I'm sorry to say I just could not get into Study for Obedience. In fact, I abandoned it about 2/3 of the way through, which is very unusual for me.

I appreciated the beautiful language and some of the excellent descriptions. However, all the unexplained elements of the book (e.g. the main character's name, age and nationality; the country where the story is set; the language spoken in the village), which I suppose were meant either to create mystery or give the story a sense of universality, only left me feeling completely disconnected from the story. At a certain point, I realized that I really didn't care what was going to happen next.

I so wanted to enjoy this: it was written by a Canadian and nominated for the Booker Prize. It's possible that I simply wasn't in the right frame of mind to appreciate its complexity and grasp its apparent dark humour. I wish the author and the book well; I just didn't get it.

I finished Study for Obedience a few days ago but, to be honest, I still don’t know how I feel about it. It is beautifully written but the story…

The story is told by an unnamed female narrator/protagonist but, although I wouldn’t call her an untrustworthy narrator, what she provides is a stream of consciousness-like monologue that often raises questions which she never answers. She tells us she is the youngest of too many siblings to count and she has learned to take care of their every need.

Her oldest brother, a successful businessman, asks her to come look after his household after his divorce. He lives in an unnamed northern country where their people had been persecuted and driven out. He proudly explains that his mansion had, in fact, once belonged to the man responsible for this persecution.

Along with her usual duties of cooking and cleaning, she is also expected to bathe and dress him and no doors are to be closed including her bedroom door. Shortly after she arrives, he leaves on a business trip and she spends her time wandering around the countryside. On one such ramble, she finds a ewe tangled in a fence, a dead lamb hanging out of her. But this is not the only weird happening since her arrival. A dog has a phantom pregnancy and a herd of cows go mad and the townsfolk clearly seem to blame her, the outsider, for these occurrences. In an attempt to appease them, she fashions dolls out of reeds and leaves them on doorsteps at night, an action which only make things worse. When her brother returns, their relationship seems to return to normal. However, she believes she sees signs that his health was failing and she plans a regimen of health aids to restore him and, in the process, takes over his life.

This book is the most beautifully written story I have read in a very long time but also one of the oddest. There is little real action or terribly shocking events. Yet, there is a fairy tale kind of feeling of creeping foreboding throughout. There is also a comment on antisemitism as well as misogyny and, perhaps, a warning to perpetrators to be careful not to push victims too far or they might eventually fight back. But I don’t know - I suspect I will have a better understanding after a second read and there will definitely be a second read. In the meantime, I can only say, this is a very unique, very beautiful novel that has been long listed for the Booker prize and, if this sounds like something you will enjoy, you really should check it out for yourself.

I received an arc of this book from Netgalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review

Study for Obedience certainly reads like literary fiction, but I'm not sure why it has been long-listed for the 2023 Booker Prize. For me, it was just okay, at best.

This book is essentially the internal thoughts of the narrator, who has moved north to look after her ailing brother. We are never given the name or age of the narrator, or what ailment her brother suffers from. The language and descriptions the narrator uses seem old-fashioned at times, but then she mentions Twitter and Teams meetings which suggest a more modern setting. Strange things start to happen in the area upon her arrival, and the locals seem to feel she is responsible. There is a strong sense of racial and/or religious prejudice against the narrator.

The narrator seems to have been alone even within her own family - she was the youngest child yet tended all the others - and I often found myself asking why. She continually takes on the blame for things that she could not possibly have caused, which made me feel like she has been abused. I found it disturbing that she bathes and dresses her older brother, and she becomes obsessed with her attempts to rid him of his ailments.

However, it is the long-winded and random meanderings of her thoughts that spoiled the book for me. I understand that if someone is always alone they only have themselves to talk to, and I wanted to have more empathy for the narrator, but I was bored for most of the book and couldn't wait for it to end.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Penguin for allowing me the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book for my honest review.
#NetGalley #StudyforObedience

Canadian author Sarah Bernstein is being lauded for her recent novel, Study for Obedience, which was originally published in the United Kingdom but has now been published in Canada. This short novel is on the longlist for this year’s Booker Prize (with the shortlist to be announced in September), and Bernstein has been recently named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. (She currently lives and teaches in Scotland.) That might be cause for jubilation by the author, but that would ignore the niggling twinge of dissent that has been brewing about Bernstein’s recent work by less advanced readers. The book ranking site Goodreads lists Study for Obedience as a low 3.2 out of five-star rating among those who have read and reviewed the book on the site. (Comparatively, the more populist book Hemlock Island, which is being released in mid-September 2023 and is getting some mixed early reviews from the publishing trade magazines, has a nearly four out of five rating on the site from initial readers.) Goodreads may not be the most scientific way of keeping a finger on the pulse of the hoi polloi, but some people don’t like or get this book. Make no bones about it, Study for Obedience is a difficult read. It is a story — one that is earning comparisons to Shirley Jackson — that is told in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style, with a fair number of run-on sentences and gratuitous repetition of phrases. The book contains the use of $50 and $100 words that will have you racing to the dictionary. There is no dialogue, and none of the characters — including the female narrator — have any names. The only thing merciful about this book for the novice reader is that it is a short read at some 200 pages. Tread carefully, all ye who enter here.

The book earns its comparisons to Jackson in that this is the story of one woman who is pitted against an entire village — which was sort of Jackson’s stock-in-trade way of storytelling since she disapproved of the community she lived in (North Bennington, Vermont). The unnamed protagonist of Study for Obedience comes to a village in a northern community of an unnamed country (but appears to be set somewhere in the United Kingdom) to take care of her brother, whose wife has recently left him. While visiting, the unnamed narrator is believed to be the cause of everything from a potato blight to mass bovine hysteria. This turns the villagers of the community her brother lives in against her. Not helping is the fact that she cannot speak the language and has difficulty learning it. Nevertheless, that’s about the extent of the novel’s plot. The book is faulty in that it just ends. Nothing further happens. We don’t know if the narrator leaves town, if the villagers retaliate more than they do in the book’s reading time, or what happens. This is a work of fiction that probably would benefit from a re-reading. There are details that the reader is bound to miss due to the way the novel’s sentences are constructed — it’s almost like reading poetry at times.

To me, Study for Obedience was, on first blush, a disappointment, a squandered opportunity. It has the makings of a crackling good story — even as much as it apes Shirley Jackson’s conventional story gimmick, we need more of that since Jackson died so tragically young. However, the book goes nowhere fast. I’m not sure what the digressions and wanderings in the narrative are about, and they detract from the general story. Perhaps this book is meant to be a kind of fairy tale? I’m not sure. However, I found the novel to be wanting because it was so challenging. Having said all that, there is merit to the book. I can say that Sarah Bernstein is a smart and capable woman — smarter than me because I don’t have her vocabulary and I also am not sure if I understand the point of the volume. Thus, that’s not meant to be a backhanded compliment. There’s a reason why this book is up for major awards, and that’s because its author is a genius at wordsmithing in unconventional and experimental ways. Someone out there is bound to get something out of this book, which is an obvious given since it has attracted the attention of awards juries. So, I find myself needing to balance or temper my misgivings of the read with the fact that it is a work of value.

As much as I was disappointed by the book for not following a more conventional writing style, I had to be amazed at the fact that this wasn’t a retread of what had come before. It was a little bit of James Joyce mixed in with more contemporary references. The book is set in the here and now, as things such as the Internet and mobile phones are mentioned. That gives the work a contemporary sheen, which you won’t get by simply reading the classics. Speaking of which, I’m not sure how to categorize this work. Is it post-modernism? Or something beyond that? (What are they even teaching now in universities these days, anyhow?) In any event, Study for Obedience is a bit of a mixed bag. The writing style and elegance of the prose are remarkable as much as it might be annoying for some. I suppose, too, there’s something to be said in the book about the power dynamic between the individual and the collective, so I think this read is onto something. (I think.) Still, this isn’t a novel for everyone. You’ll have to figure out for yourself if you’re willing to sit through words you do not know, a narrative that rambles, and prose that is sometimes impenetrable and will have your mind wandering, wondering what the point of a particular section is. At the very least, even if you wind up hating this book, it’s about a two or three-hour read, so even if that’s time you won’t get back, it’s time that might be well wasted if you can parse the point of this baffling and beguiling work of art.

What a complex book! Many important topics included and the plot was tricky. I was in Scotland earlier this year so was interested in the setting of the book. This was a challenging read that left me feeling unsettled but thoughtful. Feels like a cold, rainy day in a place with a stunning view. Sarah Bernstein has a way with words that will leave you thinking long after you are done reading.

Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein is a quirky, lyrical and haunting story which is set in a northern rural community. The unnamed main character moves to her oldest brother's farm and his health is deteriorating. She is accustomed to following rules to a "t" and prefers structure. But in this new region she must learn how to adjust her thinking as she is ostracized and left alone. Odd animal goings on happen, too, to add to the tightish atmosphere.

As an expat the premise intrigues me. Letting go of notions and learning to integrate in ways while keeping the sense of one's self can be challenging. Though not fond of the writing style, I appreciate the story's originality and the lack of a plot and exclusion of the main character name is powerful. The writing is zippy and stark, both beautiful and almost surreal.

Crave something unusual with a bit of an underrated bite? This may be your wheelhouse.

My sincere thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this weirdly wonderful novel.

Sarah Bernstein's "Study for Obedience" is quite a unique novel, a very Kafka and Virginia Woolf at the same time. Oscillating between poignant reality and fable-like unreality, the novel draws the reader into an unnamed northern rural country where people are hostile (at least according to the unnamed narrator) and a lot of animal tragedies are happening.

The unnamed narrator, a woman who grew up in a very patriarchal family, internalizing the rules of obedience without questioning the system, ends up in this country where she does not even speak their language to take care of the eldest brother.

From the beginning of the book, the narrator sets the tone of mystery:

"It was the year the sow eradicated her piglets. It was a swift and menacing time. One of the local dogs was having a phantom pregnancy. Things were leaving one place and showing up in another. It was springtime when I arrived in the country, an east wind blowing, an uncanny wind as it turned out. "

The narrator slowly reveals herself slowly; unlike a conventional self-effacing protagonist who navigates a foreign enigmatic environment, she becomes the centre of the story. She works as a transcriber for a legal firm defending the oil and gas company, feeling herself as just a vehicle and then she had a a "predilection for self-flagellation." The narrator keeps reminding the reader how obedient and full of shortcomings she is.

Unfortunately the story does not provide any clear resolutions but it is strong enough to keep the reader wondering about what is real and what is the creation of this narrator. Is the deterioration of her brother's health simply reflecting the ongoings in this village or the decline of patriarchy which can be a nightmare to our narrator?

Quite a reading experience! Oddly I started to relate myself to the narrator, growing up in a big family where the eldest had more power and in a society where conformity was more important than individuality and moving to Canada with a mindset to follow whatever rules imposed upon me and to be obedient to the system. Of course, it is dangerous to relate yourself to a character while reading a book.

I received this from #Netgalley as a suggested read.

The narrator travels to the northern part of the country (which is not mentioned) to help her brother who recently became estranged from his wife and children.

I can see the inwardness the narrator explains she is considered by others. I can see why a stranger that comes to this remote Christian village is blamed for the unusually occurrences as they treat her as being an outsider. This seems as antisemitism with the way she has been ostracized.

It was very different from what I’ve been reading but I quite enjoyed it!

Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin Random House, for the digital ARC!

Study for Obedience is a beautifully-written novel about a quest for belonging and for the right to simply exist.

It reminded me a lot of the work of Sylvia Plath and Ottessa Moshfegh in terms of writing but also the character-focused story almost devoid of plot (which does fit the point).

I especially enjoyed how the reflection about ostracism through a certain feminist lens was brought throughout the reading. The internal focalization was also very well done.

It is, however, a very sad girl™ novel, and I thought it was dragging a little in the end.