Genre: Adult Fiction
Pages: 337
Published: 2016
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Publisher’s Synopsis:
“A stunning, provocative new novel from New York Times bestselling author Marisa Silver, Little Nothing is the story of Pavla, a child scorned for her physical deformity, whose passion and salvation lie in her otherworldly ability to transform herself and the world around her.
In an unnamed country at the beginning of the last century, a child called Pavla is born to peasant parents. Her arrival, fervently anticipated and conceived in part by gypsy tonics and archaic prescriptions, stuns her parents and brings outrage and disgust from her community. Pavla has been born a dwarf, beautiful in face, but as the years pass, she grows no further than the edge of her crib. When her parents turn to the treatments of a local doctor and freak sideshow proprietor, his terrifying cure opens the floodgates persecution for Pavla. Little Nothing unfolds across a lifetime of unimaginable, magical transformation in and out of human form, as this outcast woman is hunted down and incarcerated for her desires, her body broken and her identity stripped away until her soul is strong enough to transcend all physical bounds. Woven throughout is the journey of Danilo, the young man entranced by Pavla, obsessed only with protecting her. Part allegory about the shifting nature of being, part subversive fairy tale of love in all its uncanny guises, Little Nothing spans the beginning of a new century, the disintegration of ancient superstitions and the adoption of industry and invention. With a cast of remarkable characters, a wholly shocking and original story, and extraordinary, page-turning prose, Silver delivers a novel of sheer electricity.”
My Review:
Dark, cruel, and not for the lighthearted, Little Nothing is strange in all the best ways. Hard to pin in any one genre, it is somewhere between literary fiction and magical realism. It gives me a Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis vibe and, long after reading this book, I am still digesting all of its implications.
I found it difficult to get into at first, with its fluffy language and run-on sentences that weave a single thought into an entire complex paragraph. But I stuck with it and gradually began to appreciate Marisa Silver’s way with words – and she surely has a unique way. Her use of descriptive language is canny, to say the least, and is remarkable how she pieces together seemingly meaningless things in a way that makes you consider the most substantial philosophies on life.
Set in an unnamed place or time, which works perfectly for this abstract novel, you can simultaneously imagine it too otherworldly to be here and yet, with her exquisite detailing of environment, it is familiar enough that it could be anywhere.
Concerning the plot, I value her careful balance of both mysterious and explained, leaving readers captivated but certain of what transpired. The story is both linear, as the characters experience a lifetime of events, and cyclical as their development comes full circle.
My one critique for this book is that I found it difficult to genuinely develop a connection to the main characters. I was more invested in the actions that drove the story rather than in the outcome of the characters themselves.
As an example, and without giving away any real spoilers, Pavla’s constant and abrupt shifting made it difficult to truly understand her at any given time. Just when you thought you were beginning to develop that connection, everything suddenly changed. It’s as if her identity is, in fact, that she has no identity. Perhaps though, this is the author’s intentions, to get us all contemplating what it means to be transitioning one’s identity throughout life.
If you are looking for a book that makes you grapple with some of humanity’s most universal and existential crises, this is it.
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