User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
This book! Lindy talked about it on episode 196 of the Reading Envy podcast and I ended up reading it right away. It's about Priya and Alex, a lesbian couple who have moved to a rural "island" in South Ontario. When Alex invites an old friend for a visit, her relationship with Priya starts unraveling. Slowly the reasons are revealed.
What I loved is that the couple is older, and are established in who they are and how they relate to one another. Because of this they know when the other person is not telling the whole truth, or even just holding something back, and it is these unspoken tensions that are captured so brilliantly by the author, I was totally wrapped up in what would happen. There is a lot more going on due to cultural backgrounds and other friendships and how social media is used or abandoned, and these factors are interestingly explored as well. There are moments of realization that are so powerful, I was feeling them too! I love when an author can bring the reader into the emotional experiences of the characters and I was so impressed by Shani Mootoo's ability to do so. I will be tracking down her previous books for sure.
ETA: I read this close to when I read Fair Play by Tove Jansson and there are some overlapping themes. If you like novels about relationships between two grownup women who have their own lives and interests as well, I can recommend both!
I had a review copy earlier than it comes out in the states but look for it in September!
Rating: really liked it
WOW! Shani Mootoo writes a book that grabs you from the starts, grips you hard and doesn’t release you, even after finishing the book… WOW! Set in a small town countryside of Ontario, we meet lesbian couple Priya and Alex who have been together for a long time. Priya is from Trinidad and Tobago but left to study in college and ended up in Ontario to pursue a career as an artist. During her time in Ontario she met and fell in love with her partner Alex who is a writer. Priya hatches a plan for her and Alex to leave it all behind, move to a countryside, come off social media, get rid of all their contacts/acquaintances and move forward in this “new life” with just close friends and family.
For the most part their plan works, and they live comfortably together forging a life that is beneficial to both of them. This plan comes to a halt when Priya’s long forgotten university “friend” Prakash finds and messages her on Twitter. For some reason Priya invites him to come visit her and Alex in the countryside. What was supposed to be a “you should come visit!”, but I don’t mean in, turns into Prakash actually deciding to come visit…alone.
Alex and Priya relationship starts to unravel because there are questions and concerns that Priya is being evasive about. Who is Prakash? Why is he visiting you without his wife? Didn’t you say he had a crush on you? Priya is conflicted and wants to call off the visit. Alex is angry, insecure and feels she doesn’t really know who Priya really is. This couple is unravelling and fast….
This is my first book by Shani Mootoo and I was not prepared for this amount of brilliance! When I tell you Mootoo writes a book wrought with tension, believe me. For the entire book I kept waiting for the next shoes to drop. Usually I would get annoyed with the author feeding me bits and pieces of information, but Mootoo did such a spectacular job of knowing when to ease up the tension and when to pull it in. I generally do not like books set in secluded settings with less than 4 characters but Mootoo executed beautifully on this I could not complain.
I spent a whole day reading this book because I just HAD to know what happens and what this visit will lead to. Also the ending. THE. ENDING!.... WHY?!!!
Overall this book is well written, well crafted and truly will not leave you be, even after closing the book. An absolute must read!
Thanks so much Akashi Books for this ARC.
Rating: really liked it
A strange, dark, fascinating, and thought provoking novel. Priya is in her 50s and lives with her partner Alex in an Ontario small town. Out of the blue she gets a message from an old university friend Prakash, with whom she had a complicated and fraught relationship.
Her invitation for him to visit brings up longstanding insecurities and issues in Priya and Alex's relationship. Themes include mainstream (white) discourse about queer sexuality and identity, refugee experiences, difficulties of intimacy and communication in relationships, and the triple effects of sexism, racism, and homophobia on queer women of colour.
The deep dive into longterm queer relationships really reminded me of Jane Eaton Hamilton's book Weekend. Mootoo adds to that with a somewhat unreliable narrator and multiple points of view.
I really mean it when I say this novel was thought provoking! I have notes written all over the margins of this book and in the notes on my phone. Full review on my blog here!
Rating: really liked it
FINAL REVIEW: Easily one of my favorite books of the year!!
It's intimate, possessive, claustrophobic, sensual, seductive, emotionally (sometimes physically) violent, and very queer. It's one of the best “relationship dramas” I've ever read. It's one of those books where you're so deep into this character's (Priya) head. You get all her thoughts: her rationalizations, her confusion, her defensiveness, her innermost desires; and it’s all so feverish. It also plays with memory. How well do we remember events from our own pasts?
There is a lot of jealousy + insecurity in this book. And I’m not going to lie, it’s delicious (and rewarding) being a part of this world. You just want to know what the hell is going on, but you don’t at the same time. It’s strange how both of those things ring true. You’ll enjoy the push and pull this narrative offers. What is the root of all this tension? What are you hiding? What is she hiding? What is he hiding? Why is Prakash coming over? Who is Prakash? Who are any of these people really?
The book opens with an intensely provocative dream and the text just soars from there. The language is taut with a whirlwind of emotions, bubbling feelings lapping over one another. What I love the most about this book is that it is really only about three individuals and their connection to one another. It’s a long time before Prakash even enters the present story, yet his presence haunts the text right from the start. Also by having these characters be older, there is so much explosive history for us to explore.
Not only is this novel a deeply intimate character study, it also manages to seamlessly weave in the vastly different immigrant experiences for Trinidadians, Ugandans, Indians, and Syrians. There is a particularly electrifying conversation involving one of the characters addressing this very subject.
Ah, this book. Read about the complex personalities of Priya, Alexandra, and Prakash. That's how you do a "love triangle." This book is fkn amazing. Canadian Literature is kicking ass these days.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGIYBpMgJ...
Rating: really liked it
I stayed up all night reading this book because the media blurbs for it called it a “thrilling, tension-filled, part psychological thriller”, and I was waiting for the book to evolve into this, but instead it was just mind-numbing page after mind-numbing page of the narrator hinting about how she might cheat on her wife with her male friend who’s coming to visit.
I expected drama and a twist ending and was severely disappointed.
The “twists” in the book include:
-the narrator revealing she was unreliable the whole time because *gasp* she actually slept with the male friend years ago but she blocked out the memory
-a recounting of them sleeping together that makes it seem like it was actually coercion/rape perpetrated by the male friend
-a quick clarification by the narrator that it wasn’t rape
-like 50 pages where it seems like male friend might actually murder the narrator because you’re nearing the end of the book, and the dramatic ending promised by reviews you read hasn’t happened, and also this man is increasingly scary
-a page where it seems like the dramatic ending might just be the narrator and the male friend getting bit by a rabid raccoon
-the male friend just leaving without murdering anyone
And then the real, actual, twist ending (??) where you find out that the narrator’s wife is cheating on her with their super hot lesbian friend who
1. Is in a troubled long-distance relationship
2. Knows many, many details about the narrator’s wife’s art forgery research and book draft
3. Is seen HOLDING HER AND RUBBING HER THUMB ON HER NECK like 100 pages ago
I was not surprised by the dramatic reveal, to say the least.
I also have zero sympathy for the main character’s *betrayal* over seeing that her wife is cheating on her, because the vast majority of the book before that is her thinking about how she might cheat on her wife.
I was also very confused by the tone of the entire drive chapter at the end.
Was the panic and fear felt by the narrator caused by the fact that she might cheat on her wife or her wife might think she cheated on her; OR was it because her male friend was acting straight up crazy and like he might murder her?
I thought it was because he was acting crazy, and when he blocked her car in with his and disappeared into the guest room I thought that some kind of murder or murder-suicide was about to take place, but then he just left and the narrator didn’t seem flustered or like relieved to be alive or anything, which was very confusing.
Was his behavior just supposed to be upsetting and not super super scary?
Because I would be extremely scared if I had no cell phone, was in the passenger seat of a car that locked automatically while driving, was in the Canadian wilderness with almost no one around and no one aware of my physical location, and my male friend touched my knee while describing sexual experiences he had at 10 years old and then gripped me tightly over a several-meter-high cliff while I beat him with my fists and growled and tried to get away.
I really wish the author had spent more time on the aftermath of this scene and the narrator’s reaction, because the narrator just offers the man a cheese sandwich and goes back to worrying about her marriage.
Is this behavior disturbing but something the narrator is used to?
Is she in shock?
If she is, I wish the author had just spent 1 or 2 sentences describing some physical symptoms of shock, so that the reader could understand that while the narrator remained unaware of her condition.
But again, the ending of the book had almost nothing to do with the male friend or the drive, the focus was on how the narrator’s wife was cheating on her.
Rating: really liked it
I'm cry
Rating: really liked it
The ending to this book is quite strong, it was where I knew it was headed, and it was the strongest part of the book for me. However, it was not enough to see me rate it higher than I have.
I kept notes throughout my read, and I also kept returning to reviews of this one to read over and over, because I didn't seem to be reading the same book as others since they have rated it very highly. What was I missing? I am quite conflicted (and was sometimes bored) by this read and I think there were too many narrative styles or techniques and threads introduced that didn't fully come together for me. Mootoo tries to create an unreliable narrator and then switches the points of view half way through (I thought that might pick this one up for me, but it just continued to not pull it all together enough) - leading me to believe she was trying to build a suspense-styled story but I don't think it took us all the way there. Was this then to be an exploration of race and sexuality? Because that wasn't strongly threaded together enough for me either. I'm probably not articulating my points clearly here either. But if this was to be the reason, the primary reason, for the breakdown of Priya and Alex's relationship, I don't think that was coming through enough for me. And, at one point and during the flipped perspective, we have a soliloquy of sorts dumped in about Prakash's family's arrival as refugees in Canada that simply didn't fit where it was inserted (in my opinion).
Therefore, I struggled with where my focus was meant to be drawn towards. I found Mootoo's Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab to be a far more moving story about many of the topics she writes about here in Polar Vortex.
If we are to choose 5 or 6 books for the shortlist from the 14 longlisted for the Giller Prize, this would not be one I want to see moving into that small grouping. * shrugs * * sorry *
Rating: really liked it
I'll put together a more thoughtful review later. Probably a 4.5 rounded up. Some quips but also some really brilliant story telling. Amazingly tense.
Rating: really liked it
Update, September 25, 2020:Shani Mootoo's 5th novel shows no signs of flagging power as she propels through the fraught journeys and twisty, malleable, subjective memories of three characters over the course of a single day. Priya and Alex, both in their 50s, wait on Priya's old friend Prakash to visit their Lake Ontario island home for a day and a night. Their relationship already on tremulous ground, Priya's unilaterally extended invite draws out all of Alex's doubts and accusations about Priya's past and perhaps present attachment to a man that could intrude and perhaps had always encroached on their lesbian relationship.
The media heralds this as a "lesbian novel" and while that's not incorrect per se, POLAR VORTEX seeks to trouble the rigid lines Western queerness carried over from heteronormative understandings of self to delimit its membership and demand its members act accordingly. It's in the lines that push them to argue and brandish their "women only" bonafides, to mark any departure as a betrayal. A particular white liberal lesbian queerness that others Brown bodies and cultures which they view as more naturally falling into a cis het norm in comparison to their hippie freedom. (What disgusting irony, tbh.) It's there in the pleasure Priya garners from being described as looking like a boy.
Perspective is all in a novel in which Mootoo charts in varying detail the journey Priya makes from 70s Trinidad to Canada as an emigrant (never does the word "immigrant" appear in relation to her) and Prakash, expelled from Idi Aman's Uganda. References to the sponsored Syrian refugees from a newer conflict, with Alex (who sees herself as) the stable settler point, Mootoo explores fixed notions of identity tied to nation states, skin colour, food, and language.
Patriarchy bounds across cultures uninhibited as we see how it shaped a found family in which a man's supportive actions to his woman friend are the preliminary steps to repeated coercive violations, in men that use their trauma (if they even see it as such) as a way to score.
The path the book takes us on this exploration and excavation of body and memory is landmarked with secrets, with experiences the holders are made to feel should be secret, secrets that only seem so until unveiled by another's single glance, contradictions, inconsistencies, performative kisses and askance eyes guarding minds that are churning, churning, churning every gesture, expression and tone. In this book set in a December of mildest winter, the January's polar vortex, all three characters still caught in its spin. Where will they land at the end?
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September 18, 2020Woooooooooooooiiiiiii!
4.5 ⭐
Gimme time fi process dis yah book YAH.
Rating: really liked it
Intimate messy queers complicated relationships immigration and assimilation unreliable narrators and narratives beautiful writing dual pov but in looooooong chunks, im blown away more coherent thoughts will happen later
Rating: really liked it
I picked this up because it is on the Giller 2020 shortlist, and reading other reviews, lots of people love it. I... did not.
I like character driven books where not a lot happens plot wise. I like books with a very tight character focus with stream of consciousness, introspection and self doubt (see A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence). I like books about the immigrant experience in Canada (see Immigrant City by David Bezmozgazis). I like books that take a deep dive into two or three pivotal days in a characters life (see The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue). But this just missed the mark for me. Rather than introspection, I felt like I was reading claustrophobic navel gazing. Certainly there was immigrant and refugee experience, and while these parts were probably my favourite of the book, I'm not exactly sure what Mootoo was trying to tell me. And the pivotal days just didn't seem all that compelling to me. Like, maybe just too much time spent on deciding whether to make bread pudding or granola for breakfast, and not enough time on the things that make the day pivotal. I mean, I know people repress thoughts, and that avoidance is a real thing, but it doesn't exactly make for a compelling narrative. I suppose this was also about trauma, and whether or not we can really know another person. But, again, Mootoo just failed to catch me.
Anyway, I suppose you should read the other reviews and see if there's something that sticks out to you and seems like it would capture your imagination. Because I'm having a hard time thinking of who I would recommend this to.
Rating: really liked it
I decided to give
Polar Vortex a try because it was nominated for the Giller Prize, since I am always trying to read more Canadian literature, but this just was not for me. I found the premise much more interesting than the execution, and it was a bit of a drag to get through. In its attempt to be eerie and tense, the storytelling came off overly restrained. Much too restrained for me to connect with emotionally, and the writing and characters felt quite clinical and cold to me. Being in the narrator's head felt incredibly claustrophobic and I genuinely couldn’t wait to get out of there. I also thought that while the author did a fantastic job with building tension, the climax of the story was pretty mild, and the ending was a bit of a weird choice. Bummed this one didn’t work for me.
Rating: really liked it
It dragged a bit in the middle but strong start and finish.
Rating: really liked it
4.75, I think.
For those who are looking for a plot-driven book, this isn’t one you’ll enjoy. If you’re a fan of character-driven books, though, this one might be for you.
Mootoo does a
phenomenal job diving deep into the complexities of relationships, particularly unhealthy ones, and peeling away the layers to reveal the true nature of these characters. It’s rather hard to like these characters, including Priya, the protagonist, considering that their flaws are prominently on display throughout the book. However, these aspects are so well-developed and reveal that sometimes, we hold onto unhealthy relationships (platonic or otherwise) longer than we should.
Polar Vortex really makes you think about your own relationships, past and present, and the dynamics of each one. Is there a power imbalance? Is there strong and honest communication? What are you contributing to the relationship, and how much are you taking from it?
Speaking of relationships, this is somewhat of an aside, but I really appreciated that one of the relationships that Mootoo explored was of the marriage of two women in their fifties. It added so much dimension to the story that also reflected on other relationships spanning
decades.I think my one (rather minor) criticism is that I felt more could have been done to address the role of one’s positionality in society and how this reflects in relationships. Mootoo does some exploring of this (particularly through racism and nationhood), but it occasionally felt out-of-place or unbalanced with what was happening in the story. That said, I can see why she didn’t go in-depth at every opportunity, considering how complex they are and there’s enough complexity as is.
A bit of a challenging read given the tone of the book (and I imagine for some readers, the absence of likeable characters could make this particularly challenging), but it was a really refreshing approach to aspects of relationships that I think is underexplored in literature.
Rating: really liked it
"everything is red. his tongue. his penis. the palms of my hands. red red red."
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Polar Vortex begins with Priya, a lesbian, having a sexual dream about her oldest friend, Prakash. Priya and Prakash became close in their university days in Canada. They were two outsiders, she from Trinidad and he from Uganda, who leaned on one another in a strange, new country. However, their relationship is deeply complicated. As the story unfolds, we learn more about the two of them, including Prakash's romantic interest in Priya and her ambiguous feelings about him.
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Priya admits that there were times when she played the Indian woman to Prakash's Indian man. And, although she is a lesbian, there is the pull of a more socially acceptable life as Prakash's romantic partner.
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However, Priya has forged a new path away from Prakash. She is married to Alex and living in a seemingly idealised countryside community. She hasn't seen Prakash for six years and his upcoming visit unsettles Alex as well as Priya herself.
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This novel is focused on relationships and domestic life but it is a compulsive read as Shani Mootoo builds tension out of even the most mundane domestic interactions.
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The issue of race winds its way into the book. At one point, Alex laments that, 'When you live with a person of color, never-ending problems that center on how the world treats one of you and not the other enter your house.' I honestly found Alex unsympathetic to issues that Priya and Prakash faced as people of colour and, in Prakash's instance, as a refugee. The book featured a surprise switch to Alex's point of view and - although this technique usually engenders interest in the narrator - this actually made me dislike Alex more.
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But then, all characters here are complicated and carefully wrought. Polar Vortex is unsettling but I was thankful to be unsettled by so thoughtful and nuanced a writer.
