Book Review: “Study for Obedience” by Sarah Bernstein
The Outsider
Canadian author Sarah Bernstein is being lauded for her recent novel, Study for Obedience, which was originally published in the United Kingdom but has now been published in Canada. This short novel is on the longlist for this year’s Booker Prize (with the shortlist to be announced in September), and Bernstein has been recently named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. (She currently lives and teaches in Scotland.) That might be cause for jubilation by the author, but that would ignore the niggling twinge of dissent that has been brewing about Bernstein’s recent work by less advanced readers. The book ranking site Goodreads lists Study for Obedience as a low 3.2 out of five-star rating among those who have read and reviewed the book on the site. (Comparatively, the more populist book Hemlock Island, which is being released in mid-September 2023 and is getting some mixed early reviews from the publishing trade magazines, has a nearly four out of five rating on the site from initial readers.) Goodreads may not be the most scientific way of keeping a finger on the pulse of the hoi polloi, but some people don’t like or get this book. Make no bones about it, Study for Obedience is a difficult read. It is a story — one that is earning comparisons to Shirley Jackson — that is told in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style, with a fair number of run-on sentences and gratuitous repetition of phrases. The book contains the use of $50 and $100 words that will have you racing to the dictionary. There is no dialogue, and none of the characters — including the female narrator — have any names. The only thing merciful about this book for the novice reader is that it is a short read at some 200 pages. Tread carefully, all ye who enter here.
The book earns its comparisons to Jackson in that this is the story of one woman who is pitted against an entire village — which was sort of Jackson’s stock-in-trade way of storytelling since she disapproved of the community she lived in (North Bennington, Vermont). The unnamed protagonist of Study for Obedience comes to a village in a northern community of an unnamed country (but appears to be set somewhere in the United Kingdom) to take care of her brother, whose wife has recently left him. While visiting, the unnamed narrator is believed to be the cause of everything from a potato blight to mass bovine hysteria. This turns the villagers of the community her brother lives in against her. Not helping is the fact that she cannot speak the language and has difficulty learning it. Nevertheless, that’s about the extent of the novel’s plot. The book is faulty in that it just ends. Nothing further happens. We don’t know if the narrator leaves town, if the villagers retaliate more than they do in the book’s reading time, or what happens. This is a work of fiction that probably would benefit from a re-reading. There are details that the reader is bound to miss due to the way the novel’s sentences are constructed — it’s almost like reading poetry at times.
To me, Study for Obedience was, on first blush, a disappointment, a squandered opportunity. It has the makings of a crackling good story — even as much as it apes Shirley Jackson’s conventional story gimmick, we need more of that since Jackson died so tragically young. However, the book goes nowhere fast. I’m not sure what the digressions and wanderings in the narrative are about, and they detract from the general story. Perhaps this book is meant to be a kind of fairy tale? I’m not sure. However, I found the novel to be wanting because it was so challenging. Having said all that, there is merit to the book. I can say that Sarah Bernstein is a smart and capable woman — smarter than me because I don’t have her vocabulary and I also am not sure if I understand the point of the volume. Thus, that’s not meant to be a backhanded compliment. There’s a reason why this book is up for major awards, and that’s because its author is a genius at wordsmithing in unconventional and experimental ways. Someone out there is bound to get something out of this book, which is an obvious given since it has attracted the attention of awards juries. So, I find myself needing to balance or temper my misgivings of the read with the fact that it is a work of value.
As much as I was disappointed by the book for not following a more conventional writing style, I had to be amazed at the fact that this wasn’t a retread of what had come before. It was a little bit of James Joyce mixed in with more contemporary references. The book is set in the here and now, as things such as the Internet and mobile phones are mentioned. That gives the work a contemporary sheen, which you won’t get by simply reading the classics. Speaking of which, I’m not sure how to categorize this work. Is it post-modernism? Or something beyond that? (What are they even teaching now in universities these days, anyhow?) In any event, Study for Obedience is a bit of a mixed bag. The writing style and elegance of the prose are remarkable as much as it might be annoying for some. I suppose, too, there’s something to be said in the book about the power dynamic between the individual and the collective, so I think this read is onto something. (I think.) Still, this isn’t a novel for everyone. You’ll have to figure out for yourself if you’re willing to sit through words you do not know, a narrative that rambles, and prose that is sometimes impenetrable and will have your mind wandering, wondering what the point of a particular section is. At the very least, even if you wind up hating this book, it’s about a two or three-hour read, so even if that’s time you won’t get back, it’s time that might be well wasted if you can parse the point of this baffling and beguiling work of art.
Sarah Bernstein’s Study for Obedience was published by Knopf Canada on August 22, 2023.
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