Status
Checked out
Genres
Publication
Coffee House Press (2014), Edition: First American Edition, 227 pages
Description
"Winner of the 2013 Goldsmith Prize."Eimear McBride is a writer of remarkable power and originality."-The Times Literary Supplement"An instant classic."-The Guardian"It's hard to imagine another narrative that would justify this way of telling, but perhaps McBride can build another style from scratch for another style of story. That's a project for another day, when this little book is famous."-London Review of Books"A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is simply a brilliant book-entirely emotionally raw and at the same time technically astounding. Her prose is as haunting and moving as music, and the love story at the heart of the novel-between a sister and brother-as true and wrenching as any in literature. This is a book about everything: family, faith, sex, home, transcendence, violence, and love. I can't recommend it highly enough."-Elizabeth McCracken"My discovery of the year was Eimear McBride's debut novel A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing."-Eleanor CattonEimear McBride's acclaimed debut tells the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumor, touching on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma.Eimear McBride was born in 1976 and grew up in Ireland. At twenty-seven she wrote A Girl is a Half-formed Thing and spent the next nine years trying to have it published"--… (more)
Media reviews
It is a testament to McBride’s erudite yet brazen originality that the novel can thoughtfully speak back to some of the great texts of Western literature, while at the same time reading as though it were created entirely out of thin air.
McBride’s language … justifies its strangeness on every page. Her prose is a visceral throb, and the sentences run meanings together to produce a kind of compression in which words, freed from the tedious march of sequence, seem to want to merge with one another, as paint and musical notes can.
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The results are thrilling, and also thrillingly efficient. Show Less
"Formidable," in both its meanings, best sums it up: This is a novel that initially intimidates, but after we have adapted to McBride's rhythms, its creative and emotional power renders us awe-struck.…This is brave, dizzying, risk-taking fiction of the highest order.
“A Girl” subjects the outer language the world expects of us to the inner syntaxes that are natural to our minds, and in doing so refuses to equate universal experience with universal expression — a false religion that has oppressed most contemporary literature, and most contemporary souls.
“A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing” is an extraordinarily demanding novel that will fascinate dozens of American readers.…You either let this strange novel teach you how to read it and grow accustomed to its impressionistic voice, or you suffer through what feels like a migraine in print. But
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I’m not convinced that pride of endurance is sufficient reward for completing “A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing.” Show Less
Shockingly honest, devastatingly beautiful…in language as vivid, damaged, half-formed and urgent as its young narrator.
McBride, though she does indulge in the figurative, is never really lyrical; her words seek not admiration but transparency.…It’s a lesson in just how far the rules of the English language can be bent before comprehension falls away, as though McBride had discovered a pidgin of the reptilian
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brain. Show Less
Eimear McBride is that old fashioned thing, a genius, in that she writes truth-spilling, uncompromising and brilliant prose that can be, on occasion, quite hard to read. […] The adventurous reader, however, will find that they have a real book on their hands, a live one, a book that is not like
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any other. Show Less
By virtue of not being ‘correct’ McBride’s writing doesn’t have the alienating effect that comes when an educated manner is used to handle highly charged material. […] If every book was as intense as this, reading literature would be even more of a minority pursuit than it is already. A
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Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing makes that rapturous lament By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept look like Hotel du Lac. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member lauralkeet
I almost didn’t make it past page 3 of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. I mean, what do you make of prose like this?
He says I can’t be waiting for it all the time. I’d give my eyes to fix him but. The heart cannot be wrung and wrung. And she like calmest Virgin Mary sitting on the bed. Hands
It took some effort to understand the first chapter of this book in which the girl, still in utero, describes her older brother’s brain tumor and surgery, and the devastating impact of the boy’s illness on his parents’ marriage. And things don’t get any better once the unnamed girl enters the world. Her family is poor. Her brother’s intellectual development is slow and he is teased by classmates. Her mother is deeply religious, and convinced of the power of prayer to solve all of life’s problems. The girl becomes a victim of both verbal and sexual abuse, and lacking much-needed emotional support, she adopts extremely unhealthy behaviors as an adolescent and young adult. Eventually you can see a climax building, and it’s not pretty. In fact, it’s pretty devastating.
This book is unrelentingly bleak. Nothing good happens. Ever. But once I got past the choppy, disjointed writing style I found it surprisingly effective at conveying a mood, a tone. I was immersed in the girl’s world and could almost literally feel her pain. It’s not a book I’d recommend to just anyone, but if you are intrigued by its experimental nature and can deal with some very disturbing themes, you will be rewarded.
He says I can’t be waiting for it all the time. I’d give my eyes to fix him but. The heart cannot be wrung and wrung. And she like calmest Virgin Mary sitting on the bed. Hands
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warming up her sides for. What’re you saying? Breath. Going? Leaving? But he’s just stopped dying. This one’s to come. Please don’t no I won’t stop you. could never make you do a thing. You’ll support us. Aren’t you great? Oh the house is mine. It’s for the best. For who you me? Board my body up. I’m not for loving. Anymore. I’ll live for housework. Dressing kids. And you for mortgage new shoes spuds. Can’t live short hope but gas bills long and paid on time too. Oh so kind. Aren’t you the fine shape of a man.It took some effort to understand the first chapter of this book in which the girl, still in utero, describes her older brother’s brain tumor and surgery, and the devastating impact of the boy’s illness on his parents’ marriage. And things don’t get any better once the unnamed girl enters the world. Her family is poor. Her brother’s intellectual development is slow and he is teased by classmates. Her mother is deeply religious, and convinced of the power of prayer to solve all of life’s problems. The girl becomes a victim of both verbal and sexual abuse, and lacking much-needed emotional support, she adopts extremely unhealthy behaviors as an adolescent and young adult. Eventually you can see a climax building, and it’s not pretty. In fact, it’s pretty devastating.
This book is unrelentingly bleak. Nothing good happens. Ever. But once I got past the choppy, disjointed writing style I found it surprisingly effective at conveying a mood, a tone. I was immersed in the girl’s world and could almost literally feel her pain. It’s not a book I’d recommend to just anyone, but if you are intrigued by its experimental nature and can deal with some very disturbing themes, you will be rewarded.
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LibraryThing member nomadreader
The backstory: A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, Eimear McBride's debut novel, is shortlisted for the 2014 Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction.
The basics: "Eimear McBride's acclaimed debut tells the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain
My thoughts: When I sat down to start A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, I was curious and excited. I knew it was receiving praise from some very big names and that it was experimental in nature. I eager to become part of the Eimear McBride club. After ten pages, I realized I had zero idea of what I had read beyond words. I started over.
Finishing A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing is something of an accomplishment for me. It was incredibly challenging to read and required a high level of concentration. It was not a book I could lose myself in for hours. It was a book I had to read in short bursts that left me tired from slow reading and fast thinking. The experience is almost like reading in a foreign language--I spent as much time reading as I did trying to make sense of the strings of words that were only sometimes sentences. It's a different kind of concentration, and I often wondered if the effort would be worth it.
There were times I felt like a bad-ass reading this novel. "I am so smart and worldly!" I thought to myself when I found myself following the narrative more easily. Sadly, these moments were quickly followed by realizations I had once again lost the narrative threads and needed to re-trace my steps.
The verdict: I rate books based on a combination of quality, appreciation and enjoyment. A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing is among the most difficult books to rate I've ever read. It is an accomplished novel, and I appreciate the experimental nature of McBride's work, but it isn't a novel I enjoyed reading. It's certainly award-worthy, but it's also a novel I would recommend to only the most adventurous and dedicated readers. Finishing it felt like the literary equivalent of running a marathon, and I was mostly glad to be done just so I could say I was--and move onto a novel I enjoyed more, even if it's not as accomplished or inventive.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
The basics: "Eimear McBride's acclaimed debut tells the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain
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tumor, touching on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma."--from the publisherMy thoughts: When I sat down to start A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, I was curious and excited. I knew it was receiving praise from some very big names and that it was experimental in nature. I eager to become part of the Eimear McBride club. After ten pages, I realized I had zero idea of what I had read beyond words. I started over.
Finishing A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing is something of an accomplishment for me. It was incredibly challenging to read and required a high level of concentration. It was not a book I could lose myself in for hours. It was a book I had to read in short bursts that left me tired from slow reading and fast thinking. The experience is almost like reading in a foreign language--I spent as much time reading as I did trying to make sense of the strings of words that were only sometimes sentences. It's a different kind of concentration, and I often wondered if the effort would be worth it.
There were times I felt like a bad-ass reading this novel. "I am so smart and worldly!" I thought to myself when I found myself following the narrative more easily. Sadly, these moments were quickly followed by realizations I had once again lost the narrative threads and needed to re-trace my steps.
The verdict: I rate books based on a combination of quality, appreciation and enjoyment. A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing is among the most difficult books to rate I've ever read. It is an accomplished novel, and I appreciate the experimental nature of McBride's work, but it isn't a novel I enjoyed reading. It's certainly award-worthy, but it's also a novel I would recommend to only the most adventurous and dedicated readers. Finishing it felt like the literary equivalent of running a marathon, and I was mostly glad to be done just so I could say I was--and move onto a novel I enjoyed more, even if it's not as accomplished or inventive.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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LibraryThing member Kirstie_Innes-Will
A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing has deservedly garnered a lot of praise, but not everyone will be able to stomach the content of Eimar McBride's debut novel, or her radical stream-of-consciousness prose. It is a demanding read, and at times an emotionally gruelling one. I was fascinated with the
I recommend for those with strong stomachs and high tolerance for experimental writing.
Bonus points for a gorgeous cover by W.H.Chong
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author's rhythm and distinctive style - however, I fall short of adoring this novel, largely because I found it so unrelentingly bleak. The small religious community the girl grows up, in the narrow-mindedness of the family, the tragic banalness of the plight of her brother - who has brain cancer - are depressing enough. Add to that sexual abuse and what I found to be very confronting sexual scenes, and you get an idea of what I mean. The psychology of the central character is fascinating but disturbing and tragic.I recommend for those with strong stomachs and high tolerance for experimental writing.
Bonus points for a gorgeous cover by W.H.Chong
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LibraryThing member Widsith
That just was life.
Usually when people talk about ‘stream-of-consciousness’ writing, they mean little more than that there are a lot of run-on sentences and not many full stops. Eimear McBride is one of the very few writers to have really wrestled the English language into a new form to tell
Crumbs on the carpets and insects bite my back I don't care for. Nicer is not what I am after. Fuck me softly fuck me quick is all the same once done to me. And washing in their rusted baths and flushing brown with limescale loos amid the digs of four a.m. before I put my knickers on. Say stay the night but I am gone. Down back stairs fag glued lip sore on and wait for, get the night bus home.
Within the coarse immediacy, McBride scatters these little nuggets of poetry: amid the digs of four a.m. There are many flashes of Irish, and creative English coinages (she describes ‘high sky and snackish air’). Multiple voices intersect within paragraphs, even sentences. And McBride uses these effects quite deliberately in the service of her story, which concerns childhood abuse, family trauma, addictive compulsions, sexual self-destructiveness. The overall effect is something like James Joyce meets Sarah Kane.
He hurt my arms. You open your legs. I. I've haven't stopped thinking about you for a moment he says. Shame I didn't think of you at all. Do it. Not until. What? You hurt me. He pull by the hair. How you like it? Does that hurt? No. Then what? I want. Words drown like water. Make me know what you mean. What? When you miss me. What words are when. Get. Jesus. Over. He goes somewhere else inside. Does that hurt? Yes. A lot. A lot and relieves me for a while.
Usually I avoid books about these subjects, and I especially resent being made to relive the worst moments of someone's trauma when I feel it's mainly a form of therapy for the author. It's not like that here. Though the book deals with some very upsetting issues, it never asks for sympathy. The narrator of Girl is not a victim: she makes her own choices, even if we often find them difficult to understand. Sometimes, despite the dense prose, she can be ruthlessly direct (‘Hurt me. Until I am outside pain,’ she says at one point; and elsewhere, ‘The answer to every single question is Fuck’). And the central relationship she has with her sick brother is as raw, as real, as anything you'll read.
I won't pretend this is a light read; it's pretty gruelling. But you put it down convinced that you've read something great.
Usually when people talk about ‘stream-of-consciousness’ writing, they mean little more than that there are a lot of run-on sentences and not many full stops. Eimear McBride is one of the very few writers to have really wrestled the English language into a new form to tell
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her story. Here there are many full stops, but they occur in the middle of. During. Splitting thoughts and. Off shearing different slices of idea. Sentences fracture, glance against one another and refract in different directions. The effect is kaleidoscopic, suggesting by turns the clouded thought process of disease, the raw edginess of compulsion, or the mangled simultaneity of regular daily anxieties.Crumbs on the carpets and insects bite my back I don't care for. Nicer is not what I am after. Fuck me softly fuck me quick is all the same once done to me. And washing in their rusted baths and flushing brown with limescale loos amid the digs of four a.m. before I put my knickers on. Say stay the night but I am gone. Down back stairs fag glued lip sore on and wait for, get the night bus home.
Within the coarse immediacy, McBride scatters these little nuggets of poetry: amid the digs of four a.m. There are many flashes of Irish, and creative English coinages (she describes ‘high sky and snackish air’). Multiple voices intersect within paragraphs, even sentences. And McBride uses these effects quite deliberately in the service of her story, which concerns childhood abuse, family trauma, addictive compulsions, sexual self-destructiveness. The overall effect is something like James Joyce meets Sarah Kane.
He hurt my arms. You open your legs. I. I've haven't stopped thinking about you for a moment he says. Shame I didn't think of you at all. Do it. Not until. What? You hurt me. He pull by the hair. How you like it? Does that hurt? No. Then what? I want. Words drown like water. Make me know what you mean. What? When you miss me. What words are when. Get. Jesus. Over. He goes somewhere else inside. Does that hurt? Yes. A lot. A lot and relieves me for a while.
Usually I avoid books about these subjects, and I especially resent being made to relive the worst moments of someone's trauma when I feel it's mainly a form of therapy for the author. It's not like that here. Though the book deals with some very upsetting issues, it never asks for sympathy. The narrator of Girl is not a victim: she makes her own choices, even if we often find them difficult to understand. Sometimes, despite the dense prose, she can be ruthlessly direct (‘Hurt me. Until I am outside pain,’ she says at one point; and elsewhere, ‘The answer to every single question is Fuck’). And the central relationship she has with her sick brother is as raw, as real, as anything you'll read.
I won't pretend this is a light read; it's pretty gruelling. But you put it down convinced that you've read something great.
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LibraryThing member gayla.bassham
I recognize that this a well-crafted piece of literature, but it did not work for me. I am duly disappointed in myself.
LibraryThing member dooney
A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is a both deeply beautiful and deeply unsettling book. Although the structure of the novel itself is in fact fairly conventional and linear, the language is anything but expected or conventional. There are few coherent sentences, and yet the story itself has a coherent
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flow if you allow the words their own space and their own musicality. I suppose one might think it the author was attempting to write in a stream of consciousness mode, but that is not exactly it. More likely the language seems to be attempting to explore that indistinct bridging between the inner primitive instinctual reaction and conscious thought. The language of the novel seems to float in shifting sands between the rawness of instinct and the music of poetry. In fact I would say this novel is far easier to read if you approach it as it was an epic poem. Then the language can capture something elusive, and beautiful, in the story, even though the story itself is tragic. Another point, even though one feels one knows the main character here, this too is an just an impression. We read, and think we know the narrator's thoughts, but just as we ourselves are more than just our instinctual selves, so too this narrator, but we never really see her fully, just as we are never told anything about the physical being of any of the characters. It is a haunting novel of pain and suffering and love, but also of knowing and not-knowing, and as such, I think it will remain with me for a long time Show Less
LibraryThing member linda.a.
When the female narrator of this story is born her brother is just over two years old and is recovering from an operation, followed by chemotherapy, to reduce the size of his brain tumour. The treatment has been partially successful but has left him with some physical impairments, and there remains
None of the characters in this intense, disturbing and memorable, coming-of-age story is ever given a name and, for me, that added to the intensity of the narrator’s reflections on her experiences of living her life in the constant shadow of her brother’s vulnerability and her search for her own identity. Her mother is physically and emotionally abusive towards her, and yet she is also sometimes surprisingly loving. From the age of thirteen an uncle abuses her and other relatives are ever-ready to find fault with her apparently wild, blasphemous behaviour. She seems to make lots of bad choices and yet her love and touching concern for her brother remain constant, even when this seems to be at the expense of her own needs. Religion, sin, guilt, shame, blame, hypocrisy, brutality and the omnipresence of priests are constant influences on her as she struggles to discover who she is, and what life holds for her.
Once I was able to enter into the narrator’s broken speech-patterns and mangled syntax and could “hear” the rhythm of her words, not easy at to begin with, I felt totally drawn into this disturbing, raw and very moving story. I think it is a remarkable piece of writing which evocatively captures the reflections of the inner life of a child/young woman as she attempts to make sense of the situations she finds herself in. Some of the descriptions of the violence in the family background, almost casually brutal at times, felt almost unbearable to read, as did the numerous incidents of bullying, sexual abuse, prejudice, bigotry and hypocrisy. The background of rural, Catholic Ireland, dominated by the church, religion and the all too powerful influence of the priests made me increasingly angry as the story progressed to its all too painful conclusion. By the time I finished the book I felt emotionally battered by the experience of feeling so immersed in this young woman’s life. This was not, in anyway, an easy book to read (nor is it easy to do it justice to in a review!) but I am pleased that I persevered with it. I know that it will continue to haunt me for a long time.
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the ever-present fear that the tumour will grow again. Her father, unable to cope with all the stress of seeing his son so ill, leaves home before she is born, leaving her mother to bring up both children on her own, relying on religious faith to give her the strength to cope. None of the characters in this intense, disturbing and memorable, coming-of-age story is ever given a name and, for me, that added to the intensity of the narrator’s reflections on her experiences of living her life in the constant shadow of her brother’s vulnerability and her search for her own identity. Her mother is physically and emotionally abusive towards her, and yet she is also sometimes surprisingly loving. From the age of thirteen an uncle abuses her and other relatives are ever-ready to find fault with her apparently wild, blasphemous behaviour. She seems to make lots of bad choices and yet her love and touching concern for her brother remain constant, even when this seems to be at the expense of her own needs. Religion, sin, guilt, shame, blame, hypocrisy, brutality and the omnipresence of priests are constant influences on her as she struggles to discover who she is, and what life holds for her.
Once I was able to enter into the narrator’s broken speech-patterns and mangled syntax and could “hear” the rhythm of her words, not easy at to begin with, I felt totally drawn into this disturbing, raw and very moving story. I think it is a remarkable piece of writing which evocatively captures the reflections of the inner life of a child/young woman as she attempts to make sense of the situations she finds herself in. Some of the descriptions of the violence in the family background, almost casually brutal at times, felt almost unbearable to read, as did the numerous incidents of bullying, sexual abuse, prejudice, bigotry and hypocrisy. The background of rural, Catholic Ireland, dominated by the church, religion and the all too powerful influence of the priests made me increasingly angry as the story progressed to its all too painful conclusion. By the time I finished the book I felt emotionally battered by the experience of feeling so immersed in this young woman’s life. This was not, in anyway, an easy book to read (nor is it easy to do it justice to in a review!) but I am pleased that I persevered with it. I know that it will continue to haunt me for a long time.
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LibraryThing member neal_
A sentence is. A half-formed thing. Give. Me a break.
LibraryThing member Fence
This book.
I mean. This book!
It's just so brutal, and horrible and terrible, and yet beautiful and wonderful. You aren't just reading about "the girl's" life, you are experiencing them.
It's a difficult read. Hard to get used to at first as it is told in first person POV/stream of consciousness, but
I can understand why people might pick it up, read the first few pages and nope out of it. But, for me, once I got into the rhythm of it I just thought it was fantastic, and I can totally understand why it won so many awards. It is just so good.
The narrator goes through so much, and her brother... I'm not going to mention any details, but I will say that this is a book that does need a trigger warning. Familial abuse. Sexual abuse. And because you are inside the narrator's head it all feels so immediate and so so real. There are so many people you just want to scream at, to ask them what the hell they think they are doing to this brother and sister!
You wish someone with an ounce of decency could come and help. It isn't that sort of book though, it offers no escape and no answers. It is the girl's experiences and that is all it is, because how could you try to offer any more than that.
It's also a book that might be more difficult for non-Irish people, or non-catholics to understand. In parts at least. Religion is such a part of this family's life, and occasionally the stream of consciousness veers into prayers. Making me so aware of how much religion has been in my own life. All those prayers that you learn off by rote while growing up, and then, if you're me, never think of again, they're still all there floating about in your head and need only the smallest prompting to get you to repeat them again. "Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy.
Hail my life, my sweetness and my hope!
To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve!
To you do we send up our sighs;
mourning and weeping in this vale of tears! " etc., etc. etc.
Yeah, I'm certainly a cultural catholic.
But if you're not Irish, and not catholic I'd still recommend that you give this book a try. As I said earlier, I can see why some won't get past the first couple of pages, but if it works for you then it is such a great, horrible, wonderful, upsetting book.
I mean. This book!
It's just so brutal, and horrible and terrible, and yet beautiful and wonderful. You aren't just reading about "the girl's" life, you are experiencing them.
It's a difficult read. Hard to get used to at first as it is told in first person POV/stream of consciousness, but
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more stream of emotion and memory and thought. But it is also a difficult book because of the subject matter. But it is so so worth the read. You really do get sucked utterly into it. And that means that I needed to read it in private, because it feels so intimate and personal that to read it in public felt strange. So it took me a while to get through. Which, I think, is a good thing.I can understand why people might pick it up, read the first few pages and nope out of it. But, for me, once I got into the rhythm of it I just thought it was fantastic, and I can totally understand why it won so many awards. It is just so good.
The narrator goes through so much, and her brother... I'm not going to mention any details, but I will say that this is a book that does need a trigger warning. Familial abuse. Sexual abuse. And because you are inside the narrator's head it all feels so immediate and so so real. There are so many people you just want to scream at, to ask them what the hell they think they are doing to this brother and sister!
You wish someone with an ounce of decency could come and help. It isn't that sort of book though, it offers no escape and no answers. It is the girl's experiences and that is all it is, because how could you try to offer any more than that.
It's also a book that might be more difficult for non-Irish people, or non-catholics to understand. In parts at least. Religion is such a part of this family's life, and occasionally the stream of consciousness veers into prayers. Making me so aware of how much religion has been in my own life. All those prayers that you learn off by rote while growing up, and then, if you're me, never think of again, they're still all there floating about in your head and need only the smallest prompting to get you to repeat them again. "Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy.
Hail my life, my sweetness and my hope!
To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve!
To you do we send up our sighs;
mourning and weeping in this vale of tears! " etc., etc. etc.
Yeah, I'm certainly a cultural catholic.
But if you're not Irish, and not catholic I'd still recommend that you give this book a try. As I said earlier, I can see why some won't get past the first couple of pages, but if it works for you then it is such a great, horrible, wonderful, upsetting book.
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LibraryThing member flissp
It took me a very long time to get into this, purely due to the stream-of-conciousness style writing (and this is a REAL stream-of-conciousness - think about it - we very rarely think in complete sentences and usually there are several thoughts going on there at a time...). I say this as one who
But oh my what a sad story. Basically the life story and perspective of the girl in the title and of her relationship with her brother, who very nearly died from a brain tumour when he was small (in fact much of it feels almost like a prayer to him). They're a mixed up family - the father completely out of the picture when both kids are young, a mother traumatised by her son's cancer and her own overbearing and judgemental father and then there's the full weight of Irish Catholic guilt. Not to mention the aunt and uncle most in their lives.
Somehow, despite the fact that this is quite a distressing and difficult book to read - amplified in the tense, stressful moments as the stream-of-conciousness very believably becomes more and more muddled and confusing, something kept driving me through it, despite moments, where I honestly wasn't entirely sure what was going on. It's a visceral, upsetting story and I can't say I particularly enjoyed reading it, but I'm very glad that I did. It is also not impossible that I will return to it at some point as I suspect it would become clearer through re-reading. I have heard that when read aloud by the author, it suddenly becomes much clearer, which makes a lot of sense. I always find poetry easier to understand when it's read aloud too and despite the confusion of the writing style, it's also quite lyrical. I definitely intend to see if there are any recordings of her reading it (or if there is an audiobook - but it would need to be a Southern Irish reader I think).
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has never had trouble reading vernacular in the past.But oh my what a sad story. Basically the life story and perspective of the girl in the title and of her relationship with her brother, who very nearly died from a brain tumour when he was small (in fact much of it feels almost like a prayer to him). They're a mixed up family - the father completely out of the picture when both kids are young, a mother traumatised by her son's cancer and her own overbearing and judgemental father and then there's the full weight of Irish Catholic guilt. Not to mention the aunt and uncle most in their lives.
Somehow, despite the fact that this is quite a distressing and difficult book to read - amplified in the tense, stressful moments as the stream-of-conciousness very believably becomes more and more muddled and confusing, something kept driving me through it, despite moments, where I honestly wasn't entirely sure what was going on. It's a visceral, upsetting story and I can't say I particularly enjoyed reading it, but I'm very glad that I did. It is also not impossible that I will return to it at some point as I suspect it would become clearer through re-reading. I have heard that when read aloud by the author, it suddenly becomes much clearer, which makes a lot of sense. I always find poetry easier to understand when it's read aloud too and despite the confusion of the writing style, it's also quite lyrical. I definitely intend to see if there are any recordings of her reading it (or if there is an audiobook - but it would need to be a Southern Irish reader I think).
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LibraryThing member TheBookJunky
It was an epiphanic reading of Ulysses on a train ride that changed Eimear McBride’s approach to writing. What must it have been like to be in her own mind for those six intense months of writing this? Ten years it took to find a publisher. I think most publishers’ minions likely couldn’t
“I’m having bile thoughts. Great green ones of spite and their sloppedy daughters with tongues too long to keep in their mouths.”
It is a wildly askew balance, that of the creative imagination of the author and the dearth of one in the publisher. Ruled by sheep-flocks of marketers and number-crunchers, not readers. Still, the book managed to float up to the adoring notice of the critics.
This is a perfect title, for the story, for the writing style.
“They polyester tight-packed womanhood aflower in pink and blue or black and green coats if the day has rain. Their boots in the hallway, crusty with cow dung or wet muck. If in Sunday skirts, every pleat a landscape of their grown-up bodies. Tired. Under- touched. Flesh having run all night after the cows. Flesh carry sacks of turf up lanes from the shed and spurt out child and child and child. Son he has wanted. Girl he did not.”
The thoughts don’t obey boundaries, so neither do the words. It’s a feat of articulating inarticulateness. A paradox.
“Later it ran up me. Legs stomach knees chest up head. Like smoke in my lungs to be coughed out. I’d throw up excitement. What is it? Like a nosebleed. Like a freezing pain. I felt me not me. Turning to the sun. Feel the roast of it. Like sunburn. Like a hot sunstroke. Like globs dropping in. Through my hair. Spat skin with it. Blank my eyes the dazzle. Huge shatter. Me who is just new. Fallen out of the sky. What. Is lust it? That’s it. The first splinter. I. Give in scared. If I would. Stop. Him. Oh God. Is a mortal mortal sin.”
It is like an impressionist painting. If you try to impose preconceived notions of sentence, paragraph structure (artificial superfluous layers in a way), then you will drown in the chaotic fragments. Instead, let it settle upon you like a diaphanous layer of understanding. It is the impression of it that will fill in the details.
“Something awful’s going to. You can’t believe it away.”
Words, sentences, paragraphs are conventional tools to convey a story. They are separate from the story. Here, they are part of the narrator. They are her thoughts.
The story isn’t new. It is tragic, it is brutal, and it is a sadly familiar kind of tale.
But the telling of it…the writing…that is sublime.
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imagine stacking this in the mid-aisle tables of Walmart/Tesco and just tossed it in the WTF pile. “I’m having bile thoughts. Great green ones of spite and their sloppedy daughters with tongues too long to keep in their mouths.”
It is a wildly askew balance, that of the creative imagination of the author and the dearth of one in the publisher. Ruled by sheep-flocks of marketers and number-crunchers, not readers. Still, the book managed to float up to the adoring notice of the critics.
This is a perfect title, for the story, for the writing style.
“They polyester tight-packed womanhood aflower in pink and blue or black and green coats if the day has rain. Their boots in the hallway, crusty with cow dung or wet muck. If in Sunday skirts, every pleat a landscape of their grown-up bodies. Tired. Under- touched. Flesh having run all night after the cows. Flesh carry sacks of turf up lanes from the shed and spurt out child and child and child. Son he has wanted. Girl he did not.”
The thoughts don’t obey boundaries, so neither do the words. It’s a feat of articulating inarticulateness. A paradox.
“Later it ran up me. Legs stomach knees chest up head. Like smoke in my lungs to be coughed out. I’d throw up excitement. What is it? Like a nosebleed. Like a freezing pain. I felt me not me. Turning to the sun. Feel the roast of it. Like sunburn. Like a hot sunstroke. Like globs dropping in. Through my hair. Spat skin with it. Blank my eyes the dazzle. Huge shatter. Me who is just new. Fallen out of the sky. What. Is lust it? That’s it. The first splinter. I. Give in scared. If I would. Stop. Him. Oh God. Is a mortal mortal sin.”
It is like an impressionist painting. If you try to impose preconceived notions of sentence, paragraph structure (artificial superfluous layers in a way), then you will drown in the chaotic fragments. Instead, let it settle upon you like a diaphanous layer of understanding. It is the impression of it that will fill in the details.
“Something awful’s going to. You can’t believe it away.”
Words, sentences, paragraphs are conventional tools to convey a story. They are separate from the story. Here, they are part of the narrator. They are her thoughts.
The story isn’t new. It is tragic, it is brutal, and it is a sadly familiar kind of tale.
But the telling of it…the writing…that is sublime.
Show Less
LibraryThing member SMC_Scookie
I tried to like it, but half the time I had no idea what was happening. I admit it - it went right over my head. At times I liked it, but then I felt pretentious and as if I were kidding myself. This book isn't for all, and it wasn't for me.
Three things:
1) Sentences were never complete. I know
2) Dietetic language is used and non-dietetic isn't. In short, you won't know who's being referred to, who's in the scene, who's talking, or what's happening. What's the point?
3) I dislike books that talk about snot, and this one wouldn't shut up about it.
If it was rewritten to make partial sense, then I'd probably give it a 3. As it stands now, I'll warn people not to waste their money and time.
Three things:
1) Sentences were never complete. I know
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that's the point, but half the time I had no idea what was happening. The author could have structured it much better to convey both a stream of consciousness and the story.2) Dietetic language is used and non-dietetic isn't. In short, you won't know who's being referred to, who's in the scene, who's talking, or what's happening. What's the point?
3) I dislike books that talk about snot, and this one wouldn't shut up about it.
If it was rewritten to make partial sense, then I'd probably give it a 3. As it stands now, I'll warn people not to waste their money and time.
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LibraryThing member Violetthedwarf
Not a book for the casual reader. This is a book you have to work for. It won't appeal to all readers. It may not even appeal to most readers.
The language is difficult to read. Deliberately so, because McBride uses language to hammer home the confusion and despair of her young protagonist. If you
The story itself is brutal and tragic, full of the experiences of a young, confused, hurting woman, who acts in ways that hurt herself as a self-harming technique.
It rewards re-reading.
The language is difficult to read. Deliberately so, because McBride uses language to hammer home the confusion and despair of her young protagonist. If you
Show More
persevere you will find words and phrases that tug at the heart and soul.The story itself is brutal and tragic, full of the experiences of a young, confused, hurting woman, who acts in ways that hurt herself as a self-harming technique.
It rewards re-reading.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jerhogan
To be honest I hated it. It was hard to read because of the narrative style and the content wasn't very entertaining. I hated the ending as well. But then I never finished Ulysses!
LibraryThing member dazzyj
The adventurously difficult language here is a high wire act which McBride pulls off. But there is no payoff here for the difficulty - the innovative technique conceals a crushingly conventional story of yet another monumentally screwed up Irish Catholic family. And the complete lack of interior
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perspective leaves one with no emotional foothold. Show Less
LibraryThing member mhanlon
This was a beautiful, raw book.
Look, I'm a little slow, and I needed, like a hot bath or something, some time to ease in. In fact, I read the first chapter over twice, three times. The second was to figure out what was going on, who's voice this was, and then the third was to savor it.
So the
The main character, her relationships to her family and those around her are all so well depicted, and so heart-breaking, this book lived up to the hype.
Look, I'm a little slow, and I needed, like a hot bath or something, some time to ease in. In fact, I read the first chapter over twice, three times. The second was to figure out what was going on, who's voice this was, and then the third was to savor it.
So the
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style's a bit different than your run-of-the-mill novel, but man oh man, does she use it well. It reminds me a little bit of Haruki Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, but Eimear McBride's book is so so so so much better.The main character, her relationships to her family and those around her are all so well depicted, and so heart-breaking, this book lived up to the hype.
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LibraryThing member St.CroixSue
This is quite a phenomenal debut. Written in fragmented, disjointed, dreamlike, stream of consciousness prose, it is a raw and emotional piece that revolves around a relationship with a brother born with a brain tumor. It held my attention to the end, however, the story evolves into non-stop
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harrowing emotional and violent sexual abuse. The writing is creative and memorable (five stars), but the inescapable violence and horror (2 stars) is nauseating. Show Less
LibraryThing member dom76
I had to force myself to finish this book. The way it's written made it hard to understand or enjoy this book.
LibraryThing member molugum
I'm a bookseller. While reading A Girl is a Half-formed thing I found myself thinking who could I possibly recommend this book to? Possibly fans of Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn.
LibraryThing member nrmaharaj
Okay, so Virginia Woolf. But why now? Why this? If you LOOOOOOOOVE modernism, dive in. If not, it'll be a 200-page slog.
LibraryThing member hubblegal
I found this to be a very difficult book to read. The style was apparently meant to be stream of consciousness or possibly free-form poetry. I had to read passages over and over again because I couldn’t understand what was happening and felt that I was missing the story.
Despite that, the story
If you’re interested in reading this book, I would suggest that you find an excerpt to see whether you would like this style of writing. I can’t say that I did as it was quite a struggle to read and I found it confusing. It’s a very original work of literature and there are thought-provoking statements made throughout. Within all the scattered and fragmented thoughts, there will suddenly appear a clear and powerful insight. Because of these insights and the power of the story itself, I’ll give the book 2 stars. However, I’ll be careful not to read a book written in this style again. Obviously, many readers will disagree with me as the book has won numerous awards.
This book was given to me by Blogging for Books in return for an honest review.
Despite that, the story
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did come through and it was a terribly sad one. This girl’s love for her brother, who has a brain tumor, is heart wrenching. Her relationship with and treatment by her uncle-in-law is sickening and upsetting. Your heart will ache for this girl as she struggles to live a normal life amidst devastating illness, sexual abuse and confusion. The book plunges you into her mind, revealing raw emotion. It’s a very disturbing book.If you’re interested in reading this book, I would suggest that you find an excerpt to see whether you would like this style of writing. I can’t say that I did as it was quite a struggle to read and I found it confusing. It’s a very original work of literature and there are thought-provoking statements made throughout. Within all the scattered and fragmented thoughts, there will suddenly appear a clear and powerful insight. Because of these insights and the power of the story itself, I’ll give the book 2 stars. However, I’ll be careful not to read a book written in this style again. Obviously, many readers will disagree with me as the book has won numerous awards.
This book was given to me by Blogging for Books in return for an honest review.
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LibraryThing member Araceli.Arias
It is a very unique book, I had never read something similar -not that I remember- but I definitely liked it. However, some people may dislike the way in which it's written, because it is confusing and overwhelming; actually, from time to time I was like "Wait, wait, what did just happen???", so if
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you think it'll bother you not having a clear picture of every single situation in the book then probably you shouldn't read it. Personally, I enjoyed it very much, I felt so trapped inside the protagonist's mind -whose name is not given, by the way- that I was anxious, disturbed and frightened during great part of the book. Show Less
LibraryThing member Violetthedwarf
Not a book for the casual reader. This is a book you have to work for. It won't appeal to all readers. It may not even appeal to most readers.
The language is difficult to read. Deliberately so, because McBride uses language to hammer home the confusion and despair of her young protagonist. If you
The story itself is brutal and tragic, full of the experiences of a young, confused, hurting woman, who acts in ways that hurt herself as a self-harming technique.
It rewards re-reading.
The language is difficult to read. Deliberately so, because McBride uses language to hammer home the confusion and despair of her young protagonist. If you
Show More
persevere you will find words and phrases that tug at the heart and soul.The story itself is brutal and tragic, full of the experiences of a young, confused, hurting woman, who acts in ways that hurt herself as a self-harming technique.
It rewards re-reading.
Show Less
LibraryThing member japaul22
I'm calling it a day and admitting to a lot of skimming to get through this one. This is a highly experimental novel in terms of language. It's written in the thoughts of a young woman from age 2 through her late teens. The language is very fragmented all the way through - incomplete sentences, odd
And combine that with an excessively dark plot and I just didn't want to read this. The girl's brother has brain cancer, her father has run out on them, her uncle sexually abuses her which leads to a string of sexually abusive encounters and then her own promiscuity. It was just all so dark.
This is an ambitious try for a debut novel, but it just didn't work for me.
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word choice (even made up words), and lots of disjointed thoughts. There are books with interior language style that I love, like Faulkner's works or Woolf for example, but I had a really hard time following the plot. And also didn't find the beauty of language that I look for, even in an unconventional format. And combine that with an excessively dark plot and I just didn't want to read this. The girl's brother has brain cancer, her father has run out on them, her uncle sexually abuses her which leads to a string of sexually abusive encounters and then her own promiscuity. It was just all so dark.
This is an ambitious try for a debut novel, but it just didn't work for me.
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LibraryThing member sianpr
An extremely bleak tale which is evoked through a writing style that departs from any variety of English. McBride grabs the reader by the throat and rubs the reader's nose in extreme emotion.
Awards
Women's Prize for Fiction (Longlist — 2014)
LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — 2014)
British Book Award (Shortlist — 2014)
Authors' Club First Novel Award (Shortlist — 2014)
CBC Bookie Awards (Nominee — 2015)
Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award (Winner — 2014)
Dylan Thomas Prize (Shortlist — 2014)
Goldsmiths Prize (Winner — 2013)
Desmond Elliott Prize (Winner — 2014)
Writers' Prize (Shortlist — 2014)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2014)
NPR: Books We Love (2014)
Boston Globe Best Book (Fiction — 2014)
Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year (Literary Fiction — 2014)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (Fiction — 2014)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2013
Physical description
227 p.; 6.25 x 1.25 inches
ISBN
1566893682 / 9781566893688
Other editions
A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride (Paperback)