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The Body of the Beasts
The Body of the Beasts | Audrée Wilhelmy
3 posts | 2 read | 1 to read
Reminiscent of Gaétan Soucy’s The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Audrée Wilhemy’s The Body of Beasts is a startling, gorgeously written novel that tells the story of the Borya family minding a lighthouse and living in isolation. Their lives are altered when young Osip, peering from the lighthouse gallery he has made his home, sees a woman, Noé, arrives in Sitjaq — her dress scant, her skin curiously scarred, and her manners mysterious and wild. Noé bears a child, Mie, to Sevastien-Benedikt, the eldest son on whose hunter-gathering the Borya family depends. She lives in a cabin on her own and covers the walls with drawings that allude to her mysterious life. The family’s entrenchment in nature is enthrallingly conveyed in young Mie’s sensuous ability to borrow at will the body of mammals, birds, fish, and insects. Her shape-shifting allows her to know the ways of the natural world, though only to a point. When her own awakening body starts to intrigue her, she asks her uncle Osip to “teach me human sex.” The Body of the Beasts is an imaginative tour de force, a beautifully described portrait of a world that exists outside of words; an uninhibited and erotic novel that, in the singular tradition of Québécois Boreal Gothic, explores our humanity — and our animal nature.
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review
Penny_LiteraryHoarders
The Body of the Beasts | Audrée Wilhelmy
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Panpan

So I gave it a shot. Weird and far too much time spent about sex. Osip was on pages and pages getting off about his mother's ankles, his brother's wife and later with that wife. We heard all about the shape, size and stiffness of his penis and then about Mie's hatred of her female body so she borrowed fish and bird bodies. Writing was lovely, yes, but not enough to get me through this one as a satisfying read.

blurb
Penny_LiteraryHoarders
The Body of the Beasts | Audrée Wilhelmy
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We're going to give this a try. Sounds like it could be a little strange, but it's a short one. #WITM Trying out these frozen cocktails too - Mike's Frozen Hard Lemonade ðŸ¹

review
Bookalong
The Body of the Beasts | Audrée Wilhelmy
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Pickpick

4/5 🌟This was a strange, disturbing and sensual tale. The writing is very beautiful and vividly poetic.
Right from the start the characters presented as odd but as the story progresses showed as extremely human, and unabashedly tapped into their animalistic side. The story was seductive. The vivid writing and strange dynamic of the Boyra family pulled me in from the first page. Out July 30th CAN Sept 3rd US.
#bookreview #bookblogger

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