This book is either hated or loved. Personally, I loved it. No wonder reviewers have trouble articulating what they just read. Think of it as a fever dream where Alice in Wonderland is crossed with Frankenstein. At an elite MFA program creativity is stifled. Cookie cutter rich girls who attend the school are desperately trying to create their ideal boyfriends out of bunnies (Warren is after all a rabbit borrow, so is literally filled with bunnies and Bunnies :-)). But all they are able to produce are handless and dickless Drafts that they can control but who can never be their lovers.
Our main character Samantha is not a Bunny. She is the quintessential outsider to the prestigious school and her cliquey classmates. Her inspiration is not fed by the bunny filled detached from reality Warren. Rather she draws from the Other, the lovecraftian city that is so unlike the school that is located in it. (And yes, you can easily recognize the city of Lovecraft and Brown U - loved finding all the subtle and not so subtle references). She is inspired by the lonely swan she sees on a pond, by a stag that somehow wanders into campus and even by …. mud. Her transformations are the result of a deep sense of loneliness, she creates not sex partners, but soulmates and friends. Her creations are so real she herself treats them as such. Her propensity to “pretend” and “to lie in order to make things more interesting” make her an unreliable narrator and someone who cannot make connections with others. But it also makes her a great storyteller, the one who at times cannot control her narrative because the narrative takes on a life of its own.
Ah, I could go on and on. There is so much to unpack here. Warren itself is a character and we could spend some time talking about that. And oh the faculty, the privilege, this compete disconnect from reality (as the janitor wisely points out). I will stop here. I am sure I will keep thinking about this book for days to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment