Petra Hůlová

Three Plastic Rooms by Petra Hůlová is the story of an aging prostitute and her relationship with her own body, a novel rendered from Czech into hauntingly poetic English by Alex Zucker. Oh, my goodness. How can there exist a novel that is at once so open to beauty and yet in which every sentence is some new shocker? Here you go. This is that book. It’s the kind of book that nineteen out of twenty readers will say is too upsetting to love, or maybe even to finish, and the twentieth show more person will say "this book changed my life" or maybe: "this book convinces me that we are nowhere near the end as a species of exploring all the ways human language can be called upon to express new things."

As I write this, there has not been a single review of the novel on Amazon, which is surprising. It seems the book that would make people angry enough to write about it. Let’s see. It’s the kind of book that you can open on any page and be unbelievably disturbed. Let me try now:

the true mumsyfuckers have enough of that little drama at home, and the fuckshop, a quiet backwater of kissed knees, offers a gulf of solace, because what an orgasm means to these men’s wives was drilled into their heads by all those sex scene disasters you see at the multiplex, which whenever they happen my sticker-inner farts with laughter in my seat, and I would only be willing to moan during them, as I said, for the enjoyment of a man all my very own, so that sitting there in the seat next to me, in the dark, he would get an urge to stroke himself, or maybe just enjoy my sights, or maybe all of me, or, sigh, even love me.

I'm amazed this writing, for the way the harshness of the language resolves suddenly into vulnerability and poetry at the end of this paragraph...and also, damn, I'm amazed by translator Alex Zucker that he has done such an amazing job making this writing accessible to me.

Wonderful. Harsh and nearly unreadable at times but I'm so glad to have read it. show less

This debut novel from a then 23-year old Czech writer, knocked my socks off. This is densely packed 200 page story of a family living as herders on the Mongolian steppes. The tale unfolds from the perspective of 5 women in the family. It is powerful, gut-wrenching, and heart-breaking, and ultimately about families, misunderstandings, belonging, and women's lives in an utterly backward corner of the globe.

The first half of the book is told from one sister's perspective and then pieces show more (sometimes missing pieces) are told from other women's perspectives. This was so powerful to see unfold--the damage done by without intention, the missed opportunities to connect and understand.

I thought the book cold use a bit more editing and the addition of a glossary for the Mongolian terms would have been helpful.

Highly recommended and good book club selection IMO. show less

So this is a glimpse of what happens in a fictional world where the feminist movement wins. Men are placed in reeducation facilities where they are trained/conditioned to value a woman for her inner qualities and not for their physical appearance. I found it disturbing honestly. Men are punished for having a physical reaction to a young beautiful woman and rewarded for being able to pleasure themselves to pictures of graying elderly women or simply older unattractive women. I agree that the show more portrayal of young beautiful women used to sell everything is wrong and should be changed I think this story takes it to the extreme. I felt sorry for the men in many of their situations. Disturbing yet somewhat timely. show less

Execellent book that provides different perspectives on the same events, yet manages to tell a continuous story, without dwelling on one event. Although it's a story of a family, it's actually a narrative of family relations, telling about the fears, alianation and a search for stability on one's own terms that haunts any relationship, but especially those of kin. Great writing style, and a very good way to introduce a culture clearly foreign to the European reader without seeming trite. It show more gets a bit repeptitive in the end and I wasn't so impressed with the finale. show less