Status
Genres
Description
"I have been sleuthing my mother's symptoms for as long as I can remember. If I see myself as an unwilling detective with a desire for justice, is her illness an unsolved crime? If so, who is the villain and who is the victim? Sofia, a young anthropologist, has spent much of her life trying to solve the mystery of her mother's unexplainable illness. She is frustrated with Rose and her constant complaints, but utterly relieved to be called to abandon her own disappointing fledgling adult life. She and her mother travel to the searing, arid coast of southern Spain to see a famous consultant--their very last chance--in the hope that he might cure her unpredictable limb paralysis. But Dr. Gomez has strange methods that seem to have little to do with physical medicine, and as the treatment progresses, Sofia's mother's illness becomes increasingly baffling. Sophia's role as detective--tracking her mother's symptoms in an attempt to find the secret motivation for her pain--deepens as she discovers her own desires in this transient desert community. Hot Milk is a profound exploration of the sting of sexuality, of unspoken female rage, of myth and modernity, the lure of hypochondria and big pharma, and, above all, the value of experimenting with life; of being curious, bewildered, and vitally alive to the world"--… (more)
User reviews
As Rose falls under the care of the eccentric Dr. Gómez, Sofia explores the coastal city of Almería, where she befriends Ingrid, an equally eccentric and attractive German woman who she finds enthralling and alluring. Sophie undergoes a personal and sexual transformation, which leads her to examine her life as her mother's poorly treated handmaid, discover her own personal desires, and seek reconciliation with the father who she has not seen or heard from in over a decade.
I was looking forward to reading Hot Milk, as I was expecting a nuanced story of a difficult mother-daughter relationship, and a thoughtful look into the mind of a person with a chronic non-organic illness. Instead, this book was far more superficial, essentially an upscale chick lit novel, which left me disappointed and thoroughly unsatisfied. It was a curious selection for this year's Booker Prize longlist, and, similar to The Many, I don't expect to see it make the shortlist.
I thought this novel sharp, comical and bitingly witty. Great characters, lovely setting and a very good summer read.
Shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, this book is receiving glowing reviews from everyone. I'm sure they are well deserved. Maybe I had too high of an expectation based on those reviews because I just didn't really like either the story or the characters, with the exception of Dr. Gomez. I found it dull, depressing and very difficult to connect with. I'm sure I'm in the minority but the best part of the book for me was when I finally closed the cover.
While it said things to me that I recognised and agreed with, I didn't think it a groundbreaking book
There's a very ethereal quality that runs throughout the novel, but it's all quite subtle. Some readers will likely feel “things are off,” but not necessarily be able to put words to any of it. In an early scene, for instance, the protagonist and her mother are in a doctor's office. The doctor's front teeth are made of gold. There's a stuffed monkey in a glass case. The mother begins to cough. The doctor coughs. She moves her leg and the doctor moves his. After a strange exchange, the doctor randomly announces, “I think you are going to sneeze soon.” None of it is Twin Peaks Red-Room kind-of-crazy, but it's all so peculiar. The novel is filled with these moments and also a dialogue that is unnatural. It's intriguing, but what's the point?
Levy seems to be addressing several different themes in Hot Milk, but doesn't explain them. Perhaps she expects her readers to be smarter than they are. Or perhaps she doesn't feel the need for the answers to be obvious. Though there is strong emphasis on gender confusion, the primary subject is memory. This likely explain the dream-like quality of the novel. One character states, “memory is a bomb.” At another point, the protagonist ruminates on “the way imagination and reality tumble together and mess things up.” Simple events like observing that her father was partial to dill is followed by a reflection that this observation “will become a memory.” There is so much emphasis put on imagination and dreams, matched with the surreal plot, and one may assume that this story isn't what it seems to be. But then what is it? That answer is never obvious.
I enjoyed the unknown. I respected the author's right to tell her story in a slightly off-kilter manner. Other readers won't be so forgiving and so Hot Milk becomes the sort of novel that some will love, some will hate, and many will just shake their heads at and say, “huh?”
Levy is a favorite for the Man Booker Prize and for good reason. Not only has she written a wonderful novel, but she's the most accomplished of the nominees. The author of seven novels, several collections, a work of non-fiction, and many plays, Levy has won numerous awards and was previously shortlisted for the Man Booker in 2012. If the Man Booker was judged by the same standards as the Academy Awards, Levy would be a shoo-in. Fortunately, the Man Booker Prize judges do not have a history of awarding the most culturally significant author or the one who was slighted the last time; they tend to award the prize to the most deserving book. And while Hot Milk is a fine novel, I'm not sure it has the universality and depth necessary to take home the prize. It's certainly possible, and I'd say its odds are much higher than the other two nominees I have so far read—Eileen and The Sellout—but in a world that seems to be simultaneously on the brink of destruction and enlightenment, the winner needs to offer something more. So far, Hot Milk is my favorite to take the prize, but there is still half the field of contenders to consider.
On the surface not much happens - Sofia accompanies her mother Rose to a desert beach resort in Spain where they attend a local clinic to find the mysterious
I am struggling to convey what is great about this book and why I enjoyed it - it is full of striking sentences and observations, often slippery and cryptic, but never hard to read, and it would make a worthy Booker winner. I will certainly be reading more Levy.
Deborah Levy’s story begins straightforwardly with a broken laptop screen and a painful sting from a jellyfish, or medusa in Spanish. Sofia is seemingly set upon by the elements, bad luck, and aggressively painful animal life. But very quickly we realize that Sofia’s take on things might be skewed. She sees with the eyes of an anthropologist, but also in the mythic mode, perhaps hearkening back to her Greek roots. Will Ingrid, the steamy seamstress, or Juan, from the healing hut, activate her desire or snuff it out? And what’s up with this strange clinic that Rose is going to where the doctor is becoming less and less interested in her lack of mobility? Everything begins to fold in on itself until nothing is merely what it is. It’s a brilliant metaphor for the involutions of the inner life. And it makes reading this novel a real treat.
Recommended.
There are so many things to love about Hot Milk. First, the setting. I spent some time in Almeria and the story perfectly captures the strange, remote quality of the place, the extreme landscape and the unlikeliness of a resort in such a harsh climate, the international cocktail of outsiders who wash up there, who are so different but just in being there, become somehow the same.
Like the shimmering heat of Almeria, there is a languid surface to the story which belies the simmering of ideas and themes. This is a story about individuals, about mother and daughter, about the spiky Sofia who will neither conform nor rebel but is always disrupting her own dreams. It is also about the unravelling of Europe. It deconstructs what we are sure about, shows us that the world we think is fixed is in flux. Spain and Greece, once at the heart of Mediterranean civilisations, are now on the periphery. It poses playful questions about the body politic and the willingness or otherwise to take your medicine.
This is a clever book, cool, ironic, provocative (and the narrator of the audiobook captures this tone perfectly). Whenever I think about it, I see something new.
At a plot level, Sophie is a young woman spending the summer months in Almeria in Spain caring for her mother whilst they try to get a diagnosis for a mystery psychosomatic condition that
This novel really worked for me. Levy establishes not only an acute sense of place, but also manages to evoke so well the heightened senses that Sophie experiences from her physical and emotional environment. It's a melting pot of inescapable heat, of noise (from the dog at the diving school that's perpetually chained up), of pain (from repetitive jelly fish stings), of complex sensuality and of rising frustration from being carer to a mother who's determined to suffer and not find any enjoyment of life. The pressure from these elements steadily increases until they result in a new emergence in Sophie, one where she is bolder in calling out those in her life for what they really are, and where she seeks to experience without needing to understand or to know where any of it is heading.
I think an onslaught on the senses is very difficult to convey in a novel, but Levy nails it in Hot Milk. I know some people think this is a hugely overrated novel, but I think it's for this exact achievement that it has earned its plaudits. There was a tinge of Anita Brookner for me in this novel, but with more light at the end of the tunnel than Brookner normally allows.
A great read. I felt the movement from Almeria to Athens for a short part of the novel broke the spell a little, so for that I'm taking away half a star, but hugely enjoyably otherwise.
4.5 stars - powerfully emotive.
After a frustrating start with what I wasn't sure was bad editing due to the repetition of some sentences, or a literary device, and because I
As I was reading it I knew there was a lot of metaphor and mythology woven through it that was probably going over my head, so that's another reason I feel silly giving it a low grading. I'm sure someone knowledgable on Greek mythology and history would get a lot out of this book. It's obvious that Deborah Levy is a very intelligent and competent person. I liked a lot of individual sentences and descriptions.
Interestingly, I had just finished an Irish book before reading this, and the mother seemed very Irish to me - Okay I've changed my rating to 3 stars, cause I know it's the kind of book that will make me remember it and appreciate it more in memory.
If you're into greek mythology and psychological relationships, and anthropology, and also if you're a writer I recommend this book to you. If you're not, and you've given books similar ratings to what I've given them (go compare), I don't recommend it. I think this book is destined to have very mixed reviews, but will be re-printed for the forseeable future.
I understand that "literature" is a bit different than
Hot Milk is about a young woman, Sophia, and her ailing mother, Rose, as they travel to southern Spain to seek treatment. Their relationship, and every other relationship presented in the novel, are all dysfunctional, bordering on toxic. It is a novel about