Shock, horror - Man Booker winner that splits opinions, whatever next!
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Blurb:
In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes 'interesting'. The last thing she ever wanted to be. To be interesting is to be noticed and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.
The Review
So, once again, here I am reading an award winning (Man Booker, no less!) book and not really understanding all the hype. I've always maintained that my ratings are underpinned by how much I enjoy a book, not by what I think of its literary significance. And for me these two things are separate.
That means I can really admire this book and think it is an incredible feat of artistic prowess, whilst still not having been moved by it. This is an incredibly impressive and emotive book, which tells the story of an 18 year old woman, in an unnamed (much like everything in this book) town, which we can strongly suppose to be Belfast during the Troubles. Burns does a great job at depicting the atmosphere of distrust, suspicion and paranoia that would have existed in communities during this time. As if life wasn't difficult enough, having to contend with turmoil and politically violent unrest around every corner, our main character becomes targeted by the lecherous attentions of an older man.
This, for me was the best part of this story. We learn that this man, the titled 'Milkman' is someone of high importance in the community, and if we are to read between the lines, is heavily hinted at being an influential terrorist. But what is most interesting (/unnerving) is how this man uses his status to quietly, yet aggressively intimidate our protagonist. In a campaign designed to wear her down, he uses his position to back her into a corner, to slowly erode her freedoms and turn the community against her. Everyone is convinced she is having an affair with this man, despite the fact that she actively protests this on many occasions, but just the fact that he has singled her out has marked her as an outcast.
Whilst I did like the plot of this book, the narrative style was just too impenetrable for me to get any really enjoyment from it. The amount of effort this took to read ruined the reading experience for me and prevented me from immersing myself in the story. The narrator is hugely analytical and introspective and we spend long periods of time analysing small exchanges, to no real outcome. Add to that the conscious decision made by the author to not refer to anyone in the book by their name, a literary trope which I just found exhaustively annoying.
This novel is incredibly dense, to the point where you wonder if Burns was being charged to use breaks in paragraphs. If you're the kind of person that likes to occasionally take a break from reading to, oh I don't know, make a cup of tea, trust me, you'll not find a suitable spot to break. And when you return you'll have no idea where you left off and have to read the last 3 pages all over again (can you tell this happened to me more than once?!) I was extremely grateful for the very few moments of dark humour that Burns interspersed this narrative with, otherwise I really think I might have thrown in the towel.
Look, I'm not afraid to read a book that will challenge me, or one that's a bit more of a dense read. But when that starts to actually lift me out of the story because I'm going cross-eyed, I'm not sure it's doing what it set out to achieve. This is not 'bad writing' though - it's poetic, considered and carefully crafted. The amount of work that went into writing in this narrative style is obvious. It just wasn't for me. *Shrugs*
In true Man Booker style, this is a book that is wildly dividing opinion. I'm glad I read it, but it's not one I would rush to recommend.