Weekend Guide: 09.03.2021
Back to school
I want to sit in the back row of a classroom and write Fleur Jaeggy 🇨🇠over and over on a piece of lined notebook paper. Once every square inch was filled, I would tear the sheet out of my marble composition book, crumple the paper into a tight little ball and hoist it across the room into a trash can. Nothing but net. Then start over. Paying attention was never my strong suit.
Discipline is a pursuit best left to those who seek it out. Tell me not to look and I open my eyes wider. Admonish me to sit down and I will run laps around your house singing like an off brand Morrissey.
The narrator of Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy enjoys the strict regimen of her boarding school life. It is all she knows. She loves structure and has learned to crave the feeling of disappointment. But when a new girl enters her world she finds herself instantly infatuated. Obsessed. She wants to devour her. Not to love — but to possess. To have and to hold — in a death grip.
Sweet Days of Discipline is a savage novel with sharp little teeth. It is a story of unrequited adolescent obsession. Jaeggy writes clear and concise sentences that have a way of sticking with you long after you turn the page.
This book 📚 is 101 pages. If you want to give your reading career a nice kick in the ass — give this one a shot.
