“The trouble with you is you don’t know what you want,” he said. “You say one thing and then another.” I knew he was right, and not just about my relationship with him; always I feel an ambivalence that spurs me first in one direction and then another, a habit that has done much damage. I didn’t deny what he said, I even nodded in agreement, at which his mood only darkened.
― Garth Greenwell, What Belongs to You“Though I thought of him often, though he appeared in dreams from which I woke more excited than I was by anything in my waking life, I didn’t regret what I had done. I had missed him, but more than missing him I had been relieved that he was gone.”
― Garth Greenwell, What Belongs to You
Did not finish
I picked up this book after devouring Lie With Me by Phillippe Besson. Although it is far from perfect, Lie With Me was such a heartbreaking coming-of-age novel that it immediately sent me searching for other similar reads. What Belongs to You has some of that, but it was extremely difficult for me to feel any sort of empathy for the narrator.
He basically begins hooking up with a prostitute named Mitko and then gets upset when the other man prostitutes himself to other men for money, a new cell phone, a computer, etc.. The narrator is a professor at a university in Sofia, Bulgaria. He barely speaks any of the local language and relies almost entirely on Mitko’s limited grasp of English.
When something unfortunate befalls the narrator, he falls deeper into his pit of self-pity. The narrator does not make wise decisions and seeks comfort and pity from his rapidly dwindling friend group. I supposed I could have continued with this story, but I have a very difficult time feeling any sort of empathy for a well-educated American who moves to a foreign country and cannot seem to understand how privileged and entitled he is.
This book is billed as a romance, as a tragedy, but for me it was one man’s litany of complaints. I suppose at some point we may find out why he moved to Bulgaria in the first place. However, I’d had enough with this “rich” American and his savior complex.
This book won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, and was longlisted for the National Book Award when it was published in 2016. The writing style was a bit awkward at first, but it was easy to get used to after a chapter or two. However, for me this was not any sort of groundbreaking literary experience. Instead, it read more like grade-A poverty porn. I’m interested to see if anyone else read his other popular novel, Cleanness and has any insight as to why What Belongs to You was so regaled upon its release