Years ago, one of the fourth graders I teach approached me at recess with a small snail in her hand. "Look what I found, Mr. Parker!" she said. "Some people eat those things, Hannah", I remarked. "I know", she replied. "I'm just not one of those people."
Some people read books like Endling. I'm just not one of those people.
It does sound odd, in a pejorative sense*, and stylistically out of kilter with the "time stands still when you're the watcher of a snail" theme. Fiction whose texture *was* "the smooth, gelatinous slide of a snail-trail" would be rather a tough read, though.
*"Nothing odd will do long. _Tristram Shandy_ did not last." - "Mystic Sam" Johnson
It is odd, and I generally like odd: there's a lot going on (not in terms of the overarching story, which -- kidnapping the bachelors in the back of your snail van and driving through wartorn Ukraine -- is a short-story story stretched to novel length, like not enough butter scraped over too much bread, as the saying goes. But in its specific moments and observations, its writing sentence-by-sentence. But I didn't really like it.
Many thanks for your interesting and illuminating post! The book sounds intriguing. At the risk of making the obvious point, is the endling snail supposed to symbolise Ukraine?
The sense one gets from the novel itself is that Reva started writing a simpler, "woman obsessed with snails, romance tours to Ukraine, goofy kidnap plot" story, and in the middle of composition Putin invaded and she had to reassess everything she was doing. Hard to see that Ukraine is an endling, or that she thinks of it as such: Slava Ukraine, and so on: and the Ukrainian resistance has been remarkable.
Thank you for your sharp and lucid analysis, Adam. This sounds very plausible. I agree wholeheartedly that Ukraine's resistance has been and continues to be inspiring to behold.
Many thanks for this postscript! The list of near-extinct species (or wholly extinct now?) that you quoted is chilling. Venomous Lumpsucker sounds like a powerful book.
What an apropos end(l)ing to this shaggy snail story
"Shaggy Snail story" -- Shaggy, and his companion Scooby-Snail, with the rest of the gang.
Years ago, one of the fourth graders I teach approached me at recess with a small snail in her hand. "Look what I found, Mr. Parker!" she said. "Some people eat those things, Hannah", I remarked. "I know", she replied. "I'm just not one of those people."
Some people read books like Endling. I'm just not one of those people.
You stole that from _Trading Places_!
It does sound odd, in a pejorative sense*, and stylistically out of kilter with the "time stands still when you're the watcher of a snail" theme. Fiction whose texture *was* "the smooth, gelatinous slide of a snail-trail" would be rather a tough read, though.
*"Nothing odd will do long. _Tristram Shandy_ did not last." - "Mystic Sam" Johnson
It is odd, and I generally like odd: there's a lot going on (not in terms of the overarching story, which -- kidnapping the bachelors in the back of your snail van and driving through wartorn Ukraine -- is a short-story story stretched to novel length, like not enough butter scraped over too much bread, as the saying goes. But in its specific moments and observations, its writing sentence-by-sentence. But I didn't really like it.
Many thanks for your interesting and illuminating post! The book sounds intriguing. At the risk of making the obvious point, is the endling snail supposed to symbolise Ukraine?
The sense one gets from the novel itself is that Reva started writing a simpler, "woman obsessed with snails, romance tours to Ukraine, goofy kidnap plot" story, and in the middle of composition Putin invaded and she had to reassess everything she was doing. Hard to see that Ukraine is an endling, or that she thinks of it as such: Slava Ukraine, and so on: and the Ukrainian resistance has been remarkable.
Thank you for your sharp and lucid analysis, Adam. This sounds very plausible. I agree wholeheartedly that Ukraine's resistance has been and continues to be inspiring to behold.
I expanded the post, following your comment.
Many thanks for this postscript! The list of near-extinct species (or wholly extinct now?) that you quoted is chilling. Venomous Lumpsucker sounds like a powerful book.
Thank you so much! I am honoured to have influenced your writing! Will read it now.