Pola Oloixarac
Author of Mona
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Image credit: Pola Oloixarac (2011)
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- Works
- 4
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 380
- Popularity
- #63,551
- Rating
- 3.2
- Reviews
- 19
- ISBNs
- 38
- Languages
- 7
- Favorited
- 1
This slim novel opens with the titular Mona boarding a plane to Sweden, having woken up earlier that day at a Bay Area Caltrans station, bruised, bloodied, and confused. Hiding the bruises (how long do bruises last?), Mona attend the literati event, where they will award one of the handful "world-lit" authors a statue and 200,000 euros.
This isn’t really a story about a writing event—it’s a psychological exploration of the double consciousness of modern life. it’s a world where art has been fully infected by the milquetoast upper-middle class and whatever their current flavour of politics allows, where identity is a commodity above reproach regardless if it's merited; it’s academia, it’s torpid and soulless political correctness, it’s death-inducing stillness disguised as enlightenment.
But this is also a story of doldrums of womanhood, the perfidy of desire, and the potential of power within the female body: framed by CW: SA
Mona is raw, and has bitten me a new one. I somehow feel alive again. Make no mistake: this is book girl's book. It's for other maladaptive, former (can we ever really be former?) anorexia-ridden aesthetes, who will ape the role of women for the beautiful ease of sex and the self-inflicted tortures of forever being second-class within it. Do we even want to be better? Shove off.
I haven't even talked about the filthy, filthy (kidding, it's really boring, but it's kinda supposed to be) literary references, and the double-backing that make this novel so satirical and damn intelligent. I won't drone on any longer: This novel is brilliant.… (more)