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Mona
From the critically acclaimed author of Savage Theories and Dark Constellations comes Pola Oloixarac's Mona, where success as a writer of color proves to be a fresh hell for a young Latin American woman abroad.
Mona, a Peruvian writer based in California, presents a tough and sardonic exterior. She likes drugs and cigarettes, and when she learns that she's something of an anthropological curiosity herself--a "woman writer of color" treasured in her university for the flourish of rarefied diversity she brings--she pokes fun at American academic culture and its fixation on identity.
When she is unexpectedly nominated for "the most important literary award in Europe," Mona sees a chance to escape her spiral of sunlit substance abuse and erotic distractions, and so she trades the temptations of California for small, gray village in Sweden close to the Artic. Now she's stuck in the company of all her jetlagged--and mostly male--competitors, arriving from Japan, France, Armenia, Iran, Colombia. Isolated as they are, the writers do what writers do: exchange compliments, nurse envy and private resentments, stab rivals in the back, and hop in bed together--and all the while, Mona keeps stumbling across the mysterious traces of a violence she cannot explain.
As her adventures in Scandinavia unfold, Mona finds that she has not so much escaped her demons as locked herself up with them in the middle of nowhere. In Mona, Pola Oloixarac paints a hypnotic, scabrous and finally jaw-dropping portrait of a woman facing a hipster elite in which she both does and does not belong. A survivor of both patronization and bizarre sexual encounters, Mona is a new kind of feminist. But her past won't stay past, and strange forces are working to deliver her to the test of a lifetime.
Mona, a Peruvian writer based in California, presents a tough and sardonic exterior. She likes drugs and cigarettes, and when she learns that she's something of an anthropological curiosity herself--a "woman writer of color" treasured in her university for the flourish of rarefied diversity she brings--she pokes fun at American academic culture and its fixation on identity.
When she is unexpectedly nominated for "the most important literary award in Europe," Mona sees a chance to escape her spiral of sunlit substance abuse and erotic distractions, and so she trades the temptations of California for small, gray village in Sweden close to the Artic. Now she's stuck in the company of all her jetlagged--and mostly male--competitors, arriving from Japan, France, Armenia, Iran, Colombia. Isolated as they are, the writers do what writers do: exchange compliments, nurse envy and private resentments, stab rivals in the back, and hop in bed together--and all the while, Mona keeps stumbling across the mysterious traces of a violence she cannot explain.
As her adventures in Scandinavia unfold, Mona finds that she has not so much escaped her demons as locked herself up with them in the middle of nowhere. In Mona, Pola Oloixarac paints a hypnotic, scabrous and finally jaw-dropping portrait of a woman facing a hipster elite in which she both does and does not belong. A survivor of both patronization and bizarre sexual encounters, Mona is a new kind of feminist. But her past won't stay past, and strange forces are working to deliver her to the test of a lifetime.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2019
About the author
Pola Oloixarac
17 books336 followersPola Oloixarac (Buenos Aires, 13 de septiembre de 1977) es una escritora y traductora argentina. Estudió Filosofía en la Universidad de Buenos Aires y ha publicado artículos sobre arte y tecnología en medios como The Telegraph, The New York Times International, Folha de Sao Paulo, Página 12, Revista Quimera, Etiqueta Negra, Qué Leer, Revista Alfa, América Economía y Brando.
Su primera novela es Las teorías salvajes (Entropía, 2008; Alpha Decay 2010; Estruendomudo, 2010), próximamente en traducción al inglés (Jonathan Cape), francés (Editions du Seuil), holandés (Meulenhoff), finlandés (Sammakko), italiano (Baldini Castoldi Dalai), y portugués (en Brasil, Saraiva; en Portugal, Quetzal). En el 2010 fue seleccionada entre Los mejores narradores en español por la Revista Granta (Best of Young Spanish Novelists, Granta 113 UK). En el año 2010 participó en el International Writers Program de la Universidad de Iowa gracias a una beca del Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US State Department. En el 2010 recibió la Beca Nacional de Letras del Fondo Nacional de las Artes de Argentina. Publicó cuentos en antologías en Suiza y Argentina, como Acerca de la comunidad de hipotálamos y el código Morse en la antología Literatura Fantástica Argentina (Ed. Pagina 12, 2004) y Die Nacht des Kometen. Argentinische Autorinnen der Gegenwart.
Su primera novela es Las teorías salvajes (Entropía, 2008; Alpha Decay 2010; Estruendomudo, 2010), próximamente en traducción al inglés (Jonathan Cape), francés (Editions du Seuil), holandés (Meulenhoff), finlandés (Sammakko), italiano (Baldini Castoldi Dalai), y portugués (en Brasil, Saraiva; en Portugal, Quetzal). En el 2010 fue seleccionada entre Los mejores narradores en español por la Revista Granta (Best of Young Spanish Novelists, Granta 113 UK). En el año 2010 participó en el International Writers Program de la Universidad de Iowa gracias a una beca del Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US State Department. En el 2010 recibió la Beca Nacional de Letras del Fondo Nacional de las Artes de Argentina. Publicó cuentos en antologías en Suiza y Argentina, como Acerca de la comunidad de hipotálamos y el código Morse en la antología Literatura Fantástica Argentina (Ed. Pagina 12, 2004) y Die Nacht des Kometen. Argentinische Autorinnen der Gegenwart.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,066 reviews
April 29, 2022
this was insane and made for girls who read… I love it
January 12, 2021
This gritty, daring novel has a unique way to play with narrative conventions and I really enjoyed reading it, although in the end, it does not quite come together. Mona is a young Peruvian writer of mixed heritage who resides in California. One morning, she wakes up bruised and without being able to recollect what happened to her the night before. A regular drinker and drug aficionada, she takes no time to find out: She boards a plane to Sweden to join an international literary convention that will culminate in awarding one participant a highly prestigious prize. Throughout the text, Mona tries to focus on this prize while hiding her bruises, but she is haunted by an event she can't recall...
This text is many things at once: A rumination about violence against women, a satire on the professionalized literary world and identity politics as a weapon to market people and books, a drug novel, and a multi-layered play with clichés (sometimes just perpetuating them, sometimes showing people ridiculing or instrumentalizing them - these opposing strategies have a confusing effect, and I believe it's intentional). Mona is a female woman of color, and in the context of her profession, her identity becomes a USP, an "identitarian fantasy" she both uses and despises -this protagonist has a keen eye for the implications for herself and the literary world around her, where "personal essays that report(ed) on their personal truth in the post-truth era" are in fashion (yes, this text can be very funny as well).
But ultimately, the descriptive style can sometimes become slightly grading, especially in those parts that revel in national clichés when portraying other writers (the enigmatic Icelandic poet, the composed, elegant Japanese poet etc.) - and the ending is just silly (I mean, I see what she does there, but pfff....come on). Still, Argentinian shooting star Pola Oloixarac is a highly interesting writer that aims to show new angles and package them in unusual narrative set-ups. I'm curious what she will come up with next.
This text is many things at once: A rumination about violence against women, a satire on the professionalized literary world and identity politics as a weapon to market people and books, a drug novel, and a multi-layered play with clichés (sometimes just perpetuating them, sometimes showing people ridiculing or instrumentalizing them - these opposing strategies have a confusing effect, and I believe it's intentional). Mona is a female woman of color, and in the context of her profession, her identity becomes a USP, an "identitarian fantasy" she both uses and despises -this protagonist has a keen eye for the implications for herself and the literary world around her, where "personal essays that report(ed) on their personal truth in the post-truth era" are in fashion (yes, this text can be very funny as well).
But ultimately, the descriptive style can sometimes become slightly grading, especially in those parts that revel in national clichés when portraying other writers (the enigmatic Icelandic poet, the composed, elegant Japanese poet etc.) - and the ending is just silly (I mean, I see what she does there, but pfff....come on). Still, Argentinian shooting star Pola Oloixarac is a highly interesting writer that aims to show new angles and package them in unusual narrative set-ups. I'm curious what she will come up with next.
May 22, 2022
reminiscent of both Rachel Cusk and Ottessa Moshfegh, this hallucinogenic novel follows mona, an up and coming writer who attends a prestigious literary award ceremony in sweden, while also dealing with the aftermath of a mysterious violent trauma. what follows is a satirical, philosophical look at what it means to be a writer, commenting on the shallowness and oftentimes callousness of the literary world. it examines the exploitation and commodification of identities within literature/academia, while also exploring the relationship between art, trauma, and the body.
i’m still a little undecided on how i feel about the ending as it felt quite out of place compared to the rest of the novel, but i did enjoy the book overall and it’s one i’ll be thinking about for a while. this definitely won’t be for everyone, but if you’re looking for a book which is a biting satire about academia/the literary world which also feels like a fever dream, then i would recommend.
i’m still a little undecided on how i feel about the ending as it felt quite out of place compared to the rest of the novel, but i did enjoy the book overall and it’s one i’ll be thinking about for a while. this definitely won’t be for everyone, but if you’re looking for a book which is a biting satire about academia/the literary world which also feels like a fever dream, then i would recommend.
August 7, 2021
insufferable hot girl lit
September 12, 2022
Mona is a novelist who gets nominated for a prestigious award in Sweden (not the Nobel), so goes there to be with her fellow nominees and enjoy Swedish hospitality, etc. Riveting stuff, eh?
I gather Pola (good luck pronouncing this in your head) Oloixarac’s novel is meant to be satirical or funny, in making light of the literary world or something, but it’s not. It’s not funny, it’s not entertaining, it’s not clever, it’s not anything good. What it is is boring. Very, very boring.
I don’t know what most people’s perceptions of the literary world is, but I’ve always thought the writers that get nominated for and win the big literary prizes are, more often that not, pretentious and dull, who produce pretentious and dull books. So it’s not exactly earth-shattering news to read a dreary story that says just that over and over.
The characters are from all over the world so I suppose the author is being inclusive of her criticism, that all literary writers everywhere are superficial and self-absorbed ninnies. And I do agree that, in a post #MeToo era where nobody is allowed to offend anybody, that art in general has become too watered down and, consequently, irrelevant. Not that artists need to be sleazy douchebags but they should be allowed to display a hint of an edgy personality and let that bleed over into their art without being censored/punished for it.
The novel goes nowhere until the final few pages when it attempts to be about something, and fails. For anyone wondering what I mean, and is unlikely to ever read this forgettable novel,
Maybe a more talented writer could have produced something better along the same lines, but in Pola Oloixarac’s hands, she proves that even novels about how interminably monotonous and uninspired modern writers are, turn out to be just that themselves.
I gather Pola (good luck pronouncing this in your head) Oloixarac’s novel is meant to be satirical or funny, in making light of the literary world or something, but it’s not. It’s not funny, it’s not entertaining, it’s not clever, it’s not anything good. What it is is boring. Very, very boring.
I don’t know what most people’s perceptions of the literary world is, but I’ve always thought the writers that get nominated for and win the big literary prizes are, more often that not, pretentious and dull, who produce pretentious and dull books. So it’s not exactly earth-shattering news to read a dreary story that says just that over and over.
The characters are from all over the world so I suppose the author is being inclusive of her criticism, that all literary writers everywhere are superficial and self-absorbed ninnies. And I do agree that, in a post #MeToo era where nobody is allowed to offend anybody, that art in general has become too watered down and, consequently, irrelevant. Not that artists need to be sleazy douchebags but they should be allowed to display a hint of an edgy personality and let that bleed over into their art without being censored/punished for it.
The novel goes nowhere until the final few pages when it attempts to be about something, and fails. For anyone wondering what I mean, and is unlikely to ever read this forgettable novel,
Maybe a more talented writer could have produced something better along the same lines, but in Pola Oloixarac’s hands, she proves that even novels about how interminably monotonous and uninspired modern writers are, turn out to be just that themselves.
April 13, 2021
What the fuck just happened
May 4, 2023
she did what ottessa moshfegh couldn’t…………
mona was outrageous, controversial, sometimes silly, with long, cascading monologues and the sex-obsessed, drug-prone ennui characteristic of women leads in the domestic dread literary niche. but it worked for me. my god did it work!!!!!!! on a stylistic, aesthetic, satirical level, i was seated. even the plot set-up and swedish landscape worked for me. i enjoyed every second of the wild, boundary-bending ride. the ending only sealed the deal for me.
pola, i’m coming for ur oeuvre.
mona was outrageous, controversial, sometimes silly, with long, cascading monologues and the sex-obsessed, drug-prone ennui characteristic of women leads in the domestic dread literary niche. but it worked for me. my god did it work!!!!!!! on a stylistic, aesthetic, satirical level, i was seated. even the plot set-up and swedish landscape worked for me. i enjoyed every second of the wild, boundary-bending ride. the ending only sealed the deal for me.
pola, i’m coming for ur oeuvre.
December 27, 2021
Ooh I love love love. What first comes to mind is if you enjoyed My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Moshfegh, you’d enjoy this book too. Perfect balance of unhinged woman with bad relationship with men and drugs.
Mona is a writer who was nominated as one of the many people from all four corners of the world for a literary prize that is attached to 200,000 euros. She stays overseas for about four days, listening to the writers’ speeches by day and socializing (or sulking on the internet or working on her new book or sexting another man) by night. I found Mona to be so funny while she reckoned with all of the things that scared her. Great encapsulation of coping with humor, in my opinion. Nonetheless, our author doesn’t shy away from the scary stuff, which makes the readers’ connection to Mona that much more solid.
I also fell in love with the writing style. As we progressed through the story, little hints towards something bigger were dropped until the final scene was unveiled. It was gorgeous. Anyway this was a very short read, and I zoomed through it pretty fast!! If you’re interested I’d recommend picking it up to see if it’s for you :)
Mona is a writer who was nominated as one of the many people from all four corners of the world for a literary prize that is attached to 200,000 euros. She stays overseas for about four days, listening to the writers’ speeches by day and socializing (or sulking on the internet or working on her new book or sexting another man) by night. I found Mona to be so funny while she reckoned with all of the things that scared her. Great encapsulation of coping with humor, in my opinion. Nonetheless, our author doesn’t shy away from the scary stuff, which makes the readers’ connection to Mona that much more solid.
I also fell in love with the writing style. As we progressed through the story, little hints towards something bigger were dropped until the final scene was unveiled. It was gorgeous. Anyway this was a very short read, and I zoomed through it pretty fast!! If you’re interested I’d recommend picking it up to see if it’s for you :)
Shelved as 'dnf'
May 20, 2022disclaimer: as one helpful reviewer pointed out i must acknowledge that this is a work of satire. it just so happens that i found the author’s satire to be contrived and unfunny. if you are interested in this book i feel the need to remind you to check out more positive and in-depth reviews as my review is only a partial one given that i did not finish this work.
DNF 20%
If the first few chapters of a book make you roll your eyes more than say ten times...maybe tis best to call things off. Mona tries really hard to be funny and subversive. The novel's attempts to be 'gritty' or 'edgy' fall painfully short.
Mona, our titular main character, is not like other girls. She's a Peruvian writer who is lives in California. When she's applying for her PhD to various universities she claims to have indigenous ancestry, because...reasons? When her ethnicity seems to offer her "the opportunity to advance her career" she realises that "it would have been ever more advantageous to add on some kind of physical disability—a slight but evident defect". Isn't she just so edgy? #notlikeotherprotagonists
The writing left a lot to be desired:
➜"Maybe the pain was a pupa inside of her, Mona thought: an amorphous substance awaiting the formation of a new exoskeleton"
➜"her toes lined up like a sinister family of faceless dwarves"
➜"Dicks were radars of attention, erotic antennae made for detecting every contour of desire in their surroundings".
➜"Mona inserted her earbuds and slid her phone, snakelike, to the front of her leggings, so that the little hole for the charger was perpendicular to her clit" (WTF? Why be so specific? Knowing that the hole of her phone is perpendicular to her clit adds nothing to that scene.)
Also, it seems that the only way to establish that your character is sex positive is to make her constantly think of dicks, force a security guard to pat her crotch, and give a virtual blow job to a guy (all of this happens within the first two chapters....).
Lastly, we have this Italian guy who says "Vieni più vicino al cazzo"...and it just doesn't right (it has a vague google translator feel to it). And of course, because he is Italian and he is getting virtual head he has to recite Italian verses (Guido Cavalcanti). And we get this assessment about him: "Franco was the kind of Italian you could only find in the United States, or really anywhere outside of Italy. Or, as Franco more succinctly put it: he was tall. The fundamental axis of his existence was to prove that, no, Italians are not all warm, friendly, or sweet. Or maybe they are, but only when they're low to the ground and have even lower self-esteem".
Boy, I must be a walking and talking contradiction then.
The narrative's attempt at humour are not really doing anything for me. I'm sure that there are plenty of other readers who are willing to read this novel but I ain't one of them.
DNF 20%
If the first few chapters of a book make you roll your eyes more than say ten times...maybe tis best to call things off. Mona tries really hard to be funny and subversive. The novel's attempts to be 'gritty' or 'edgy' fall painfully short.
Mona, our titular main character, is not like other girls. She's a Peruvian writer who is lives in California. When she's applying for her PhD to various universities she claims to have indigenous ancestry, because...reasons? When her ethnicity seems to offer her "the opportunity to advance her career" she realises that "it would have been ever more advantageous to add on some kind of physical disability—a slight but evident defect". Isn't she just so edgy? #notlikeotherprotagonists
The writing left a lot to be desired:
➜"Maybe the pain was a pupa inside of her, Mona thought: an amorphous substance awaiting the formation of a new exoskeleton"
➜"her toes lined up like a sinister family of faceless dwarves"
➜"Dicks were radars of attention, erotic antennae made for detecting every contour of desire in their surroundings".
➜"Mona inserted her earbuds and slid her phone, snakelike, to the front of her leggings, so that the little hole for the charger was perpendicular to her clit" (WTF? Why be so specific? Knowing that the hole of her phone is perpendicular to her clit adds nothing to that scene.)
Also, it seems that the only way to establish that your character is sex positive is to make her constantly think of dicks, force a security guard to pat her crotch, and give a virtual blow job to a guy (all of this happens within the first two chapters....).
Lastly, we have this Italian guy who says "Vieni più vicino al cazzo"...and it just doesn't right (it has a vague google translator feel to it). And of course, because he is Italian and he is getting virtual head he has to recite Italian verses (Guido Cavalcanti). And we get this assessment about him: "Franco was the kind of Italian you could only find in the United States, or really anywhere outside of Italy. Or, as Franco more succinctly put it: he was tall. The fundamental axis of his existence was to prove that, no, Italians are not all warm, friendly, or sweet. Or maybe they are, but only when they're low to the ground and have even lower self-esteem".
Boy, I must be a walking and talking contradiction then.
The narrative's attempt at humour are not really doing anything for me. I'm sure that there are plenty of other readers who are willing to read this novel but I ain't one of them.
April 16, 2021
Well, this book is a hard one to review. On one level, the titular character travels to a writers' gathering in Sweden while all invited await to see which of them will be named the winner of a prestigious award. I kept expecting the protagonist of Red Pill by Hari Kunzru to show up, since both writers seem to have Things To Say about writer culture, stereotypes, and behavior. Not to mention that Mona, as a Peruvian, often experiences being othered in a variety of ways - working in the United States as a "person of color" even if that's not how she sees herself, the way others are always assuming all Latin American countries are interchangeable, and the other writer who shows up from the region seems to think she owes him something. (This is also funnier when you consider the author is Argentinian.)
So from one angle, a satire of writers and the "literary award scene." But that's not all that is going on - there are mysterious men in the woods, increasing ignored phone calls, nervous vaping, and a half remembered violent act that the reader knows less about than Mona. She also has a bit of disregard of her own body that I suspect is linked to the violence but might not be.
And then on top of everything, an ending that...I don't even know what to say about it...I'm just glad the Icelandic poet finally showed up.
I had access to this title from the publisher through NetGalley. It came out March 16, 2021.
So from one angle, a satire of writers and the "literary award scene." But that's not all that is going on - there are mysterious men in the woods, increasing ignored phone calls, nervous vaping, and a half remembered violent act that the reader knows less about than Mona. She also has a bit of disregard of her own body that I suspect is linked to the violence but might not be.
And then on top of everything, an ending that...I don't even know what to say about it...I'm just glad the Icelandic poet finally showed up.
I had access to this title from the publisher through NetGalley. It came out March 16, 2021.
May 12, 2021
I finished this last night + had no idea what to think. I figured I’d have a better understanding of my thoughts in the morning. Well … The things I know: the first chapter and the last chapter are excellent. The first chapter is dripping in so much cynicism, it made me smirk with glee. The last chapter is total surrealism bliss. But what to make of the middle section? I think I loved this. Although it is really, really, REALLY pretentious. But I think that was the point. Right?
But THAT ENDING!!
But THAT ENDING!!
June 27, 2019
No había leído a Oloixarac, está tremenda esta novela, tan corta pero tan concentrada de elementos que no sé si cualquier autora-o puede combinar así. Me gustó mucho y quiero leer más suyo. Tiene ideas medio polémicas, y eso hace que me caiga bien, tiene control sobre el lenguaje y las ideas, y eso la hace muy atractiva. Me leeré sus otras novelas, veo que es medio controversial, cuando pregunto sobre ella como que siempre hay silencio, y no entiendo, eso hace que me de más curiosidad.
February 16, 2022
A while ago I’ve read Pola’s first novel Savage Theories and enjoyed it. It was a fresh combination of witty humour, sharp philosophy and sex more or less in that order of priorities. I have to admit I did not care that much for sex, but it did not distract me from the rest either. So when this book was published I knew I want to read it. This novel is a similar mix. But the humour has overgrown into a scathing satire and the proportion of sex has substantially increased. I liked the former, but I was a bit put off by the latter. Though I still managed not to get distracted:-)
The novel is focused on the phenomenon of global literature and the community of the writers, its creators. There is also a thread devoted to a certain overreach in American campus culture.
The setting is an international writer’s gathering in Sweden for a series of networking events ending up in a certain prize-giving. No readers are invited. Mona, the Peruvian writer residing in the US is the one of the nominees. So we see the event through her eyes. In spite of taking quite a bit of drugs and occasional drink, her perspective seems to be quite clean-eyed and reliable. And it is scaring and funny also.
She observes the formation of the trend in literature when the writers create with having a global appeal in mind, already thinking how it would translate. Any type of the local issue is polished for global consumption, put under common denominator to make “relevant” to global discourse or rather the publishers understanding of it and what would sell.
“Maybe, Mona ventured, intellectualizing one’s suffering was just the regional brand, in the same way that Marco signaled his Latin American bona fides by peppering his speech with references to Che Guevara and Luis Miguel, or the way Abdollah branded himself a Proud Muslim Invader. The ways that each of them appropriated their own local colors and used them as the backdrop for playing their parts in the theatrical literary market: these were just the modern tools of the trade, weapons in the battle royale of “world lit.”
Globalisation could bring a lot of positive things. For example, in literature, better language skills could shorten the cycle of translation (many more could read in original as well) and bring more books to different audiences. However, it seems the other side of the coin prevails, when the market kicks in. A book becomes a commodity and the author behind it becomes a seller of this commodity. As any commodity the product should be as such as to require a minimum adjustment to the local markets, but looking all the same “localised”. It is not so different from a vegetarian Big Mac in India, for example. Then, this product would sell well globally. But the product in this case is not a Big Mac - it is someone’s thoughts and feelings.
And, again similar to Big Macs and cars, this type of global literature has managed to create a local pushback:
“Mona recalled a writer she’d met during a residency in Provence: a woman from Hawaii, the author of a book that had been adapted to film, who told her she never read anything in translation. “America is so big, there’s already so much to read!” the Hawaiian writer explained. She said there was a Nebraskan literature and a Northern Californian literature and Southern Gothic literature, and then of course there was the emerging Hawaiian literature, to which her work was foundational. Writers were figuring out the local stories that their target markets wanted to consume. And as offerings diversified, they cultivated new readers, such that eventually every local writer would supply his readers with stories, and these local writers would be able to live off what they wrote, just like a berry farmer who sells organic red currants at the farmers market on Saturdays.”
If this debate has got some legitimacy for fruits and vegetables the fact that it is indeed relevant to the literature I found true but a bit odd. It is a pity when people limit their reading horizons due to a certain concept of patriotism. As a reader and as a person who generally do not eat Big Macs locally produced or not, I needed to educate myself how to navigate between these “products” to find something authentic. I am personally more interested in differences between the cultures, rather than commonalities. A bit like Mona:
"Mona felt much more comfortable in the company of other languages. That is, she preferred to live en traducción, according to her literary tastes: she was much more interested in Japanese lyrics of terror and Nigerian poetry written in Hausa than she was in reading about ... intellectuals who got rich writing about the poor in Miraflores, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, or Santiago—it was all so boring."
And, I do not care that much how my “stories” are sourced as soon as they are the works of art.
I found Mona to be a great companion for a time being and an acute insider. She has appeared to be on the receiving end of all this trends:
“Mona knew that what she did (whatever it was) was considered too intellectual (or difficult) for her to achieve rapid commercial recognition.”
I strongly suspect the author of this book was in the same position as the character. But I have a feeling that Pola had to give in a bit to this pressure. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why she needed to throw “a trauma on a campus” trope in this novel and spiced it up with a bit of dystopia. I could not justify it otherwise. And this has disappointed me. I bet this book would sell much more and win the prizes, but it has impressed me less for that matter in spite of being very sharp, witty and on the ball; in spite of the fact that I agree with Mona’s views.
PS
I do not have time to discuss properly the campus aspect of the novel. It is tangental for the book. But here is a few quotes I found incisive:
Mona had arrived at Stanford not long after the waves she made with her debut novel tossed her onto the beach of a certain impetuous prestige—and at a time when being a “woman of color,” in the vade mecum of American racism, began to confer a chic sort of cultural capital. American universities shared certain essential values with historic zoos, where diversity was a mark of attraction and distinction. By playing the part of an overeducated Latina adrift in Trump’s America, Mona experienced academic captivity as a sort of serene freedom.
Mona’s identitarian fantasy was quite well received on campus (it related to her research topic) and offered her the opportunity to advance her career merely by being herself—as much herself as humanly possible. Later she realized it would have been even more advantageous to add on some kind of physical disability—a slight but evident defect—but nobody’s perfect. Even so, Mona enjoyed a unique advantage on campus: her intellectual pedigree was well established by the time she arrived. The august critic Jorge Rufini had called her debut novel a “radical phenomenon” in a Cuban cultural journal of distinction: the literary Chanel of the Latin American left. The journal retained an indelible sophistication for having been founded by Fidel Castro as a cultural arm of the Cuban Revolution. Mona liked to imagine the back issues stacking up in the leader’s bathroom. What Rufini liked about her novel—what he called its “vital commitment”—was its marriage of politics and literature, the sancta sanctorum of the Latin American Boom. Such a commitment, Rufini complained, had become “painfully rare” in her generation.
The novel is focused on the phenomenon of global literature and the community of the writers, its creators. There is also a thread devoted to a certain overreach in American campus culture.
The setting is an international writer’s gathering in Sweden for a series of networking events ending up in a certain prize-giving. No readers are invited. Mona, the Peruvian writer residing in the US is the one of the nominees. So we see the event through her eyes. In spite of taking quite a bit of drugs and occasional drink, her perspective seems to be quite clean-eyed and reliable. And it is scaring and funny also.
She observes the formation of the trend in literature when the writers create with having a global appeal in mind, already thinking how it would translate. Any type of the local issue is polished for global consumption, put under common denominator to make “relevant” to global discourse or rather the publishers understanding of it and what would sell.
“Maybe, Mona ventured, intellectualizing one’s suffering was just the regional brand, in the same way that Marco signaled his Latin American bona fides by peppering his speech with references to Che Guevara and Luis Miguel, or the way Abdollah branded himself a Proud Muslim Invader. The ways that each of them appropriated their own local colors and used them as the backdrop for playing their parts in the theatrical literary market: these were just the modern tools of the trade, weapons in the battle royale of “world lit.”
Globalisation could bring a lot of positive things. For example, in literature, better language skills could shorten the cycle of translation (many more could read in original as well) and bring more books to different audiences. However, it seems the other side of the coin prevails, when the market kicks in. A book becomes a commodity and the author behind it becomes a seller of this commodity. As any commodity the product should be as such as to require a minimum adjustment to the local markets, but looking all the same “localised”. It is not so different from a vegetarian Big Mac in India, for example. Then, this product would sell well globally. But the product in this case is not a Big Mac - it is someone’s thoughts and feelings.
And, again similar to Big Macs and cars, this type of global literature has managed to create a local pushback:
“Mona recalled a writer she’d met during a residency in Provence: a woman from Hawaii, the author of a book that had been adapted to film, who told her she never read anything in translation. “America is so big, there’s already so much to read!” the Hawaiian writer explained. She said there was a Nebraskan literature and a Northern Californian literature and Southern Gothic literature, and then of course there was the emerging Hawaiian literature, to which her work was foundational. Writers were figuring out the local stories that their target markets wanted to consume. And as offerings diversified, they cultivated new readers, such that eventually every local writer would supply his readers with stories, and these local writers would be able to live off what they wrote, just like a berry farmer who sells organic red currants at the farmers market on Saturdays.”
If this debate has got some legitimacy for fruits and vegetables the fact that it is indeed relevant to the literature I found true but a bit odd. It is a pity when people limit their reading horizons due to a certain concept of patriotism. As a reader and as a person who generally do not eat Big Macs locally produced or not, I needed to educate myself how to navigate between these “products” to find something authentic. I am personally more interested in differences between the cultures, rather than commonalities. A bit like Mona:
"Mona felt much more comfortable in the company of other languages. That is, she preferred to live en traducción, according to her literary tastes: she was much more interested in Japanese lyrics of terror and Nigerian poetry written in Hausa than she was in reading about ... intellectuals who got rich writing about the poor in Miraflores, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, or Santiago—it was all so boring."
And, I do not care that much how my “stories” are sourced as soon as they are the works of art.
I found Mona to be a great companion for a time being and an acute insider. She has appeared to be on the receiving end of all this trends:
“Mona knew that what she did (whatever it was) was considered too intellectual (or difficult) for her to achieve rapid commercial recognition.”
I strongly suspect the author of this book was in the same position as the character. But I have a feeling that Pola had to give in a bit to this pressure. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why she needed to throw “a trauma on a campus” trope in this novel and spiced it up with a bit of dystopia. I could not justify it otherwise. And this has disappointed me. I bet this book would sell much more and win the prizes, but it has impressed me less for that matter in spite of being very sharp, witty and on the ball; in spite of the fact that I agree with Mona’s views.
PS
I do not have time to discuss properly the campus aspect of the novel. It is tangental for the book. But here is a few quotes I found incisive:
Mona had arrived at Stanford not long after the waves she made with her debut novel tossed her onto the beach of a certain impetuous prestige—and at a time when being a “woman of color,” in the vade mecum of American racism, began to confer a chic sort of cultural capital. American universities shared certain essential values with historic zoos, where diversity was a mark of attraction and distinction. By playing the part of an overeducated Latina adrift in Trump’s America, Mona experienced academic captivity as a sort of serene freedom.
Mona’s identitarian fantasy was quite well received on campus (it related to her research topic) and offered her the opportunity to advance her career merely by being herself—as much herself as humanly possible. Later she realized it would have been even more advantageous to add on some kind of physical disability—a slight but evident defect—but nobody’s perfect. Even so, Mona enjoyed a unique advantage on campus: her intellectual pedigree was well established by the time she arrived. The august critic Jorge Rufini had called her debut novel a “radical phenomenon” in a Cuban cultural journal of distinction: the literary Chanel of the Latin American left. The journal retained an indelible sophistication for having been founded by Fidel Castro as a cultural arm of the Cuban Revolution. Mona liked to imagine the back issues stacking up in the leader’s bathroom. What Rufini liked about her novel—what he called its “vital commitment”—was its marriage of politics and literature, the sancta sanctorum of the Latin American Boom. Such a commitment, Rufini complained, had become “painfully rare” in her generation.
April 14, 2021
Oloixarac keeps her narrative style at a fairly extreme emotional distance from her characters in MONA. The style almost reminded me of the tone of Paul Theroux's (seriously great) train-travel books--perfect observational detail at all times, and yet just a little mean.
"Mona slumped back into her seat and massaged her neck. Her nearest neighbor was across the aisle. He resembled a giant toad."
It was the perfect tone frankly for this story of a talented yet disaffected writer who is negotiating a literary scene--at the beginning of the novel she's on her way from California to accept a literary prize in Europe--that she can see is vapid, and yet wants to honor her. It's hard for me not to read this novel at least partly as a cynical but healing self-exorcism of the sudden fame Oloixarac was vaulted to after the publication of SAVAGE THEORIES but a nearly-redemptive, almost-hallucinatory ending raised the novel up for me into a memorable study of a character at odds with herself, her past, and her fame.
"Mona slumped back into her seat and massaged her neck. Her nearest neighbor was across the aisle. He resembled a giant toad."
It was the perfect tone frankly for this story of a talented yet disaffected writer who is negotiating a literary scene--at the beginning of the novel she's on her way from California to accept a literary prize in Europe--that she can see is vapid, and yet wants to honor her. It's hard for me not to read this novel at least partly as a cynical but healing self-exorcism of the sudden fame Oloixarac was vaulted to after the publication of SAVAGE THEORIES but a nearly-redemptive, almost-hallucinatory ending raised the novel up for me into a memorable study of a character at odds with herself, her past, and her fame.
February 6, 2022
am i not the target audience or was this ass or both
September 4, 2022
Thank you to FSG and Picador for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for a review.
You are now able to purchase a copy of this book in both hardcover and paperback anywhere you purchase books!
I enjoyed this a lot. This is a very short, yet jam-packed book. It's twisted, brutal, hilarious, and interesting at the same time.
We follow our main character, Mona, as she struggles with drug abuse in modern-day California. Mona doesn't feel like she quite fits in the California "aesthetic." After the success of her book, Mona is nominated for a literary award in Sweden. When she gets there, she thinks it will be a smooth trip for her during this event, however, she doesn't know that her substance abuse is only getting worse and her experience begins to get a bit more brutal.
Tender, weirdly realistic, and satirical, Mona is a fresh take on literary fiction and women's fiction. Rooting from the heart of how Otessa Moshfegh and Elif Batuman, Pola Oloixarac gives an honest satire on the elitist side of contemporary literature.
I think that description of the book is all you need to read this book. Like I said before, Oloixarac writes how I want Otessa Moshfegh to write. Granted, I've only read one Moshfegh—I can still definitely tell the similarities.
Some points were very dark and quite twisted, while at times it was very, very funny. It was a fun rollercoaster of disgust, confusion, engagement, and happiness? Some parts of this book also just made my skin crawl. Specifically, the descriptions of the body just made me so uncomfortable, yet it was realistic? It was a strange contrast but I really liked it.
This quite literally feels like Women's Lit Fic and that's exactly everything I want in a book.
I am happy that I read this and am really hoping you decide to pick it up as well.
all in all: dark, funny, and amazing. read it.
You are now able to purchase a copy of this book in both hardcover and paperback anywhere you purchase books!
I enjoyed this a lot. This is a very short, yet jam-packed book. It's twisted, brutal, hilarious, and interesting at the same time.
We follow our main character, Mona, as she struggles with drug abuse in modern-day California. Mona doesn't feel like she quite fits in the California "aesthetic." After the success of her book, Mona is nominated for a literary award in Sweden. When she gets there, she thinks it will be a smooth trip for her during this event, however, she doesn't know that her substance abuse is only getting worse and her experience begins to get a bit more brutal.
Tender, weirdly realistic, and satirical, Mona is a fresh take on literary fiction and women's fiction. Rooting from the heart of how Otessa Moshfegh and Elif Batuman, Pola Oloixarac gives an honest satire on the elitist side of contemporary literature.
I think that description of the book is all you need to read this book. Like I said before, Oloixarac writes how I want Otessa Moshfegh to write. Granted, I've only read one Moshfegh—I can still definitely tell the similarities.
Some points were very dark and quite twisted, while at times it was very, very funny. It was a fun rollercoaster of disgust, confusion, engagement, and happiness? Some parts of this book also just made my skin crawl. Specifically, the descriptions of the body just made me so uncomfortable, yet it was realistic? It was a strange contrast but I really liked it.
This quite literally feels like Women's Lit Fic and that's exactly everything I want in a book.
I am happy that I read this and am really hoping you decide to pick it up as well.
all in all: dark, funny, and amazing. read it.
December 2, 2021
Disjointed, overwritten and full of messed up characters.
September 23, 2021
good lord this was irritating
April 1, 2022
The sense you'd get from the plot summary, that Mona is a hazy, drug-fueled satire of the global literary world, shot through with lots of sex, is accurate. But after a promising opening leading up to Mona's arrival at the festival, the book kind of becomes a referential hipster mess itself, all thought but little insight. From what I know of the literary community, it is very possible that this was the intent; intentional or not, I could not wait to be done.
April 3, 2021
didn't realise anyone was writing like this anymore. brilliant, bizarre, wide awake. makes her contemporaries look boring.
March 20, 2022
update: 3.5 stars 🌟
not sure what to rate this because my brain is scrambled from the ending
not sure what to rate this because my brain is scrambled from the ending
April 3, 2022
An absolutely brilliant exercise in obfuscation reminiscent of Nobakov. Mona is basically a character that, were she a man—and she has, I’m sure intentionally, all of the hallmarks of that classic male author that is continually venerated for toxic qualities—would absolutely be more acceptable and relatable. Which is why she is a woman. Absolutely everything about her is made to provoke a negative reaction from the reader, when really it’s just the inclusion of the qualities people would attribute a person as a “ real character” in reality.
There’s an unwillingness to dwell to much or too deeply in the personal. A number of vices on an endless chain of self medicating and maneuvering. But she’s also incredibly intelligent and is an active participant in the thing she hates most: the literary “scene” as it has now become. Because there’s absolutely an elephant in the room: America. Never really acknowledged, but always present, as she rails against ideas orbiting what we’d call identity politics.
I don’t think Americans realize just how much of their culture they export. As a Canadian it is just constant. We see more news about America than Canada on social media now. They’re The Show, and that’s completely intentional. Some literature interrogate aspects of this, most self evident in the onslaught of death of the American dream narratives. Where immigrants buy into the idea of America only to enter the churn. The literary scene is no different. It’s not immune to internalizing culture purportedly to be avant garde and progressive, but is merely the newest exercise in exclusion and policing the culture of literally every single other country.
Mona is the anthesis of this even as she plays into it out of necessity. The choices are to be in the game, hustling and engaging in performativism… or not published not known not eating. Simultaneously, the self medicating is in tandem with the social critique that I felt was on point and effective satire. Sure, it offends western culture. But it ought to. We have little to no control over our own narratives with social media and the rules of American civility fetishism and the way in which The Conversation must take place.
It all comes to a head in a beautiful confluence of themes and notions bombarding the reader while it effectively points out that we generally all spend our time in a performative dance, completely, willfully, subscribed to Missing The Point.
There’s an unwillingness to dwell to much or too deeply in the personal. A number of vices on an endless chain of self medicating and maneuvering. But she’s also incredibly intelligent and is an active participant in the thing she hates most: the literary “scene” as it has now become. Because there’s absolutely an elephant in the room: America. Never really acknowledged, but always present, as she rails against ideas orbiting what we’d call identity politics.
I don’t think Americans realize just how much of their culture they export. As a Canadian it is just constant. We see more news about America than Canada on social media now. They’re The Show, and that’s completely intentional. Some literature interrogate aspects of this, most self evident in the onslaught of death of the American dream narratives. Where immigrants buy into the idea of America only to enter the churn. The literary scene is no different. It’s not immune to internalizing culture purportedly to be avant garde and progressive, but is merely the newest exercise in exclusion and policing the culture of literally every single other country.
Mona is the anthesis of this even as she plays into it out of necessity. The choices are to be in the game, hustling and engaging in performativism… or not published not known not eating. Simultaneously, the self medicating is in tandem with the social critique that I felt was on point and effective satire. Sure, it offends western culture. But it ought to. We have little to no control over our own narratives with social media and the rules of American civility fetishism and the way in which The Conversation must take place.
It all comes to a head in a beautiful confluence of themes and notions bombarding the reader while it effectively points out that we generally all spend our time in a performative dance, completely, willfully, subscribed to Missing The Point.
January 27, 2023
Quick and enigmatic, Mona explores a woman’s trauma, her relationship to the male-dominated literary world, and the commodification of identities as we witness Mona slowly come to terms with a traumatic event that occurred before this trip.
While I did enjoy its critique of American academia’s obsession with tokenizing certain identities and how people feel obligated to uphold the stereotypes thrust upon them, Mona falls into the same cycle by creating internalized cliches for each writer she’s with without actually getting to know them as people.
Also, the ending, while a great metaphor, felt incredibly random and completely shifted the genre of this novel in a way that wasn’t witty but rather un-amusing to me.
While I did enjoy its critique of American academia’s obsession with tokenizing certain identities and how people feel obligated to uphold the stereotypes thrust upon them, Mona falls into the same cycle by creating internalized cliches for each writer she’s with without actually getting to know them as people.
Also, the ending, while a great metaphor, felt incredibly random and completely shifted the genre of this novel in a way that wasn’t witty but rather un-amusing to me.
September 17, 2023
Mona, una scrittrice peruviana, viene invitata ad un prestigioso premio letterario. Lì incontrerà altri autori che come lei passeranno...
il libro che ho appena concluso è un romanzo sul significato di ciò che dovrebbe, potrebbe? essere il romanzo contemporaneo, cioè che cosa dovrebbe scrivere chi si accinge a raccontare la contemporaneità, dove le macchine, nello specifico le IA, incominciano a derubare anche l'arte primordiale dell'essere umano: raccontarsi, raccontarci storie per capirci, per capire le relazioni tra noi e in rapporto alla natura.
La scrittura è molto scorrevole ed intrigante. Vi sono diversi spunti di riflessione sociale sulla letteratura, specialmente moderna, ma spesso immersi in momenti di noia e di passaggi evitabili.
Alcune parti sono nebulose, forse volutamente così dall'autrice, ma che mi hanno lasciato con l'amaro in bocca e con diversi interrogativi relativi alla trama.
Nel complesso: un'idea molto valida, ma che non mi ha convinto pienamente nella sua realizzazione e che mi ha lasciato diversi dubbi in merito.
Discreto!
il libro che ho appena concluso è un romanzo sul significato di ciò che dovrebbe, potrebbe? essere il romanzo contemporaneo, cioè che cosa dovrebbe scrivere chi si accinge a raccontare la contemporaneità, dove le macchine, nello specifico le IA, incominciano a derubare anche l'arte primordiale dell'essere umano: raccontarsi, raccontarci storie per capirci, per capire le relazioni tra noi e in rapporto alla natura.
La scrittura è molto scorrevole ed intrigante. Vi sono diversi spunti di riflessione sociale sulla letteratura, specialmente moderna, ma spesso immersi in momenti di noia e di passaggi evitabili.
Alcune parti sono nebulose, forse volutamente così dall'autrice, ma che mi hanno lasciato con l'amaro in bocca e con diversi interrogativi relativi alla trama.
Nel complesso: un'idea molto valida, ma che non mi ha convinto pienamente nella sua realizzazione e che mi ha lasciato diversi dubbi in merito.
Discreto!
April 5, 2024
„Często czuła przypływ emocji, wzbierające nagle wewnętrzne burze, które próbowała stłumić za wszelką cenę. Malutka łza zdolna była uruchomić rwący potok, jak w tych szamańskich ceremoniach, kiedy człowiek przechodzi przez rzekę i wychodzi zamieniony w pumę; tylko że Mona miała w sobie i rzekę, i pumy, z którymi nie chciała się spotkać, czuła, że lada moment z niej to wszystko wypłynie.“
September 29, 2022
.... what did i just read
September 28, 2023
Un grande, grandissimo, enorme BAH
Probabilmente non è un libro adatto alle mie corde perché davvero non ci ho capito una mazza....era un saggio sulla letteratura travestito da romanzo? Era una critica verso la letteratura moderna? Un' ode al femminismo o un perverso amore malato?
Ah no era un fantasy mitologico.....
Troppo, troppo davvero.
Tra alcol, droghe, svapate e masturbazioni varie io sono ancora qui con un punto di domanda gigantoso.
Nel mentre mi è pure suonato il cellulare con il messaggio di avviso alla popolazione per la prova IT-alert....caso mai dovessero attaccarci Alieni, mostri marini o scrittrici strambe....
Probabilmente non è un libro adatto alle mie corde perché davvero non ci ho capito una mazza....era un saggio sulla letteratura travestito da romanzo? Era una critica verso la letteratura moderna? Un' ode al femminismo o un perverso amore malato?
Ah no era un fantasy mitologico.....
Troppo, troppo davvero.
Tra alcol, droghe, svapate e masturbazioni varie io sono ancora qui con un punto di domanda gigantoso.
Nel mentre mi è pure suonato il cellulare con il messaggio di avviso alla popolazione per la prova IT-alert....caso mai dovessero attaccarci Alieni, mostri marini o scrittrici strambe....
February 20, 2021
pola oloixarac's 2008 debut novel — translated in 2017 as
savage theories
— was a bold, bright work of fiction, with the argentine writer's talents amply displayed. mona, her third novel (and third to be translated, after dark constellations), offers the same smart, self-assured prose and playful irreverence. her latest work of fiction is set amidst a swedish writer's festival, among the anticipatory anxieties of an important literary prize, one oloixarac's namesake narrator hopes to win, yet without any realistic expectation of actually doing so. pretension, overinflated egos, self-importance, and hipster insufferability abound, a coterie mona is simultaneously drawn to and repelled by, yearning as she does to fit in, while also wishing to be left entirely alone to sip on her thc vape in productive seclusion.
mona purveys some sharp insights and spot-on criticisms about the lettered world and its self-congratulatory milieu of competition, awards, and glad-handing effrontery. oloixarac's satirical scenesterism is quite a bit of fun, but in stark contrast to the internal suffering, shame, and trauma-borne indifference of her titular lead. mona, for all its strength, stumbles unexpectedly in its final lap, however, concluding in a manner which absolutely beggars belief (both literally and figuratively). despite its disappointing denouement, oloixarac's novel still possesses an impassioned, pivotal voice.
*translated from the spanish by adam morris (hilst, noll, bracher)
mona purveys some sharp insights and spot-on criticisms about the lettered world and its self-congratulatory milieu of competition, awards, and glad-handing effrontery. oloixarac's satirical scenesterism is quite a bit of fun, but in stark contrast to the internal suffering, shame, and trauma-borne indifference of her titular lead. mona, for all its strength, stumbles unexpectedly in its final lap, however, concluding in a manner which absolutely beggars belief (both literally and figuratively). despite its disappointing denouement, oloixarac's novel still possesses an impassioned, pivotal voice.
"what i'm saying is that the winds of culture have changed entirely. now that leftist culture is mainstream, it means absolutely nothing. think about it: what does it mean to be a leftist? eating vegan? marching against the banks and then posting about it online with your ipad? the only truly untenable position is to be a militant member of the kkk, or to declare you're a proud homophobe. capitalism has completely devoured the left to the point where it no longer has a hold on the very thing that made up its capital: the noble causes. now the left is just a more reactionary form of common sense. it has nothing to do with critical thought. it's a groupthink party for people who consider themselves to be good people and feel morally superior to everyone else."
*translated from the spanish by adam morris (hilst, noll, bracher)
March 22, 2022
I feel like you can reap the most benefit from ‘Mona’ if you are either a writer, immersed in the literary sphere, or enjoy reading about these things. That being said, I imagine this novel would have its charms on those more distant from these topics.
The narrative is a distinctive one. It is written in the third person, but has the eccentricity of detailing the titular narrators inner thoughts.
Overall, I think ‘Mona’ is an intellectualised play on the ‘disaster woman’ trope. Mona has an unlikability, she is fogged by drug use and shares many of the attributes in the same vein with other similar ‘disaster women’ in literature. I think it’s difference is the critique on the literary world, done through a satirical lens which makes way for a few scoffs whilst reading.
A good read!
The narrative is a distinctive one. It is written in the third person, but has the eccentricity of detailing the titular narrators inner thoughts.
Overall, I think ‘Mona’ is an intellectualised play on the ‘disaster woman’ trope. Mona has an unlikability, she is fogged by drug use and shares many of the attributes in the same vein with other similar ‘disaster women’ in literature. I think it’s difference is the critique on the literary world, done through a satirical lens which makes way for a few scoffs whilst reading.
A good read!
September 14, 2023
whine whine whine bitch bitch bitch do drugs drugs drugs. and insult russians and jews and god everybody fucking else for some reason. this is IRRITATING.
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