The two women become conjoined by this house, which has a beating heart and becomes a central characters all of its own. It is their refuge from the world outside that has no place for them. But its tender embrace soon begins to feel more like slow strangulation as they become ever more removed from reality. Book Genre: Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Lesbian, LGBT, Literary Fiction, Magical Realism, Novels, Queer so within minutes of reading you'll see her use the ultimate childish white person edginess tool, the N-Word. you might find yourself asking "why use this? is this necessary? what does it accomplish? should this white person use the n-word" all great questions, other than the last. her goal seems to align with the general goals of the overall book. she uses the n word for the same reason she constantly talks about porn and poop. she is trying to be edgy, and it's justified to her by vaguely gesturing towards some emancipatory political end or feminism or whatever. those positive themes are both barely even hinted at but there's definitely lots of edginess. Browning of leaves is a common occurrence indicative of many problems. Brown edges are caused by water that has chlorine or other salts. In some areas, chlorinated or fluoride-treated tap water is a culprit that’s causing brown edges in bird of paradise plants. Who is Jo? A young Norwegian biology student who arrives to study in a coastal town called Ayebourne for what feels like an unspecified but limited amount of time. Hval makes it clear that this mystery town is in a part of the world full of native English speakers, but typing “Ayebourne” into Google leaves me empty-handed: Showing results for “airborne.” Search instead for ayebourne? No dice.

Paradise Rot is not necessarily a pleasurable read, blurring the lines of the coming-of-age genre with psychological horror and rendered in such lucid, impressionistically descriptive prose that merely reading it makes you feel fairly woozy. The skeleton of Paradise Rot—the ostensible plot—tells the story of Jo, a young Norwegian woman who moves to a small town in the United Kingdom to study biology, and moves in with Carral, a mysterious older girl, who lives in a renovated old brewery. Girls Against God is surprisingly dense. It took me a month and a half to finish. (For comparison, I finished reading Paradise Rot in one night.) This was partly because the book loses some of its suspense and drags a bit in the last few chapters of Part 1. I was disappointed when the theme of hate, which was so central in the beginning, sort of dropped out of the story unresolved. One of the strongest and most moving parts of this book is how Hval gives voice to the depth of anger that girls in high school feel at the prospect of facing a world full of sexism, racism, and environmental destruction. Girls hating together. Bird of a Paradise leaves can split due to strong winds, low humidity, watering issues or infections. Human and animal activity can also cause tears on the leaves. The themes of alienation, queerness, and the unsettling nature of desire align Hval with modern mainstays like Chris Kraus, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Maggie Nelson. Pitchfork Immediately, we’re thrust into Jo’s experience of arrival, and her sense of her own foreignness is palpable. “There, not there, there, not there, I whisper, leaning against the window, drumming my fingers against the glass in time with the words, dunk, du-dunk, as if I’m programming a new heartbeat for a new home,” Hval writes of Jo’s arrival in Ayebourne.

Jenny Hval, trans. Maryam Idriss

Ensure you water frequently to cater for the water lost by transpiration. Fix low humidity by misting the plant or using a humidifier to prevent drooping and the death of leaves of bird of paradise. 4. Yellowing leaves Jenny Hval is a pro at knowing how to get to you. She’s a good witch practising dark magic: performative, visual, aural and literary bewitchment. Her music is a spooky and surreal soundscape diving deep into female impulses, women’s bodies, sex and queer desire, belonging, nature, myth and monsters. It is intellectual and haunting. It leaves what Hval’s calls sense impressions. Battle Butler: Kampo the manservant. He's the most physically imposing of the zombies and manhandles Kyle a few times. What’s with the slow moving people with their perfect over-white teeth, spray on tans, and practiced pronunciation.

To rectify the splitting problem, remove the split leaves. Also, consider moving the plant away from direct sunlight or wind. 7. Top heaviness Welcome to tropical paradise. Welcome to The Isle of St. Agrippina. White sandy beaches. Delicious blended drinks. And island cuisine. I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. I reviewed this book in conjunction with a blog tour with Bewitching Book Tours. growing under my skin, letters forming flesh bubbles. Spores, sex, stain, a snake, a mushroom, an apple. They want to be known. A lyrical debut novel from a musician and artist renowned for her sharp sexual and political imagery Jo is in a strange new country for university, and having a more peculiar time than most. A house with no walls, a roommate with no boundaries, and a home that seems ever more alive. Jo’s sensitivity, and all her senses, become increasingly heightened and fraught, as the lines between bodies and plants, and dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh. This debut novel from critically acclaimed artist and musician Jenny Hval, presents a heady and hyper-sensual portrayal of sexual awakening and queer desire. A complex, poetic and strange novel about bodies, sexuality and the female gender. Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval – eBook DetailsHome remedies like chamomile, cinnamon, and charcoal are helpful in treating root rot. 3. Curling leaves But by the fourth chapter the sheer negativity of the rhetoric started to get to me. This relentless hate then became verbal diarrhoea, there's a lot of mention of all sorts of bodily fluids. Disgusting, vulgar and revolting imagery and writing had me thinking of pressing the DNF button a number of times. The translation deserves particular praise given how much of the novel revolved around Norwegian words and vowels, even dialect, which Idriss needs to make read naturally to the English-language reader: Strange and lyrical . Hval's writing is surreal and rich with the grotesque banalities of human existence.

see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1eMY... for the original – Hval’s, who is also a singer, own music is rather different in style https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXLc3...)

This novel provides examples of:

The opening lyrics of the song Over Fjell Og Gjennom Torner feature in the novel in one of the imagined film sequences (see below), which in the translation read: okay complaining time!!! saying that this is confusing or trippy or something is giving it waaay too much credit. juvenile/unfocused/amateur but definitely not psychedelic. she isn't even trying here and compared to her other book paradise rot, i think hval has moved further from finding a voice in this. the free association works better when she more fully committed in the latter parts but it's still exhausting. it's a book that is desperately trying to gross you out, filled with edgy takes, and well-off white women are the only ppl i can imagine seeing the writing about Witches as subversive the way it's written about here. I recommend Girls Against God to anyone who likes weird films, weird music, modern witchcraft, computers, sourdough bread, or angry paintings. Kudos to Idriss for her nearly seamless translation. You know the old saying about something seeming too good to be true? That’s exactly the situation many of our characters find themselves in. An opportunity that was definitely too good to be true presented itself; and far too easily; and they jumped on it. Will the plan to bring in fresh meat work? Will those who are trying to stop the undead from herding tourist like cattle succeed? This little book was so incredibly bizarre, I loved it. I saw a review that simply just said “Books you can smell,” and that is very accurate. It's a book that has a moist, damp feel to it. Something you find buried in the moss in a forest after rainfall. What’s this? Is it covered in piss? Let’s just wipe that away.. Yes this book is full of piss! Urine! Pee! “Golden ribbons!” I had to laugh a little at that one. Jo finds herself in an old brewery turned apartment with the mysterious Carral - the walls are paper thin and you can hear every rustle of fabric, every swoosh of paper from a book being turned, every breath. Smells travel — the sour scent of apples rotting, earthy fungi from the compost. Paradise Rot is certainly a book for the senses. This book gave me the same vibe as Foe by Iain Reid, Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, and possibly the Robert Eggars film The Lighthouse. A little stinky, a lot damp, a lot of naturally occurring body things, and a little gay. It was absolutely incredible. It felt like a creeping, dark, psychological horror, that of a Ingmar Bergman film. I won't say much more because I found it quite enjoyable to read without knowing much and then speculate afterwards. If you’ve read this, lets chat about it! I have so many thoughts.