Amatka

It took me a while to get into but once finished this mind-bender left a powerful imprint on my brain! I find it a bit tricky to really explain my feelings about this book except I wanted to give it five stars, it may not be for everyone, and that I look forward to Karin Tidbeck’s next novel. Proper science-fiction!

I'm always looking for sci-fi or (low) fantasy stories PLUS a good writing style. This book was interesting and good to read, although it's not one of my favourites. I like the originality fo the story, but the character's didn't quite touch my heart as I've experienced it with other authors/books before. Still, it's a good read. (Note on the side: my boyfriend didn't enjoy the book as much, I think he'd give it 2 or 3 stars...)

This book is really weird and I loved it.

The kind of book where I had no idea what I'd be rating it until the very end. It's completely readable and thought provoking, but with a story like this, so much depends on how it all comes together.Amatka takes place in a mysterious future world where the very fabric of reality is constantly at risk of being destroyed. The inhabits of the four colonies that make up this world are taught from an early age that they must consistently "mark" objects in order to keep them rooted in reality. They do this by observing the space around them and repeating the names of everything in sight, thereby allowing the objects to retain their shape and function.In a precarious world such as this one that the inhabits still don't fully understand, it becomes necessary to enforce strict rules to maintain order.But what if there's a better and freer way to live? That's the question that Vanja begins to ask herself, as she learns more about the mysterious history of Amatka, one of the four colonies.It's a fascinating premise, and for most of the book there was just the right amount of obscurity to keep me needing to know more. The problem I had was that ultimately the payoff wasn't enough. I'm more than okay with ambiguity in novels—often I even prefer it to a clean resolution—but I needs more than what Amatka delivered.It's always hard for me to avoid comparing books like this to Jesse Ball's novels. In my opinion, Ball seems to strike that perfect balance where he maintains the obscurity and wonder while still offering a fully satisfying story. It's hard to pull that off. Amatka has a brilliant concept, but the execution left me feeling underwhelmed.

** spoiler alert ** "Dissent is not tolerated in Amatka,nor is romantic love": Nina and Vanja sleep in the same bed with their backs to each other."Vanja is drawn into the resistance movement": She discusses things with the librarian."....promises the liberation at a cost of tearing the world apart": Last 5 pages.I thought we'd see the clouds stop in the sky. Psychotic individuals conjuring abominations.Instead we get suitcases and pencils that turn to "goo".A door that opened inward.....opens outward.It takes Vanja 1hr and 30mins to "make" a key.Berol's Anna is ready and waiting.Biggest problem with the book is there's no real payoff and I desperately wanted Vanja to yell, "EARTHQUAKE!!!!!"(less)

No Spoilers...I genuinely enjoyed this book. It has a very Kafka-risqué feel to it, in that the book starts with an interesting premise and sees where that will go. I want to discuss this in more detail with other readers as I’m not entirely sure what allegorical significance I should attach to this, but it seems primed for exactly that type of analysis.This does a very good job of being heady without feeling pretentious, and the story is just involved enough to make me keep turning the page. The book is very well written, and paced similarly to “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.”THE GOOD:The characters are interesting and well written. The world crafting is just enough to paint the world for me without getting lost in describing every last architectural detail. The story is compelling and the mystery is expertly unraveled without simply telling me what the mystery is.THE BAD:The Heroine felt fairly one-dimensional, she seemed to gradually become something more than she was at the beginning, but only just barely. Some of the other characters are introduced and resolved so quickly that they don’t have time for me to become invested in them, but I prefer that over having to slog through every detail of their lives as some other authors require. And I feel like the mystery could have been better explained, though doing so might have rendered it less flexible for interpretation — and I think that’s the real purpose of this book, to make me want to spend some time afterward thinking about how to interpret its meaning.Overall, it’s a quick read, it is thought provoking, and a fun bit of escapism.

In Amatka, we follow Vajra, sent from another colony to write reports on hygienic habits of the citizens, who lead a bare existence. Tidbeck offers up a spare style to present a world that is barely existant--even the objects need to be reminded of their identities or devolve into a sludge. There is a lot to this book about identity and language, the fluidity of existence and the shells we put ourselves in, though overall I found the progress a little too withholding, the truth of the matter almost frustratingly just beyond the periphery. Tidbeck does bring some things together by the end, though I still come out more impressed by the ideas behind it than the experience of the book itself.

Everything is fine until the last 10 pages, then it falls apart completely. Plot points are dropped, the resolution of the points that resolve happens while the main character is asleep and aren't explained, characters with interesting potential are conveniently abandoned. This reads like a classic example of an author with a deadline and no idea how to wrap things up.

I enjoyed Amatka. It starts out as good creepy dystopian sci fi and then adds a layer of surreal horror. It's full of interesting ideas about the power of language and in some ways this is a dystopia that I'd want to live in, where everything is labeled and has sensible, logical names. It was an easy place to visualize in the first half the book, and I enjoyed the protagonist's work reports early in the novel for their clarity and conciseness. The novel is extremely well paced and wastes no time with long winded descriptions or flowery prose. The tradeoff is that I didn't get the the traditional satisfaction of character arcs or world building details paying off. Another review I read of this book described the author as being good at "world unmaking" as opposed to world building, which I thought was a good way to put it.

People often conflate pity with sympathy. Both words may refer, superficially, to a feeling of compassion for another’s misfortune; contextually, they can have radically different uses. Sympathy more often carries with it some notion of equity – it asks that compassion be born of justness, that understanding is earned because it is shared. Conversely, pity holds a note of condescension from the pitying, and a certain amount of solicitousness on the part of the pitied. Sympathy is meant to strengthen bonds between people; pity makes a spectacle of suffering and consolation, dividing us into spectators and subjects, widening the gap.The cardinal sin of Amatka is that it makes its protagonist, Vanja, far more pitiable than sympathetic. The novel practically sobs her into existence. It is one thing to make a character an introvert, and quite another to bludgeon the reader with her reticence, to exhibit her meekness as a demand for empathy. But that is exactly what Karin Tidbeck does here.The world of the novel is an interesting one, a place where language literally has the power to shape reality, so much so that things must be named repeatedly, or they will lose their shape and turn into a pile of noxious goo. As a result, the authorities exhibit an undue amount of control over the behavior of, and by extension the thoughts of, the citizens they police.I am usually fully on board for stories where systemic oppression is addressed, but in this case the “evil system” and “innocent victim” are codified in such absolute, unsubtle terms that it comes off as a jaundiced, writerly construction rather than a lived-in world. And lest you think I am mistaken in my estimation of how Vanja and this novel are meant to be read, the ending literally valorizes the woeful fawning of its hero, spelling it out in no uncertain terms. It is one thing to nudge a reader’s sympathies, and quite another to push them over a cliff.

This short story was amazing. I read it as part of my book club, and it inspired really excellent conversation about the power of creation and the fear of change. What does it do to people when their willpower is the only thing keeping them alive in an alien environment? Fascinating!The writing quality is excellent. It’s one of those lovely pieces whose writing is so well-crafted that it becomes invisible. I will definitely be reading more by this author!

Historically, science fiction has mostly been identified with the United States and Great Britain. That's not to say, however, that talented authors from many other countries, writing in languages other than English, haven't made their mark in the genre. Science fiction novels, some of them outstanding, have come from Russia, China, and other countries as far-flung as Brazil, Czechoslovakia, and Iceland. Now Swedish writer Karin Tidbeck, previously known for her well-received collection of short stories, offers her first novel, Amatka.From the outset, it's clear that Amatka is a science fiction novel of a very different sort. Anyone who accepts a literal definition of science fiction—stories that are possible given what we know about science—will consider this novel fantasy, not science fiction. At best, it's very strange science fiction. Its premise clearly rests somewhere outside the bounds of possibility.On an unnamed world somewhere far away, four small colonies of humans struggle to survive. Their surroundings are inhospitable. Featureless tundra extends in all directions. Ostensibly in order to ensure their communities' survival, the colonies are governed by rigid bureaucrats who have made rules for virtually every aspect of life. Most of the buildings and almost everything else, from pencils to suitcases to furniture, are constructed out of a viscous, mud-like substance mined from the surface of the planet. And everything made of this mysterious stuff will hold its shape only if those who use it continuously remind each object of its purpose. They paint labels on every item ("door," "building," "bed") and chant the word on its label to assure the object's stability. If they don't do so frequently enough, seemingly solid and stable items simply liquefy into goo that spreads across every surface and destroys anything else within its reach. And the bureaucrats have layered over this reality with new requirements of their own. For instance, here's what Vanja learns in the community's library: "One couldn't name a book anything other than BOOK, or start the title with anything other than 'About . . .' Naming an object something else, even accidentally, was forbidden."Not literally science fiction, is it? Or, as I've noted, at the very least strange science fiction.Amatka is a short novel—a novella, really. In just 170 pages, Tidbeck tells the story of a woman named Brillars' Vanja Essre Two, known as Vanja. Vanja is sent from her home colony of Essre by train (train???) to Amatka, where she is to investigate the potential for factories at home to produce hygiene products such as soap and shampoo that might be sold in Amatka. Her job is to interview prospective customers and report back to her boss in Essre. But Vanja soon begins to learn that all is not as it appears in Amatka. And she falls in love with the woman who is hosting her. Between the love affair and her increasing understanding of the truth about the colony, Vanja resigns from her job in Essre, committing herself to stay in Amatka. There, she plays a central role in the unfolding events that lead to the novel's shattering conclusion.In its strangeness, Amatka fits snugly into a new sub-genre that has emerged in science fiction in recent years. I've previously reviewed three such books by China Mieville (The City and the City), Jeff Vandermeer (Authority), and Ann Leckie (Ancillary Justice). I enjoyed none of them.

When I was looking for a new sci-fi book, I read that Amatka was based entirely on language, that was enough for me and I dived right in. The book didn’t disappoint on the world-building side, with a distinct dystopia with very specific rules that one learns more and more about with each chapter. The end however left me wanting more with too many questions left unanswered. Still, a relatively quick read with an interesting concept for those interested.

I don't think I can put into words how this book seemed to haunt me while I was reading it. I absolutely devoured the story. My mind is already itching to reread it. It's not an easy plot to explain to someone without feeling like I'm ruining something but also just not easy to describe.

The book was odd, and the ending was more surrealism then I like in a book. However, I enjoyed reading the book greatly and couldn’t stop reading it. I hadn’t read dystopian outside of YA before and it was an interesting read. It gave us a lot to talk about at book club.