Have you ever enjoyed reading a book, but questioned the entire time whether you actually liked it? That was my experience with A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar. This book captivated me from the very first paragraph, but I would be hard-pressed to give it a general recommendation, and I still don’t know if I actually liked the book itself.
A Stranger in Olondria is told in the first-person perspective of Jevick, the younger son of a wealthy merchant. When his older brother shows signs of a developmental disability, Jevick becomes the heir apparent to his cruel father’s pepper farm. In order to set Jevick up for success, his father hires a tutor for him to teach him the language of Olondria, the main country where he trades. This tutor also introduces the previously illiterate Jevick to the written word, which changes his life.
After his father’s death, Jevick finally has the opportunity to travel to Bain, the storied Olondrian city that he has dreamed about for years. If you’ll pardon the cliche, this dream becomes a nightmare when he eventually becomes haunted by the ghost of a young woman he briefly met, and then becomes a pawn in a conflict between two religious factions.
As befitting a book about the power of the written word, the language in A Stranger in Olondria is beautiful. The opening paragraph put me in mind of HP Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle stories, with their fantastical descriptions of imagined cities and realms. If, like me, you enjoyed Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle but despise the man’s personal beliefs, this book may appeal to you.
However, as much as I enjoyed the writing on display, I did not particularly like Jevick as a character. While I share his love of books, he was otherwise in many ways a typical 20-something year old, well-educated young man. His reaction upon finally finding out what the ghost wants/needs in order to stop haunting him seemed rather cruel and selfish, especially given how unpleasant the haunting was for him.
Because I didn’t particularly like Jevick, I also didn’t particularly feel any investment in how the story turned out. I very much enjoyed the experience of reading Samatar’s beautiful words, but ultimately I don’t think the story itself will stay with me. Your enjoyment of this book will largely hinge on a few factors: whether you read books primarily to enjoy wordcraft or to be swept up in a story; your tolerance for very voice-y first person narration; your tolerance for prose that could border on the purple; your tolerance for new adult male protagonists.
This book contains themes of child abuse, illness, death, involuntary commitment to an institution, but none of it is depicted in graphic detail.
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