Jenny Hval

In Paradise Rot, Jo, a young Norwegian woman, has arrived in the English town of Aybourne to attend college and study biology. She has no place to live and initially stays in a hostel before securing a room in an apartment located in a converted brewery. Her roommate in the brewery apartment is Carral, who works as an office temp and has a degree in English Literature but reads trashy romance novels. From the outset, Jo’s narration emphasizes her physical surroundings, the fleshly textures show more of the food she eats and the people around her: “The food in the breakfast hall was slippery and fluid.” And, “The foreign students too were smooth and gleaming.” Jo’s “room” does not afford much in the way of privacy because Carral’s apartment is divided only by flimsy partitions that don’t reach the ceiling. Thus, noises of all sorts, from pages being turned to sounds of a more intimate nature, reverberate throughout the apartment. As the days pass, Jo’s experience of the space in which she resides becomes dominated by biological processes. Jo’s narrative details bodily secretions, such as urine and blood. Carral brings home a load of apples—far too many for the two of them to eat—which begin to spoil, and which saturate the apartment with the stench of decay even after the rotting fruit is consigned to the compost. When humidity levels rise and fog embraces the town, the apartment grows soggy, moss appears on the walls and between the floorboards, and mushrooms sprout in the bathroom. The two women grow together and seem to merge, sharing thoughts and sensations. Carral comes to Jo’s bed. And near the end of the book, when Carral takes a sip of hot tea, Jo can feel the liquid sear the roof of her mouth. In Paradise Rot, the symbolism is clear, but Aybourne is no Eden, and Jo’s escape from the brewery is more salvation than banishment. This is a novel that spins an elusive flesh and blood tale of bodies stewing in their own juices. It’s as if we’re observing specimens under a microscope, cells clinging to one another, consuming each other. The world of Jenny Hval’s first novel (originally published in 2009) is familiar but alien and hints at something unsavory just below the surface, but well out of sight. Paradise Rot does not divulge its secrets. But it does leave an imprint on the reader that is not quick to fade. show less

Paradise Rot follows Jo, a Norwegian foreign exchange student in Great Britain, as she finds a place to live and makes friends at her new school. The apartment she ends up living in has very thin walls, and her new roommate quickly becomes very close to her.

It is definitely a book that is not for everyone. Jenny Hval uses the culture shock of being a foreign exchange student and combines it with living in a strange apartment, where senses are heightened and foods rot, to create a feeling of show more disillusionment. This disillusionment is used to show the disconnect that can come during a queer or sexual awakening. Throughout the novella, she feels more connected with her surroundings and herself, hence the reader becoming more comfortable reading the story. The way description is used throughout curates this feeling perfectly and brings the reader on the same self-discovery journey as Jo.

Because of the seemingly adverse way she uses descriptions, I was able to connect with the story in a way I didn't think I would. I ended up quite enjoying it, and think Hval achieved perfectly what she set out to accomplish. show less

Can't tell if this book gave me a headache or the poison Sydney air.

It's short but real fucken dense like the knot in your shoelaces in the morning when you're running late for work.

There's a lot of piss imagery. Like, literal urine. Is it like a stand-in or a metaphor or something for the taboo of homosexuality? My dumb ass doesn't know. But there's lots of it.

There's something deeply uncomfortable about how this is written that I can't figure out either, not just because of the pee pee show more stuff, nor the explicitly uncomfortable stuff that occurs within it. I felt unsettled on the first page and never got settled by the time it was through. It's to its benefit though I think, with Jo being rightly uncomfortable the whole goddamn time about everything.

I think if I was a lesbian or gay then more of these cryptic little pieces would click. But I'm also probably writing this review too soon without letting it all rattle around in my head for long enough.

It's weird and skin-crawly and head-hurty and you'll blast through it a couple hours. show less

A creepy and psychedelic novel that is slender and powerful. It's as if the process of decomposition was distilled into book form. The rhythm of the text was hypnotic, enough so that I was drawn deeper and deeper into the world, even as it became increasingly disturbing. After I reached the half-way point, I was pretty much powerless to stop reading until the book was over. This is how a surreal novel should be written, without a wasted phrase.