Claire-Louise Bennett

"A ... fiction debut ... in which the habits and observations of a solitary young woman illuminate her inner life with uncanny, irresistible intimacy"--

Pond

"A tour de force fiction debut, darkly humorous and utterly original, in which the habits and observations of a solitary young woman illuminate her inner life with uncanny, irresistible intimacy"--

Emiley Jones

And didn't I immediately discover that melancholia brought something out in me that felt more authentic and effortless than anything I'd previously alchemised.

There were lines across the pages but they were imperceptible because of how dark it had become and once a word was written it was quite irretrievable, as if abducted. I went on, sinking words into the pages, perhaps wondering what or who was taking them in.

He said he was fed up, or something like that, and I said I was too—he seemed to think it had to do with how the weather had been the same for two weeks. I was inclined to believe it had more to do with how our lives had been more or less the same for much longer.

Everyone has seen a sunset—I will not attempt to describe the precise visual delineations of this one. Neither will I set down any of the things that scudded across my mind when the earth's trajectory became so discernibly and disarmingly attested to. Peculiar things, yet intimately familiar.

Impressions of something I have not perhaps experienced directly. Memories I arrived with. Memories that snuck in and tucked up and live on within and throughout me.

If we have lost the knack of living, I thought, it is a safe bet to presume we have forfeited the magic of dying.

And each sound was a rung that took me further upwards, and in this way it was possible for me to get up really high, to climb up past the clouds, towards a bird-like exuberance, where there is nothing at all but continuous light and acres of blue.

That the desire to come apart irrevocably will always be as strong as, if not stronger than, the drive to establish oneself. As deep as ink and black, black as the deepest sea.

Feverish and forthright, Pond is an absorbing chronicle of the pitfalls and pleasures of a solitudinous life told by an unnamed woman living on the cusp of a coastal town. Broken bowls, belligerent cows, swanky aubergines, trembling moonrises and horrifying sunsets, the physical world depicted in these stories is unsettling yet intimately familiar and soon takes on a life of its own. Captivated by the stellar charms of seclusion but restless with desire, the woman’s relationship with her surroundings becomes boundless and increasingly bewildering. Claire-Louise Bennett’s startlingly original first collection slips effortlessly between worlds and is by turns darkly funny and deeply moving.

Stories

Marion

It had something to do with love. About the essential brutality of love. About those adventitious souls who deliberately seek out love as a prime agent of total self-immolation. Yes, that's right. It attempted to show that in the whole history of literature love is quite routinely depicted as an engulfing process of ecstatic suffering which finally, mercifully, obliterates us and delivers us to oblivion. Dismembered and packed off. 

Kind of like reading someone’s train of thought. Weird at time and highly meaningful in other ways.

Poppy Keogh

Strong start which is why I bought it at bookstore but was such a chore to read I couldnt wait to finish. Philosophical fiction isn't for me 

jiaqi kang

Reading this was really weird... I often wish that I could pause time just so that I'd have the time to sit in a nice house with lots of natural light and fresh air and read the large number of books that I don't have time to read, just to be able to catch up without having any other responsibilities at all. This book feels exactly like that - a pocket universe moving at a slower pace or out of sync from the rest of the world, where everything is peaceful folding towels and eating oatmeal and being really introspective. Sometimes I really yearn for that feeling and when I first started reading I forced myself to calm down and savor every word. But i rushed to finish it, because Right now i need to feel the satisfaction of finishing it more than I need the serenity, which is kind of unbearable. Thr narrator has this kind of emptiness that she fills with overthinking that I really relate to. 

I definitely will be rereading this a lot.

A blog post I wrote yesterday about how this book relates to my anxiety: http://taohuayun.blogspot.com/2018/09...

Feverish and forthright, Pond is an absorbing chronicle of the pitfalls and pleasures of a solitudinous life told by an unnamed woman living on the cusp of a coastal town. Broken bowls, belligerent cows, swanky aubergines, trembling moonrises and horrifying sunsets, the physical world depicted in these stories is unsettling yet intimately familiar and soon takes on a life of its own. Captivated by the stellar charms of seclusion but restless with desire, the woman's relationship with her surroundings becomes boundless and increasingly bewildering.

Kwan Ann Tan

this book is peak vibes with no plot, absolutely loved it

Jane McCullough

Some beautifully written descriptions with intermittent inner musings with moments of self-inspiration. For me, it read like “notes for my future novels” of and about Ireland for the Irish. I would prefer to read one of those when one is completed.

Gary Homewood

Linked short stories and chapters like fever dreams from a painstakingly observant, self-consciously aware woman living alone in a cottage, grappling with solitude. Poetic, often funny and unlike anything else I've read.

Pond

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