I requested this book from Netgalley in part because the author’s name reminded me of my Calculus textbook. Where is my Calculus textbook? In Geoff’s office maybe? I’m sure there are worse reasons for requesting a book.
So Unspeakable Things, a book which has a Nazi transvestite pedophile mad-scientist masturbating to a picture of Adolf Hitler. I’d put that as the byline if I were the publisher: Read a description of a Nazi transvestite pedophile mad-scientist masturbating to a picture of Adolf Hitler! Limited time only!
There are musicians in this book and, as I read, I thought of the word fantaisie, as a musical term rather than a description of something unreal with dwarves and hobbits and lines and lines of italicized poetry. A fantaisie eschews the rules of strict musical form, like Marc Chagall as a symphony. I think Unspeakable Things was written to be like a word fantasie, a novel by a painting by Marc Chagall. Time, physics, consequences, logic be damned. The Gypsy King meets with one who may be the Grand Vizier of the Freemasons in the New York Public library to plea the case for his people. This is the sort of nonsense (not derogatory, just literally outside the realm of sense) Unspeakable Things engages in.
Did I like it? I don’t know.
Is it well written? I don’t know.
When one exists in a fantastical space, what rules of criticism apply?
I don’t know.
Unspeakable Things by Kathleen Spivack went on sale January 26, 2016.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.