Blog Post 82: Book Review - Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

At the level of plot I'll be giving little away to say that 'Hot Milk' is the story of Sofia, a woman living in the shadow and control of her dominating, potentially hypochondriac mother, Rose, whom she has taken to a clinic in Almeria in search of a cure. She has two affairs and visits her estranged father in Greece who has remarried a younger woman.<br><br>At the time of writing Deborah Levy's 'Hot Milk' is a short listed contender for the 2016 Booker Prize. When evaluating and reviewing books, I've still found no better an approach than that adopted by Philip Larkin when he was a Booker judge. Larkin applied the questions:<br>Can I read it?<br>Do I believe it?<br>Do I care?<br>What is the quality of my caring?<br>For star rating purposes I apply 1-4 stars, depending on my responses to those questions. I award 5 stars only when a book astonishes me.<br><br>As to readability, Ms Levy's talents are fomidable. The quality of the prose is truly professional, second to few. And credibility? Yes, unquestionable. We are presented with real human characters challenged in real relationships and by real events around them. So why, I find myself asking, do I not really care? Why does the book leave me non plussed? <br><br>I don't believe I've missed the depth and sophistication of this novel. They are clearly there. The events in the plot are relatively peripheral, for its focus is relationship and the development of character. Sofia is exploring herself and the boundaries of the her relationships, questioning herself and her motives as she proceeds. Yet I remain largely unmoved. She is distant, almost ethereal. She views and explores the drama of her life as if having an out of body experience, as if in trance, with a nonchalant passivity that causes me to become frustrated with her. And when, at the climax of the story, she steps into a more tangible reality to deliver her first and only defiant act of the novel, it seems some how out of character. <br><br>This book does not change me, does not teach me anything new. Though an enjoyable enough read, it seems aimless, lacking a purpose that somehow feels as though it ought to be there. Do I demand too much? From the vast bulk of also-rans out there that will sink forgotten as if into the sea off Sofia's Spanish coast, undoubtedly I would. But I want a novel of this sophistication to sting like one of Sofia's medusas, and it does not. For me there is too much froth on this Hot Milk. <br><br><br><br/><br/><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/46493164-michael-forester">View all my reviews</a>