| Title | : | Three |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1564782727 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781564782724 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 143 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1966 |
Three Reviews
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Composed of alternating styles in the form of a diary, recordings, jottings, and near stream of consciousness, Three will likely be very different from anything you have read before. Starting with Joshua Cohen's idiosyncratic introduction, in which he outlines the major conflicts, the love triangle, and overviews the appeal of the interplay of plot and form. The experimental format of the novel proper conveys the interior tensions at play within the central relationships, the cramped emotions of the characters, clustering voices, administrating ablutions, solitary or entwined in subtle psychological tension.
Deliberate ambiguities intrude. Quin is freely dismissive of formal conventions. Her liberated style will appeal to fans of Kavan, Carrington, Emshwiller, and more radical departures from the norm.
Discernible through the exact details are the facets of lives, accumulating into an avalanche of text, interiority sublimating into exteriority. Erratic variations in tone and voice lend it a jazzy, back and forth, improvisational feel. Suggestive onslaughts of narrative are choked off prematurely, leaving the reader aching to grasp at the loose ends. Characters convey ceaseless restless interaction with the environment.
It might put you in mind of W. S. Burroughs' cut-up method, the scattered collage comprising a coherent fictional space. It describes minutely the accrued actions which constitute living. These everyday images make way for impressionistic stylings in due course, with hints of surrealism, pointillism, narrative poetry, composite conglomerate manipulations of form, suffused with a pleasing, compressed dreamlike aura.
A tad like Molly's soliloquy if you ask me. Forms of hysteria are subtly infused into the text, as the main characters sort through the literary remains of the absent secondary narrator. The odd approach of the novel works for its drama and elusive, elegiac quality.
It combines strong evocations of the time and place it is meant to capture, expresses a push toward individuality and explores the loyalty inherent in any romantic relationship. The quibbles and accords of realistic, i. e. flawed, individuals, the recurring ways in which we blame the other person in the relationship for momentary unhappiness, the discomfort and miniature betrayals which result, and a pervasive, repressed passion.
Overall, an intriguing experiment. -
I have just remembered I still have five reviews to write, of which this is the one that has been waiting longest, so I'll keep it short. Ann Quin's second novel is perhaps not as striking as
Berg, but it is still formally innovative and intriguing, not least because S, the enigmatic lodger at the centre of the menage a trois disappears while swimming at sea in a way that uncannily prefigures Quin's own suicide.
The other two characters are a married couple and their parts of the story are set in the aftermath of the disappearance, in an odd mixture of dialogue and third party narration in which the boundaries are never quite clear. S's contributions take the form of notes they found left behind, and are fragmentary and almost poetic in places. A book that would probably reward closer analysis. -
Claustrophobic really does not do justice to the intensely unpleasant atmosphere (images of a Hamster in a cage and of two gold fish in a bowl watched by a cat are entirely appropriate, a rare (and hopeless) image of escape and freedom comes from seeing a train full of commuters rolling their dreary way back and forth, and when the cat manages to get outside it returns with it's ear chewed; enclosure is not life, exposure is death!) that Quin succeeds in creating in this little book which I stress does not increase the sum of human happiness. Caveat lector: if you are looking for cheering or encouraging literature, look elsewhere. It was the kind of book that I was glad to finish, but then my mood was not particularly cheerful when reading - April is the cruellest month as the poet wrote forgetting that an earlier poet told us that when the sweet showers of April pierce the drought of March it is the time to go on pilgrimage the holy blessed martyr for to seek, which only goes to show that Plato was right to ban poets from his ideal republic, plainly they are unreliable sorts.
A young woman has been living with a married couple, early in the novel we learn that the young woman has been found dead, whether a case of murder or suicide or indeed if in this case there might be any difference between the two is not clear, nor is this the point of the story, it happens to foreshadow the fate of the author and perhaps that is relevant.
The young woman's death allows the couple to go through her belongings, read her diary, and to listen to audio recordings that she made; the two also watch little films that the three made together, mostly of the three performing little mime plays that they created together - this put me in mind of the film within a film in
Le Melpris, though as it happens a bit of the film features the young woman emerging naked from the sea resemblance or otherwise to Brigitte Bardo is not mentioned, mind you a mention of fishermen pulling in their catch reminded me of the ending of
La Dolce Vita , not that the English setting of the novel is redolent of Italian shores, but there is for me something similar in the atmosphere of those films and this book
Still a better approach to explaining this novel is to share with you Andrei Rublev's
film, which like the film Rocky is mostly about making a film (or creativity in general) .
The novel consists of some descriptions of the home movies, transcriptions of the audio tapes, sections of the diary and dense sections of prose in which the couple interact with each other or do things separately. We see that as in Andrei Rublev's picture they were and are all watching each other. It appears though that the motivation may have been in part sexual, and or an attempt by the young woman to recreate her childhood dynamic with her parents. The young woman went to a Catholic convent school which in an argument for ending religious schools seems to have left her sexually transfixed by the idea of the Trinity. But as she was obsessed by the couple they, witness their eager reading of her diaries and listening to her recordings, were obsessed by her.
Possibly this is the kind of book that would repay a second reading. The style for me was more impressive than the content, I felt for a more successful sexual Trinitarian obsession you really need a same sex set up, possibly that is incestuous in nature, while here we have god the husband, god the wife and god the holy lodger.
Trigger warning for this book include: Alcohol, alcohol, marital rape, alcohol, being assaulted by people painted to look like statues, wanton abuse of orchids, alcohol, and a cat being kept indoors. -
Three displays a growth in complexity of both form and theme from Quin's first published novel
Berg, while also laying the stylistic groundwork for her third novel
Passages. Here, a middle-aged married couple, Ruth and Leonard, reflect on their relationship with a woman S who came to live with them after having worked briefly for Leonard, a translator, and has since died, perhaps a suicide, perhaps not. S has had a deep effect on both the couple as a unit and as individuals. In order to illustrate this, Quin takes the formal inventiveness of Berg up a notch, joining third person narrative that melds dialogue and description into single paragraphs with audiotape transcriptions and journal entries from the three characters.
The present narrative of the couple Ruth and Leonard anchors the text, allowing for multiple digressions via the couple's tandem and individual investigations into the documents S has left behind. Instead of burning off the mist of this mystery, though, these documents only thicken it further, offering up only vague hints in the staccato poetic prose employed by S in her audiotapes and her more straightforward, though no more revealing, journal entries. At the same time, diary entries written by Ruth and an audiorecording made by Leonard, happened upon and read/listened to without the other's knowledge, illuminate the couple's deepening divide, which lies hidden beneath the banal cloak of their constant day-to-day chatter. At the heart of this rift is a knot of sexual tension that Leonard persistently seeks to untie even as Ruth is pulling the ends tighter. Their individual surrogates—Ruth's cat and Leonard's orchids—each repel the other person, as if the two, perhaps subconsciously, each resent the beneficiary of the other's repressed passion. However, throughout the book, it is the ghostly presence of S that most loudly signals the couple's utter failure to meet on mutually pleasing sexual terms. Union with S could have been the culmination of a fantasy for both of them, or perhaps S may have just shown them what was possible when lives commingle to the point of full immersion. She herself clearly felt drawn to both of them in different ways, and seemed to struggle with how to cross their boundaries, both collective and individual, in order to fulfill her own desires, some of which are alluded to in her recordings and journals. The bisexual theme is clear, and in interviews Quin alluded to her own bisexual feelings, as well as her belief that all people are inherently bisexual. She also spoke of her fantasy of being with both another woman and a man. So these themes she explores in Three were certainly of personal significance to her.
While I found it a bit slow to get into, the book grew steadily more intriguing and I found myself wanting to reread parts of it in order to confirm suspicions or remind myself of prior allusions. As with Passages, it merits a complete reread in order to fully move through the text and capture all the signal markers. There are many secondary plot points I don't touch on above. For example, there are certain scenes that crop up more than once in the various forms of recollection Quin uses. In one scene in particular, Leonard is attacked by a menacing group of men while he, Ruth, and S are performing one of their mime plays (another point of interest) in the back yard. These men and other trespassers reappear at different times as revelers in the yard and on the beach, at one point trying to attract S's attention when she is out rowing. There is also the question of S's suicide and if that is really what happened to her. Quin has strewn hints and possible red herrings throughout, taking readers to the brink of what I found to be a very satisfactory conclusion. -
Peş peşe 4 roman yazdıktan sonra henüz 37 yaşında hayatına son veren İngiliz yazar Ann Quin’le epeydir tanışmak istiyordum. ‘Üç’, Everest’ten yayımlandığında çok heyecanlanmıştım ama sonbahara yetişmedi kitap tabii. Hızlıca ‘Berg’ de yayımlanınca haliyle ‘Üç’ü öne çektim.
Ann Quin’le tanışma kitabım olan ‘Üç’ yer yer beni heyecanlandırsa da beklediğim kadar sarsmadı. Romanın karanlık tarafını çok sevdim. Samanta Schweblin’in ‘Kurtarma Mesafesi’ kadar okuyucuyu diken üstünde tutmasa da yazar heyecanlandırmayı başarıyor. Kafanızda bir şablon oluşuyor, yazar da farkında bunun. Derhal onu yıkmak için objektifi başka bir yere çeviriyor.
Yazım kurallarına biat etmeyişi, dilinin standart okuyucu için biraz deneysel kaçması, biçim bazında muğlaklığı bile isteye seçmesi ve özellikle ‘Ben böyle uygun gördüm’ gibi bir tavır içinde olarak varlığını hatırlatması gibi detayları sevmedim.
Evli bir çiftin evinde yaşamaya başlayan S adlı kadın karakterimizin başına gelenler ve çiftimizin ruh halleri merkezimizde. Bana birilerini fena halde android olan o çift gerçekten muazzam ete kemiğe büründü. Yazarın karakter yaratma becerisi bence gayet başarılıydı. Fakat S’nin dünyasına dahil olduğumuz kısımlardaki deneysellik beni metinden epey koparttı.
Genel hatlarıyla fena bir tat kalmadı aslında kitaptan geriye. Ama çok da değmedi, değemedi tabii. -
“A change was admittedly known. But recognised only by myself. For others the pattern is set which they refuse to alter. Soon one believes that is oneself and the change settles into corners. Roused only in moments say by stimuli or objects. Smell. Sound. That remind. Then the image topples. But still no one notices. Least of all those living the most close to you. Least of all ... Then there's subterfuge and one goes on automatically complying being doing. For that is the easiest way. Besides one soon forgets. Habits take over, the pain becomes an object looked at from a distance.”
This book was such a unique experience and one I am looking forward to digging deeper with a reread sometime relatively soon but for now I’ll give some initial thought and try to not get into too many rabbit trails.
Ann Quin was put on my radar thanks to the wonderful literate @luis.panini whom I have discovered late last year and since become obsessed with scanning his book posts (talk about rabbit trails)!
When I looked up Ann Quin I knew immediately she was the kind of author I was looking for during this time of my literature journey… yet she remains this dark enigma in my mind even more so after finishing this book. The little bit I’ve read up on regarding her life story seems to be this mysterious and peculiar shadow that casts even more intrigue with me.
Because you can literally look up the synopsis of this book on goodreads in the flash of lightning I will spare you this.
The first half of the book I was really enjoying the “flow” in which she writes… much of which really gives this cantabile like trance when read out loud. The structure of her writing changes and quite abruptly at that too. Commas and periods are missing and instead you must use the inflection of your own voice to help carry you through. But it’s this exact kind of flavoring that I adored so much in her writing. Is it a script? Is it poetry? Where is the dialogue? The way in which she shifts moods and scenery is like seeing color for the first time.
By the end of this book I was left wondering so much. But like a good piece of art it’s that sense of unspoken or mysterious theme that leaves you breathless and inspired.
There is so much to be discussed regarding the title of this book - the introduction at the beginning by Joshua Cohen quotes Aristotle regarding the origins of trinary logic that I think encapsulates the theme so perfectly: “It is necessary for there to be or not be a sea-battle tomorrow; but it is necessary for a sea-battle to take place tomorrow, nor for one nor to take place - though it is necessary for one to take place or not to take place.” -
A middle-aged couple from the late 1960s, Leonard and Ruth, husband and wife, mull over their literally and figuratively sterile marriage after the apparent suicide of a recent house guest, a young woman, who also served as the couple’s emotional cipher, upon whom they privately projected their fantasies of a contemporary woman, alone and single, and what that might mean. It also reminds them of the child they’ve never had and the reasons for that.
S, as the house guest is referred to, left behind written and audio diaries, as well as some film footage, all done during her time with the couple. Separately and together Leonard and Ruth look through these documents, ostensibly to find clues to why S might have committed suicide. After a while, it becomes apparent to readers that they are trying to see how each of them was seen and understood by her, and if hints of infidelity (with S or others) could be found.
While S’s record remains ambiguous on the latter point, it roils within Leonard and Ruth the long pent-up resentments they have for each other. The resolution to those marital ills perhaps hints at why S might have committed suicide. An update perhaps, if any were needed, of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.
For more of my reviews, please see
https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/... -
A very strong 4.5/5 - didn't pack the same punch as Berg.
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Started off being indifferent to this and put off by how difficult and dense it is for such a short book, but as I went on and adjusted to the way it's written I found myself really really moved and in love with it! This is probably the only Ann Quin book that's ever struck an emotional chord with me, probably because it's the one with the most focus on a coherent linear narrative. The core of it is about a middle-aged married couple who lost their passion decades ago—Ruth, who's repulsed by intimacy and cold to her husband even though she's secretly very lonely, and Leonard, who is frustrated that his wife lost interest in their relationship and craves more excitement in his life. Half of the book is blocks of text filled with unpunctuated, unattributed dialogue, the other half is made up of flashbacks in the form of tapes, films, and diaries left by a younger woman referred to only as S, who stayed with them last summer and who they've just found out recently drowned in a possible suicide. Dialogue is mixed in with action, perspective changes without being announced, and the form abruptly shifts between Leonard and Ruth's (comparatively) straightforward exchanges in the present and S's impressionistic, fragmented diaries and records in the past. Super challenging but ultimately such an incredible, rewarding read that I can see myself returning to over and over again and discovering new details that eluded me on this first read. Without a doubt my new favorite by Ann (and I've now read all her books! wahoo)
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A deeply claustrophobic, compelling novel about obsession and a triangular relationship that collapses following the death of one of the three. The narrative voice moves like a spool of magnetic tape, now his now hers now the other's, which makes the experience of reading seem strangely voyeuristic and puzzling - the tape is glitched, voices overlap each other, it's not easy to tell who is being plaintive now and who amusing. Parts of the novel are visual, again like a home movie or a silent film textured by flashes of light and scratches.
Original and complex in which reading becomes a vaguely sullying experience, as though we had chanced upon the notebooks, or private diaries of some unhappy person. -
a fascinating but subtly disappointing book, ann quin’s THREE is a formally radical novel. arguably more daring in form than her contemporary
b. s. johnson--with whom she’s often lumped partly because they committed suicide in the same year--she’s here also more cagey and unfortunately more predictable.
the style innovations are daring. the book consists of several modes: a line-breaking poem-like stream of consciousness; a fast-cutting, alternating POV style that reminded me of donald breckenridge’s
6/2/95; and, reminiscent of both sarraute and gaddis, a skillful use of dialogue alone to reveal character.
and yet this book, which focuses on the bizarre love triangle of one airless bourgeois marriage and an interloping free-spirit femme fatale, somehow rang hollow. maybe because it was unclear how much of it was a critique of the malaise of middle-class marriage and how much of it was a self-pitying confessional narrative from that state. or: somehow it’s central content–which did seem central, not auxiliary–crippled the serious play of its language games. so i was left with a dull feeling, a disappointment at unfulfilled potential.
course i could be wrong. and the destabilized, unreliable narrative and narrators might have hidden reward which alluded me. plan to try her BERG soon down the line. despite what disappointed–another review called its style a “muted lyricism”–it’s definitely worth checking out.
a good overview of her work.
and, from an interview quoted
here:
“Form interests me, and the merging of content and form. I want to get away from the traditional form. . . . I write straight onto my typewriter, one thousand words an hour but half will in the end be cut out. When I write the first creating parts of my book I can go on for three hours without a stop. When revising I can work up to seven hours, with breaks.” -
Sharp as a blade . A fragmented collage of dialogue , tapes , diary entries if a young woman ,S, as a couple ( L and R) seek to make sense of her death , who stayed with them as a boarder for a period prior to her death . All three are lonely and unhappy but only S seems able to delve into herself with freedom and compassion and explore her own grief . L and R circle about each other in a ritualised dance of concealment , need and rejection from which neither can escape except into lust and obsessions (L) or narcissism or illness (R) A change of place does nothing to change the dynamic . What came across most powerfully for me was the way the couple were imprisoned by their need not to see or to confront their losses ,their lack of communication forming a cage , both preferred captivity to vulnerability , despite its obvious limits .
This confinement is made concrete in the boundaries of their summer house , the private beach and the unruly masses beyond which constantly threaten to breach the walls . S is " one of them " but has to be cast as an exception as she lives within their walls belonging / not belonging and it's this liminal space that S inhabits that allows her to see the sham of middle-class life and it's shallow manners that serve to maintain distance and isolation. S decides to disappear in a boat in the ocean , the ultimate open space . -
The diaries, photos and film reels of a young woman who has committed suicide and left the couple who she was lodging with looking for answers and exposing the tensions in their marriage and the triangle of relationships suggested by the title. When the diary entries are fragmented, they are at their most interesting, being highly lyrical, chockfull of symbolism and pregnant with meaning. When the entries are more full narratives of the three of them together on the beach or around the house, they are less interesting. The sections of the married couple together are also more conventional and though the bitterness and frustration reeks in these sections, it's not really something you haven't read or seen many times before. Reminded me of a Harold Pinter play in its understated violence.
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DNF. I read the blurb and was attracted to the premise but failed to read the part where the book is described as “experimental”. This is a dense and difficult read - maybe it’s brilliant, but I read for pleasure and I was finding none so I didn’t continue to find out.
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Kind of opposite pointillism, abstract from afar then becomes more real the further in you go.
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I just couldn’t get into the rhythms of Quin’s sentences or her mind
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Reminiscent of Krapp's Last Tape, added this one to my 2018 reading highlight reel. Another grossly underread author.
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Read this for a second time for my assignment, and it hit me. This is truly amazing, no exaggeration. The first time I read, I was just reading words, not absorbing anything. 30 pages in, I realised I may choose this for my assignment; I restarted and focused properly. The book doesn’t use grammar and is told through multi-perspective and employs diary entries and tape recordings. I found the mysterious lodger S fascinating. Currently writing my essay on it and getting goosebumps. I was so intimidated by this novel, but it just happened to become one of my favourites!
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This book was first published in 1969 and is being republished in 2020 by one of my favourite publishers - 'and other stories'. And what a wonderful book it is!!
I thought I knew quite a bit about British novelists of this period. But I have never heard of Ann Quin.
This book takes a while to get used to with the unusual sentence structure and narration style. The author was part of the experimental movement led by B S Johnson. She sounds like a very interesting person and is said to have ghost-written the thesis of her then-partner, pop artist - Billy Apple. But, who knows?
The story is based around three characters - a married couple and their boarder. The characters seem real and complex, though not massively likeable. The writing style is 'stream of consciousness', with the chapters alternating in style - some prose, some poetry, and some diary entries.
I really enjoyed this book. Gave it 5 stars.
I had a look around and found a copy of "Berg" by the same author on the shelf - will have a read of that soon.
Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for sending me this ARC. These opinions are my own. -
Tough. Did like. I know I'd get much more upon a second read. Pon de reread.
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A startling poetic masterpiece that is both beautiful and unsettling. The married couple tries to make sense of a woman who has disappeared, scavenging through her tapes and artifacts. But there are only more riddles. And with these riddles, you get this stunning experimental novel from the great Ann Quin, who died needlessly young at 37. I've greatly enjoyed my ride through Ann Quin's four novels and was so grateful to And Other Stories for publishing all this that I have subscribed to one year of books. This indie publisher is clearly doing the non-secular universal force's work.
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Theres so much packed into these 150 pages. Lots to uncover here. The three characters live in their own isolated world, act out as mimes, and try to understand each other, but none of them can really reach each other, despite the journal entries, audio tapes, and unattributed dialouge they leave lying around. Not the easiest book to parse but something that is worth reading, at least three times.
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the capital E experimental elements can be a bit grating at times but the collage work supposedly gets better by the time Quin writes Tripticks. this was probably a bit of a shock to middle class readers of novels that work in the realm of pedantic bourgeois good behaviour (the end is still a bit of a shock by today's standards), and for that its worthwhile to rescue poor Ann from the dustbins of literary history. Dalkey Archive really has been doing god's work re: publishing
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This book grew on me so much that I began re-reading it immediately. Several reviewers have said that they think the book would merit a second reading. I am finding that I am seeing what I read now in a different light.
Some of the early extracts from S are difficult to follow and I even found myself skipping over them. Later the writing about S becomes more straightforward and I found this much more engaging. -
No.
And the introduction? No raised to the power of three.
The formal innovation is populated by a triumvirate of tedious characters, circumstances, and action. All of it dares you to call it what it is, to become the unwelcome third. -
well written but disappointing
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5 for 3
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A magic number. And a book.
