Customer Reviews

Yellow

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Yellow is an intimate novel which, as good fiction should do (and in this way Janni Visman continues the work started in her first novel, Sex Education), creates a perfectly formed world for us to observe, experience, enjoy and perhaps even learn from.

This world is revealed via a first person narrative told from the perspective of Stella - damaged, obsessive, particular, acutely perceptive - who has created a precisely organised existence that has shrunk down to the confines of her second floor flat/treatment room in a London suburb.

The well choreographed story takes us through five days which dramatically change the ordered state of Stella's life and her relationship with her lover Ivan, her sister Skye and her cat, George.

Not as dysfunctional as that described in Iain Banks' scary `Wasp Factory', or as ultimately melodramatic as Mark Haddon's `Curious incident of the dog in the Night-time', Yellow completely succeeds in putting the reader inside the mind of a disturbed yet - within their own rules - rational being; which may well make you think twice about some of your own traits, but will certainly remind you - if you need reminding - of some of the complexity and curiousness of others.

Narrator Stella is an obsessive-compulsive agorophobic massage therapist, almost erotically abandoned to her condition. It is never really named as a condition, which gives the story a certain twisted chic. She's got a ritualistic, almost wordless relationship (her rules) with brutish plumber Ivan: He met her on a house call and moved right in. They pare oranges together every morning; she dresses up and poses for him to more or less rape her at night. Especially now, since he's started sporting an ID bracelet with a former lover's initials on it, pushing Stella's insecurity and their S&M fetishes into monomania.

Ironically, the initials are also Stella's own. And her married sister's. Whom we also suspect Ivan might be seeing. There might be no one to trust, here, and the mystery builds. Ivan comes and goes like a tomcat. A real cat, George, is being seduced away from Stella by a lonely neighbor. (Who also seems hot for Ivan.) All these details carry more than their expected charge, not only because Stella's world is so small, but also because, in the spirit of Visman's understated writing, I don't know where we're going with any of this. It sounds more masterful in synopsis than it is.

About 50 pages in, when circumstances drive Stella to venture halfway downstairs from her flat, the panic becomes Hitchcockian--and I thought: Now we've got ourselves a movie! But in her attempt to wind the drama tightly, Visman leaves us way too few pages afterward, and expands too few scenes to keep us on the edge. And when the truth unfolds, the ticking clock just busts a sad spring.

Quick cuts and short paragraphs accelerate the story, but Visman starts right in with that before the formation of the plot, so early chapters read like empty workshop minimalism. Aside from a few painful, exquisite understatements ("Ivan is a very rich man. For a man who's supposed to be a gas fitter. For a man who deals with problems relating to gas"), the style straightjackets a potentially layered study of life. At 173 pages with lots of white space, this book reads more like the treatment for a movie someone else will have to risk writing. This sort of safe, contemporary voice is an artistically blocked convention--so careful, and starved, so wanting to be beyond criticism. It doesn't live for me at all.

I randomly found this book in the local library and could not put it down - I found myself reading it as if I was the main character. I passed it along to a few of my friends since and they all agreed it was delightful! Please try this book out....love, deception, paranoia, panic, obsessive behavior, I could go on forever! It's all in here...and the ending will make you wish you could be so brave (I know it made me feel that way for days...I couldn't get it out of my head!)

TWO THUMBS UP!! I CANT WAIT FOR MORE FROM VISMAN!

This book is different from books I usually read but I had no problem getting completely engrossed. It tells a story about a very strange relationship in very strange circumstance. I loved the psychological background and the attempt to analyze the main character's personality and behaviour. It is definatley worth reaching for at the book stores.

A creepy story showing what isolation does to a person. The first person story of a massage-therapist who has her world under control, at least the world within the four walls of her apartment.

Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens

What feels at first like a novel of suspicion, mistrust and the subtle erosion of jealousy morphs into a tale filled with menace, the subversive threat of the unknown. Stella Lewis is organized, every aspect of her precisely detailed life suggesting a need for control of her environment; that this control provides security is, of course, false, but a prescription she clings to as rigidly as the aromatherapy oils lined in the cabinet of her London treatment room, the labels exactly aligned in rows like regimented soldiers. Perhaps it is this tendency to containment and cleanliness that attracts Ivan to Stella. In her apartment to replace all her gas fixtures with electric, Ivan appreciates the delicate balance of structure and harmony, Stella's calm manipulation of her daily routine as her massage patients come and go.

The couple meshes comfortably together, the rules dictated by Stella before Ivan moves in: "No stories from the past. No unnecessary anecdotes. No questions." When Ivan's past intrudes, bit by bit, the questions begin, thoughts plaguing Stella that she cannot put aside, intrusions into her carefully restricted world that upset the balance of daily life, at the same time sending an erotic charge through the relationship, unexpected layers of passion, and with it, suspicion. In a deft melding of Stella's inner turbulence and outer calm and the increasing menace that creeps into the story, the harmonious shifts day by day to chaos, with the aid of an overly-friendly, lonely neighbor, a faithless cat, a too-sympathetic sister, a long-lost love and the gradual erosion of a well-planned life.

Taut psychological tension is brilliantly layered into Stella's confused, haunted thoughts and Ivan's increasingly suspicious behavior, events moving toward a startling resolution that will prove Stella's safe constructions a sham. Yellow is a novel that begs to be read in one sitting, impossible to put aside. Scents, sounds, colors, imagination, touch. The author creates a fascinating palette of aberrant human behavior, shifting like an Impressionist painting until the image is suddenly clear. Luan Gaines/ 2006.

"Yellow" views five days in the life of Stella Lewis, an aroma-massage therapist. Stella is an interesting character. Through the author's description and vivid attention to detail we learn about her idiosyncrasies, especially her extreme paranoia. She's obsessive compulsive and afraid to leave the safety of her apartment. So much so her boyfriend or sister do the grocery shopping and in a pinch she'll have lipstick delivered from the pharmacy via taxi.

Stella lives with Ivan. A secretive, manipulative man who enjoys oranges and mind games for breakfast. She met him when he came to remove old gas pipes from her apartment. Part of her paranoia revolves around the distinct smell of gas she insist still lingers despite the impossibility.

Other characters include Skye, her chain-smoking sister, George, the real love of her life (unfortunately he has four legs and purrs), and a host of nosy clients and neighbours.

Tuesday begins with Ivan sporting a gold ID bracelet inscribed with a "True Love Forever" promise and initials. This little piece of jewellery becomes one of Stella's fixations for the next five days. It also becomes the catalyst for her to transform herself physically into what she thinks Ivan desires. A past love called Sophia.

Her agoraphobia isn't obvious at first but becomes painfully so when she attempts to vacate the apartment only to collapse inches from freedom. This is one of the best scenes in the whole book because of Visman's strong attention to detail. I easily felt the anxiety Stella felt.

Regretfully, the vividness doesn't provide enough movement through the first two-thirds of the novel. I was quite bored with all the talk of oranges for breakfast, the straightening of jars, folding towels and other seemingly insignificant details. At least until you realize how deep Stella's psychological dilemma is. In retrospect it is quite a sad tale. "Yellow" attempts to touch on thriller as the secrets of Ivan's past become uncovered, but it falls short and becomes confusing amidst Stella's drama.

Did I like this book as a whole? No. Its slow return in and out of reality was not enough to keep this reader entertained. The premise that Stella isn't able to conquer her agoraphobia until she transforms herself into another person is disturbing. I dislike this message - and it all happens within five days. Reviewed by M. E. Wood

Review Originally Posted (...)

Though having a decent client list of rich despondent middle-aged women, aromatherapist Stella never leaves her home as she is agoraphobic. She has established a routine out of her house so that she can live comfortably albeit restrained as she knows one step outside has her panicking. Since she has made herself a virtual prisoner with her being her own warden, she also now fears gas leaks, her latest phobia.

She hires someone to remove anything that uses it and replaces it with safe electricity. While the repairman Ivan completes the job, Stella seduces the hunk. He moves in with the phobic woman that night though she establishes the rules of their arrangement. Stella finds her lifestyle immensely improved as he provides her easier access to the outsiders. However, when he returns to her home one day wearing a gold-plated ID bracelet given to him from his former girlfriend, Stella gets a bit further unhinged. She begins to seek other evidence that Ivan is stepping out on her and finds plenty of evidence in his belongings. She persuades Skye to trail Ivan when he leaves the house even as her routines unravel because she tries to emulate the photo she found amongst his possessions.

YELLOW is a wonderful psychological thriller that takes place over five days in the same locale as the heroine's perfect routines that never deviates (think six sigma but to an infinite level) begin to unravel leading to doubts, accidents, and much more. The key to this finely plotted tale is whether Stella has lost her groove and her grip on reality or is Ivan perhaps abetted by Skye is driving her insane. Fans will read Janni Visman's powerful character driven novel in one stark sitting.

Harriet Klausner