Soul Catcher

An author and book that I have never heard of. This could well be because this is Bortnikov’s first book to be translated into English. His first novel, The Fritz Syndrome, was a finalist for the Russian Booker Prize (and is referenced in this book which has an autobiographical element to it) and he has written several other books first in Russian but then switching to French with Furioso. Soul Catcher is his first full length novel in French (original title Repas de Morts - Meal of the Dead), now translated into English by Svetlana Pironko working in collaboration with the author.

What drew me in to this book was the description I read on NetGalley. When a book is described like this…

<i>”Vivid dreamlike images, and the depth of the author’s own thoughts and lucid observations, are conjured up by Bortnikov’s unique rhythmic, syncopated language that is truly his own, intense and mesmerising. The result is a daring, powerful novel like no other, which captivates readers with the power of his writing and stays with them long after reading."</i>

…then I am always going to want to read it.

A word of warning, though. You have to get past the first page, and my immediate reaction to that page was to regret downloading the book and hope my wife didn’t ask me what I was reading.

The good news is, though, that after that first page things settle down a bit. I am using the phrase “settle down” in a very loose sense. What is most noticeable about this book is the writing style which is very impressionistic, often apparently random and, therefore, difficult to parse and make sense of. It is one of those books where it is best to go with the flow and allow impressions to build rather than trying to piece together details for a coherent whole to emerge. 

I think, although I am not 100% sure, that Bortnikov is attempting to write in a way that captures how we think and this means the prose has a dreamlike, surreal quality as it skips from topic to topic often with incomplete sentences or with thoughts scattered across several broken sentences. I imagine it like this: you know how when you are writing stuff down your mind sometimes wanders and you find you have stopped writing so you have to re-focus and start writing again, well, Bortnikov doesn’t stop writing. And what he writes isn’t organised into proper sentences and structures: it’s what he thought.

Soul Catcher presents us with a “revenants’ ball” (the narrator’s phrase that I am guessing is the translation of “repas de morts” and which might have made a good alternative title for the book) in which our narrator, Dim, recalls his dead loved ones. Mixed in with his talk of his parents, grandparents and children is talk of many of his actions, but everything is jumbled together. There is a hint towards the end that it is all him grieving over one particular death/loss, but that’s something for each reader to determine for themselves.

I would have to think carefully before I recommended this book to a friend. Nearly all my friends have different tastes in books to me and whilst I like a book that leaves me floundering, that is not to everyone’s taste. And not everyone enjoys a book with such a focus on death and loss.

That said, the writing here is what stays with you when you read it. In a sense, the narrative is playing second fiddle to the power of the prose which is unlike anything I’ve read before and which is what generates the star rating here.