Gunk
Saba Sams
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I enjoy a good epigraph. Seeing that Sams had chosen Clarice Lispector—whose books I loved for a spell while at university—as the source of one of her epigraphs made me optimistic about what was to follow. It also made me think it’s about time I sought out some more Lispector, who I’ve now not read in a very long time.
Anyway, when it comes to Gunk my optimism was not misplaced. The novel’s opening is brilliant and had me gripped right away. It describes a woman’s interaction with a newborn and, at the end of the passage, she remarks that “his brow softens, and there is a look of a such casual knowing, such tolerance, that a chill passes over me. He’s biding his time, I can see that. He’s decided simply to wait me out”. This is a startling description, and it made it clear that this story wouldn’t be a conventional one.
Indeed, the novel tells of the relationship between its narrator and Nim, a woman who comes to work at the bar she runs in Brighton. Nim is a mysterious character and the relationship between her and the narrator is complex – my eagerness to better understand both propelled me through the novel’s pages.
The more I read, the clearer the narrator’s unreliability became and I found myself increasingly exasperated by her. I found myself wondering whether Sams really wanted her to seem this oblivious. This is of course an unanswerable question and made me realise that, when it comes to a novel like this, you can never know the extent to which the effect is deliberate. In a way, that’s part of its art: the wondering added another dimension to my reading and my exasperation was key to my engagement. A compelling read.
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