Vita Nostra (Vita Nostra #1) by Marina & Sergey Dyaachenko

 

I was warned ahead of time by both Lisa and Jenny, but Vita Nostra is a weird book!

It starts off as sort of a strange contemplation about a young woman, Sasha, who is coerced into going to a magical school that she doesn't really want to go to. No one tells anyone what's going on, including what they're even studying. Older students look weird, they act weird, and everyone seems to speak in code. But soon Sasha does start to understand what's happening, but the thing is, I'm not sure that I understood what Sasha did.  

Like...what even happened at the end of the book? (I don't want spoilers here, but I have some theories about religious allegory, but I'm not confident because my religious knowledge is weak. If you want to talk to me about this, feel free to email me!)

Weird book, man. I feel like I was high. I just kept turning pages because I wanted to know what it was about, but I don't know if I'm smart enough to have figured it out. I don't think I'll seek out the next book in the series. 3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

In a cloudy broth of insomnia she was beginning to feel that she was thinking somebody else's thoughts. The thoughts felt so foreign to her that they didn't even fit in her head. Sasha imagined that processing these thoughts was just as difficult as picking up a pen with a horse's hoof.

...

She felt like a crystal: transparent, fragile, and perfectly calm. Like a dangling icicle. Like an apathetic chunk of glass. (page 113)

I've never taken LSD, but I feel like I have after reading this. 

The town of Torpa continued to lead its unhurried, picturesque existence...(page 196)

This just captured my imagination and I could imagine what this Russian town looked like. 

"Am I no longer human?"
"And why is it so important to you?" (page 260)

I have never thought about why being a human was important to me, but if someone suggested I wasn't  human, I would be horrified. I guess it's the reason dehumanizing language is so often used to create distance between people and allows people to do violence they otherwise wouldn't. 

Sasha would inhale the scent and smile, thinking about the magnificent harmony of world order, about the beautify of logical constructs, and about the golden sparks of chances that appear without warning out of nowhere to highlight, set off, and emphasize the infinite precision and exactitude of the informational depiction of the universe. (page 308-309)

Hm. So pretty. What does it mean?

There are words that are simply trash, refuse, they turn into nothing immediately after they are spoken. Others throw shadows, hideous and pathetic, and sometimes gorgeous and powerful, capable of saving a dying soul. But only a few of these words become human beings and pronounce other words. (page 349)

I love when writers can't help themselves from writing about the power of words. 

Animal metaphors:

Dina Dimych...resembled a powerful but naive tiger cub (page 75)

...she went still, like a frog in front of a heron. (page 101)

Hat mentions:

His hat rolled away and was immediately snatched up. (page 163)

Instead, the hunchback grabbed his hat and coat, told Sasha to get dressed, and they went outside. (page 259)

Hat and gloves. (page 278) - That's the entire sentence. 

...but the universe composed of a myriad of nuances was already sliding off her, like a hat carried away by the wind. (page 304)

Stuff I looked up:

proscenium (page 138) - the part of the theater stage in front of the curtain (this is GOOD vocab right here)

famous painting by Malevich (page 214) - White on White by Kazimir Malevich is a 1918 oil on canvas painting depicting a white square on a white canvas