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SUGGESTION BOX

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Jul 24, 2006

Comments

Dan Wickett

"...narrators are such perverse and troubling characters and at the same time such fascinating, charming, and erudite guides to their own emotional damage."

This aspect of Crawl Space had me questioning myself at times while reading it. Why in the hell would I ever have any empathy for THIS person, I'd think to myself. I considered it a testament to Meidav and her ability to construct a character so well.


And I agree on some of the pages of beautiful writing and certainly commend Meidav on shooting so big with her ideas as she sat down to write the novel, though I did think there were some sections, or incidents, that were almost not needed, dragging the book out a bit longer than need be.

Anne

Thanks for these thoughts, Laura.

What seemed totally spot-on to me was the casual racism, the persistence of the racialized thinking that permitted Poulquet's complicity with Nazi and Vichy anti-Semitism: throughout the novel we "hear" Emile thinking utterly despicable, casual things--someone must not be bothered by noise or is a good dancer or has lovely dark eyes because of a touch of Algerian or jewish (nicely with a small "j" often). These moments were both chilling and illuminating.

Megan

I found the book difficult to read because he was so unlikeable, but like someone else mentioned, I'm still glad I read it even if I didn't love the whole thing. Emile's racism was so reasoned, to him of course. And you're right Laura, he's so despicable that I almost didn't realize how beautiful some of the book's passages are.

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