[4.5]What a poorly-skewed ratings graph this book has on Goodreads. But the reviews here (and on Amazon) explain why: it's been mis-marketed. Does that cover look like quite a serious philosophical novel to you? Nope, I didn't think so. Only this cover suits it. People will judge and choose by covers, no matter what old adages say. And a lot of the blurbs sound altogether too chicklitty. The quotes from the serious press make sense but "Smart, funny and warm"? I think someone sentElle a Kathy Lette novel in the wrong cover for them to come up with that melted cheese. No-wonder there are so many reader reviews that seem to be missing the point and often the references in the book, saying it's miserable, or criticising the lack of a shiny happy self-helpy conclusion. Dropping out of society and being all existentialist is, in art and fiction, historically a male occupation. That hadn't bothered me especially as I didn't see it as meaning women couldn't, just that fiction - not reality - considered them to have different preoccupations, plus I'm perfectly capable of identifying with different gendered characters. In an interview Joanna Kavenna said:"I remember as a teenager reading all these canonical books by Lawrence and Camus on what was always billed as 'the human condition'. It's only much later that you start to think, 'where are all the women?'" Whereas my conclusion was that hardly any female writers were interested in producing work along those lines.I hoped I would at some point they would and I'd notice it; those I'm now aware of have all been very recent creations. The film Wendy & Lucy was the first one I remember. And now this and Come to the Edge - a novel which Joanna Kavenna wrote straight after Inglorious but which wasn't published until seven years later.Both are novels of (similar) ideas but with different tones. Inglorious is serious though there are lines at which some might laugh in dark humour, and it doesn't explain itself directly. As in the later book, which I read first, there is a critique of capitalist society and the expected trajectory of an orderly life, which simultaneously understands the love of that society's trappings. (The heroine, Rosa, visits the home of some married friends: "Three children, it was a towering achievement. And the place was a work of art...Everything was immaculate.” ... Her covering letters on job applications have all the satiric rage and righteousness of the newly manic Dennis Bagley in How to Get Ahead in Advertising.)Rosa's journey, most of which is around the streets in duller areas of West London, closely mirrors the protagonist's experience in Knut Hamsun's Hunger and the narrative often reminded me of the Norwegian book. Another review alludes to Dostoevsky. Her swing from colour-supplement success story with a happy family background, to starving, uncompromising, occasionally hallucinatory, dropout intellectual is precipitated by events that populate mainstream fiction: the death of her mother, walking out of a media job, the end of her moribund relationship - things sometimes trivialised when they belong to certain types of people in stories, especially younger middle-class women. But these things can be harrowingly painful with the depth of centuries, even though their surface outlines are templates for cheap station novels with pink covers, or films starring Jennifer Aniston. And I think Kavenna is trying to point this out in Inglorious. She said in the same article I quoted above: "what happens if women write books that are solely about women trying to struggle with life – do they get accepted as representations of the human condition, or is it just the female condition?" No, I don't think people have a problem accepting them as part of the human condition if the work is intellectually serious - and I've seen at least as many men as women give high opinions of such works. (However, chicklit is perhaps regarded more dismissively than the smaller number of similar popular novels by and about men.)The modern setting made aspects of Hunger even clearer to me, and more pertinent, in particular its illustration of the mismatch between the money system and the human need for self-expression and actualisation - which is insoluble for most except the relatively well-off and a few off-grid survivalists. There is also a fantastically evoked sensation of grasping around for things, for the levers which work the world, through a fog which has descended. Part of the fog is unfortunately others' lack of understanding. Most of Rosa's friends can't comprehend life off their own tramlines and sneer at her - yet she is acting like the subjects in many works of art they no doubt admire, with her unusually idea-based depression. Though their worst actions are to catalogue cruelly to her face her failings during the last days of her dying relationship, as if they hadn't realised that everything which had happened was more than enough. Those who try to be helpful are ultimately very boundaried and intent on remaining immersed in their own lives and convenience. But then what else is anyone supposed to do? Co-dependent helping would be "unhealthy" or smothering or both. Another insoluble problem of how society works. If I hadn't read Granta 123: The Best of Young British Novelists 4, I can't imagine I'd have picked up a book that looked like this, or gone beyond dismissing its synopsis (the old one on here ... I replaced it on Goodreads with one from the author's website mentioning "Dante's centre point of life", which gives a better impression of what's inside). hopefully a few more readers who'll like this will find it now, undeterred by average ratings from those who wanted to read something completely different.
Repetitious and navel gazing, but some of it is really well written. The interior life of the main character is incredibly depressing because it's so boring. Boring and familiar. This book conforms to many of the genre expectations of "chick lit," but it subverts these expectations by being horribly realistic about one particular woman's interior life. Whereas most chick lit provides us with an "everywoman" character whose "quirky eccentricities" include shopping, cooking, antiquing, or a large and colorful wardrobe, Kavanna's main character hasn't been painted up and whored out. Though the plot arc of the book is that of the chick lit novel (beginning just after the break up with a job/boyfriend and ending with the new and better boyfriend/job) it never gives its reader the chick lit payout (good sex/wedding and some form of female empowerment involving Prada). Kavanna's chick is baldly neurotic and dealing with grief, debt, and depression--not interesting topics for most outside observers. Lacking the drama of something like Prozac Nation, or the complexity of any classic piece of literature exploring the human psyche, Inglorious is even less glorious than its title. The best I can say about this book is that it's not bad company for someone who's miserable.
What do You think about Inglorious (2007)?
I read this book a few months back and wish I had written this review then when the details were fresher in my mind. It certainly does not preach the kind of philosophy one is used to in books, where after going through lots of struggles and crisis with your identity and place in the world, you reach a point where you figure it all out and move on. That way, there is no rainbow after the rain. But there is something seering and brutally honest about the way Rosa goes through the fall from grace and how she finds it hard and also pointless to get back into the flow. It is quite existentialist in the questions it asks. If you have gone through a period like hers where you feel unable to do anything to get over what others consider to be a minor stumbling block, where you are unable to find a purpose and rationale to your existence and make endless to-do lists that never materialize, perhaps you will empathize with her. I particularly loved the episode where her dad comes to meet Rosa at the restaurant.The mixture of love, pain, guilt and helplessness she feels in front of her father, realizing he is aging,must be worrying about her, yet not wanting to add to his worries by telling him in what dire straits she is still remains fresh in my mind.There are stretches in the book where things get repetitive which may have been avoided (at least that is what I remember I felt then), and it was not an easy read at a time when I wish I had read a far more cheerful book to lift up my spirits, but it is the kind of book that left a deep impression on me, perhaps somewhat cathartic too. I was a bit ambiguous about it then, but felt it was a book worth reading then and months later, I still feel the same.
—Meerab
Although this book sounded promising I found it a slow paced tale of not much in particular. Rosa quits her job, Liam her boyfriend dumps her and moves on to the attractive equally charismatic Grace. Then she slips into deeper depression and a form of mental illness. The start was intriguing, it just didn't pick up or pack any surprises or real matters of interest whilst Rosa tried to pick up the pieces of her fallen world. This was a struggle to finish and unfortunately I won't be rushing back to this author.
—Rebecca tedder
"Inglorious" could be included in the tradition of novels narrating existential crises. It's about a thirty-five-yearl-old woman questioning every choice in her life and never reaching satisfactory answers. That said, even though it's neither a superficial nor an uninteresting novel, I think the text comes out as too verbose and, most of the time, insofar as it explores well-known topics without much originality, too banal, and with few high moments, especially in the initial sections. As I see it, it would have had much to gain from a more careful editing process.
—Alda
