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| Rating: 3/5 stars |
Perhaps something is wrong with my taste in books. Swamplandia, by Karen Russell, is her debut novel, and has gotten tons of critical praise. It was a Booklist starred review, it was longlisted for the Orange Prize (literary award), it got praise from Stephen King, Oprah and Carl Hiaasen. But I didn't like it.
Here's the thing: It's obvious that Karen Russell is an excellent writer. Her prose are suburb, her descriptions make you feel as if you're experiencing the thing for yourself. But the subject matter? While I really wanted to like this book, I just found it too absurd. ("Too quirky for its own good" is the description I found in a reader review that just about sums it up.)
The book begins with the main character, Ava, describing her life in Swamplandia!, the "number one gator-themed park and cafe in the area" (the area being the gulf side of southwest Florida.) It sounded to me quite funny. And at times it was, mostly it was just odd. Ava's mother, Hilola Bigtree, who is the star performer at Swamplandia! has died of ovarian cancer at the young age of 36. Ava, 13, (though it took me reading a review just now to figure that out) and her sister, Osceolla, 16, and brother Kiwi, 17, are left alone on the island with their father "Chief Bigtree", the family's eccentric patriarch who is determined to keep the theme park going despite declining numbers of patrons.
Finally one day, the ferry which carries patrons over from the mainland doesn't show up, and Ava learns that this is because there were no passengers. Swamplandia! is becoming obsolete. From here the story breaks into that of Ava, who at 13 seems a little too clueless to be believable (though she did grow up on an island away from other kids her own age), and her secret plans to save Swamplandia, and that of Kiwi, as he escapes Swamplandia! for life on the mainland working a minimum wage job at World of Terror (a competing theme park) trying to earn money to get the family out of debt. In the mean time, Chief Bigtree leaves Ava and Osceola alone on the island to attend to some "business matters" on the mainland, more or less abandoning the two teenagers. Osceola, a silly, yet caring girl, has found interest in communicating with ghosts and claims she has become engaged to a former dredge man who just happens to be dead. When Osceola disappears, Ava thinks she is the only one who can save her from the Underworld, where she plans to flea with her dead dredge man, and dreary adventure ensues.
My problem with this book is that I felt very disconnected from the characters. Maybe they were too out of touch with their own feelings for them to express them meaningfully, but I just found a lot of the characters odd, and wanted to know more. Also, as mentioned before, Ava is almost unbelievably naive which I may believe of a character 3 or 4 years younger than her, but at 13, her naivety is questionable.
The one thing I will say for this book is that the writing of Ava's adventure in the last 50-or-so pages is excellent. Without giving too much away, she begins to get disoriented from lack of hydration along with other factors, and you can sense that in Russell's writing. I felt the path twisting and turning under my feet as if I was with Ava while she walked. I felt starts and stops of consciousness and remembering as Ava fades in and out of reality.
Russell is obviously a very talented writer. She was listed as one of the New York Times 20 under 40 (she is only 29). But I found her subject matter a little too absurd, and her characters a little too impersonal at times. I do understand the concept of showing and not telling, which I think Russell does well. But maybe too well. Something it just felt too disconnected for me. I may or may not give Russell another try in the future.
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