standing heavy // gauz'
first published: 2014 read: 05 june 2025 - 18 june 2025 pages: 167 format: paperback [ARC]
genres: fiction; adult; contemporary; literary fiction; satire favourite character(s): none least favourite character(s): also none first line(s): "the black men mountain the narrow staircase look like climbers roped together for an assault on K2, the most fearsome peak in the Himalayas." *subject to change
rating: đđđđđ thoughts: i gave standing heavy a second chance after not progressing past chapter one a few years back, and i wish i hadn't. despite how short this was, it was a slog to get through. i hated how the book was structured, split equally between chapters of plot and chapters full of observational comedic snippets. for me, neither half worked particularly well, but i would much rather have had the observational chapters removed entirely.
looking at the chapters that contained plot, they weren't written in my type of style. it was quite disjointed and all over the place. i had a hard time keeping up with the different characters and remembering who everyone was, and pretty quickly i gave up trying. the one chapter that was set in the wake of 9/11 was actually quite good. but the rest, i could take it or leave it (probably leave it).
and as for the observational chapters, i found them so irritating. what started out as mildly amusing got real tired, real fast. they are basically full length chapters made up of random things a security guard witnesses during his day. each observation comes with a title and anywhere from a one or two sentences to an entire paragraph of said observation. they are supposed to be funny and smart. for the most part, they aren't. some of them unironically give 'we live in a society'. it was honestly a bit awkward with how hard the author was trying to be super clever with his writing here. most of the time these chapters dragged on for far too long, and because they were interspersed between the plot chapters, they made the plot harder to follow. the book would've been underwhelming without these chapters, but with these the book easily tipped into ughhhh territory.
i am a bit annoyed i wasted my time with standing heavy. i don't know who this is for and i feel it's another example of how the (international) booker prize and i don't quite get on (see also: girl, woman, other, the sellout, never let me go, at night all blood is black...). i don't know who would like this. maybe i just don't get it. but as it stands this is my lowest rated book of 2025 so far (that i've finished), so i'll leave it at that.
ps. this has obviously been out for some time but the version i read was a physical ARC given to me before the english translation was released!
