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A gripping read from the first page, The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty is a mysterious story about running away from your life, skydiving off the grid, and free-falling to who knows where. I was unprepared for the tension and great storytelling after reading Vendela Vida’s meandering, sometimes disjointed The Lovers. This book swept me away, which is what I wanted.
Vendela Vida's wisp of a novel, 213 pages all told, is conveyed entirely in the second person. There's a reason we don't encounter a lot of this in our literary travels. And that's because it is a very presumptuous road.The second person voice eschews any form of literary foreplay. No energy is spent on introductions or establishing a rapport. Instead the author breaches all boundaries at a jump, thrusting the reader, pell-mell, into her character's head. And if a writer isn't skilled at this so...
"Go back to the before, you think to yourself. You know that, in your own life, it’s not something you will ever choose to do."3.5 stars. A book about identity, the choices we have the power to make, and the opportunities to recreate oneself, The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty is without a doubt an original story. The second-person narration is not something you come across frequently in literature, and while it was a clever tool in this instance, you may find it a bit jarring. Or, you may very well
This is a novel about identity. Our narrator, a fraternal twin, had become so entwined in her twin's life that now that she's on her own, she barely seems to know who she is. In the course of the book, she shifts identity several times, adopting new names and stories, but we never find out her actual name. In fact, we never find out the actual names of most of the characters with speaking parts in this book, including some who are quite crucial to the plot. Meanwhile, the important characters wh...
From the start of “Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty” I was in angst. Our unnamed narrator arrives in Casablanca and immediately loses her backpack with her ID, money, passport, and everything of value to her. I’ve been to Casablanca and it’s NOT a country you want to be without your American passport and money, especially if you are female.Adding to my reading anxiety is the countless bad decisions made by the unnamed narrator. In fact, I kept thinking this must be a nightmare that she will awake from....
Is this considered a literary novel? The dustjacket flap says it's a "mesmerizing novel of ideas" which is probably true if you take "idea" to mean "made-up shit."Here's my summary: This is a story about a sociopath who leaves her Jerry Springer Show life behind and embarks upon a spree of unrealistic situations in which there is no such thing as consequence.WARNING: I'm not going to bother spoiler tagging this review. It's not worth my time and effort. Please be aware there are potential spoile...
It’s a good book by a wonderfully talented author.I posted an overly critical review here and it wasn’t really fair. I liked the book a lot and found it interesting. It uses a unique point of view that might take warming up to but I think it adds a layer to the story that we don’t usually get. It places the reader in the role of the protagonist. Plus it’s set in Casablanca! I loved that choice. As I’m editing this review 3 years after posting it, it’s because I left a snarky review about a book
A high 4 stars. I seem to be binge reading this holiday, and Vendela Vida's The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty was perfect for a binge read. It's the second book I've read by Vida in the last few days, and I'm again impressed by her talent and voice, and must say that I liked this one even more than Let the Norther Lights Erase Your Name. Told from a second person perspective, it starts in Casablanca as the main character arrives from the US. Immediately, a back pack containing her passport and credi...
This is a lovely slip of a book, the kind of novel you become utterly absorbed in and read in one sitting.We meet our heroine on a plane from Miami, Florida, to Casablanca, Morocco. She is running away from something, but we don't know what. As soon as she gets to her hotel, her bag is stolen, including her passport and wallet. The staff try to help, but she suspects they are in cahoots with the thief and/or the police.The woman starts exploring Casablanca using another name, and she gets an une...
You can't believe that you actually enjoyed a book written in second person, but you did. It was like pulling on a beautiful unraveling thread.
4.5 rounded upA breath of fresh air. Highly recommended! (Embellished thoughts to follow (maybe))
I could not stop listening to this novel! (Good thing I needed to clean my house.) A woman travels to Morocco for a vacation and after her backpack is stolen finds herself on a path of continual reinvention. Inventive, suspenseful, funny - so good!
Engaging, original and clever. Really enjoyed this very creative short novel.I might come back later with a longer review, right now I am beat after a long day at work :(
The divers clothes lie empty.You are sitting here with us,but you are also out walking in a field at dawn.You are yourself the animal we huntwhen you come with us on the hunt.You are in your bodylike a plant is solid in the ground,yet you are wind.You are the diver's clotheslying empty on the beach.You are the fish.In the ocean are many bright strandsand many dark strands like veins that are seenwhen a wing is lifted up.Your hidden self is blood in those,those veins that are lute stringsthat mak...
4 enthusiastic starsWow. I could not stop once I started. Addictive Reading. I should shout that with upper case.A short, fast paced, mysterious, quirky, joy ride told with the promised wicked humor. I was captivated. What a treat. Don't even read the book blurb, all aboard the Marrakesh Express! Who was that woman?
When you've listened to an audio book twice in eight months, reveling in it even more the second time, the cleverness of the author is apparent. You choose books based on scant information, reading no reviews ahead of time - just reading the stars. Just the stars. You risk a lot this way, but since you love being surprised by what the pages hold, it usually works. You have never read a book where the entire thing uses the second (or is it third?) person of "you," but it so completely puts you in...
The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty because the diver has had her backpack stolen, with her laptop, wallet, passport while checking into her hotel in Casablanca, the city her guidebook suggests "The first thing to do upon arriving in Casablanca is to get out of Casablanca." Come to think of it, the only thing the diver has left is her clothing. The thief, caught on security camera, walked serenely out of the hotel, her backpack slung over his shoulder. He wisely left her suitcase, which contained noth...
4/5 stars Almost an entire star solely for the masterful use of second person present tense. Very rare to find, in no small part due to the difficulty. As an amateur writer, I've tried and I cannot stress how true this is! Plus, this takes place in the namesake for my favorite film of all time, Casablanca. There is even a short scene in a "Rick's", which is modeled after the real one (assuredly in Burbank, California), complete with a piano player singing "As Time Goes By"!
And.....we are off to Casablanca, Morocco. In the first two books that Vendela wrote...the main characters are looking to re-invent themselves ...find their new identity.In this story...a woman is stripped her identity. A Woman is a robbed of her wallet and passport and she checks into a hotel. In a way...Vendela is still playing with the same theme - though - as in her first two books--- With 'no' identity, brings freedom to create newly. (re-inventing again). I'm not crazy about this book. It'...
Written competently, and the use of second person for narration was unusual, and did feel like the internal monologue of the unnamed main character. The main character is running from something in her past, though what that is only gradually revealed. She is robbed after arriving in Casblanca, and the story is, on the surface, about her trying to deal with the loss of her ID and money.I felt a sense of dislocation and oddness as the main character went from situation to situation, moving through...