer based on a Californian campus, open-eyed and sardonic, a connoisseur of marijuana and prescription pills. In the humanities she has discovered she is something of an anthropological curiosity - a female writer of colour treasured for the flourish of rarefied diversity that reflects so well upon her department.
When she is nominated for 'the most important literary award in Europe', Mona sees a chance to escape her sunlit substance abuse and erotic distraction, and leaves for a small village in Sweden. Now she is stuck in the company of her competitors, who arrive from Japan, France, Armenia, Iran and Colombia. The writers do what writers do: exchange flattery, nurse envy and private resentments, stab rivals in the back and go to bed together.
But all the while, Mona keeps stumbling across traces of violence on her body, the origins of which she can't - or won't - remember.
Book Information
Posts
Have you ever sat on a plane, crammed into what seemed to be the least comfortable seat in economy, when turbulence hit, and your shins proceeded to repeatedly hit the hard, cold plastic of the seat in front of you? When unpredictable air masses decided to rattle the entire plane, that magic machine that was the only thing keeping you alive at this very moment? Has this happened to you? If your answer is yes, then you are exceptionally capable of imagining the comfort reading “Mona” by Pola Oloixarac brings the reader. Here is a collection of adjectives that sprang to mind while I was trying my very best to enjoy that novel with the very instagrammable cover: repetitive, flat, sarcastic, pointless. Yes, the “sarcastic” is a good thing, and I did in fact like the snarky comment this entire book made about the international literary scene. But that’s also where the enjoyment ends. Let me summarize the plot: Young woman with emotional trauma feels displaced and is invited to international literary event of mediocre repute. Of course, dead animals play some kind of metaphoric role (can you tell I am sick of that trope already), sex and genitalia are sprinkled in liberally, crudely and without warning. Pseudo-intellectual conversations about life and literature are being had. Weird things happen. Big reveal at the end, at which point the entire narrative is already so convoluted that you remember nobody’s names and have a hard time understanding what even going on, what is real, what is a fever dream, and which of the words were merely forgotten by the editor. Mind you: I am just a reader with an opinion, and a nervous flyer. Some people enjoy turbulence because it makes traveling “more fun”, and frankly, if you’re one of these people, the realities of your life and mine lie so far apart that you might very well enjoy reading “Mona”.
Description
'Enjoyably mischievous and daring' Financial Times
'Ruthless, very funny' New York Times
Mona is a Peruvian writer based on a Californian campus, open-eyed and sardonic, a connoisseur of marijuana and prescription pills. In the humanities she has discovered she is something of an anthropological curiosity - a female writer of colour treasured for the flourish of rarefied diversity that reflects so well upon her department.
When she is nominated for 'the most important literary award in Europe', Mona sees a chance to escape her sunlit substance abuse and erotic distraction, and leaves for a small village in Sweden. Now she is stuck in the company of her competitors, who arrive from Japan, France, Armenia, Iran and Colombia. The writers do what writers do: exchange flattery, nurse envy and private resentments, stab rivals in the back and go to bed together.
But all the while, Mona keeps stumbling across traces of violence on her body, the origins of which she can't - or won't - remember.
Book Information
Posts
Have you ever sat on a plane, crammed into what seemed to be the least comfortable seat in economy, when turbulence hit, and your shins proceeded to repeatedly hit the hard, cold plastic of the seat in front of you? When unpredictable air masses decided to rattle the entire plane, that magic machine that was the only thing keeping you alive at this very moment? Has this happened to you? If your answer is yes, then you are exceptionally capable of imagining the comfort reading “Mona” by Pola Oloixarac brings the reader. Here is a collection of adjectives that sprang to mind while I was trying my very best to enjoy that novel with the very instagrammable cover: repetitive, flat, sarcastic, pointless. Yes, the “sarcastic” is a good thing, and I did in fact like the snarky comment this entire book made about the international literary scene. But that’s also where the enjoyment ends. Let me summarize the plot: Young woman with emotional trauma feels displaced and is invited to international literary event of mediocre repute. Of course, dead animals play some kind of metaphoric role (can you tell I am sick of that trope already), sex and genitalia are sprinkled in liberally, crudely and without warning. Pseudo-intellectual conversations about life and literature are being had. Weird things happen. Big reveal at the end, at which point the entire narrative is already so convoluted that you remember nobody’s names and have a hard time understanding what even going on, what is real, what is a fever dream, and which of the words were merely forgotten by the editor. Mind you: I am just a reader with an opinion, and a nervous flyer. Some people enjoy turbulence because it makes traveling “more fun”, and frankly, if you’re one of these people, the realities of your life and mine lie so far apart that you might very well enjoy reading “Mona”.