Review of Ironing

[Danielle Gouws]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Ironing" by Navajo.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Ironing by Navajo is an experimental ‘super-realist’ fiction. Set in current time England, the book is a collection of events happening with a wide range of different characters. The book covers short snippets of the characters’ lives, jumping seamlessly from one to the next and back again. While the story isn’t about anyone in particular, the characters that appear most in the book, is three college aged females, whose conversations we follow mostly as they travel on a bus to the Dog Races.

The only thing I found enjoyable about this book was the humor.
What I didn’t enjoy about this book was that there seems to be no real association between the characters or events. Often a new character is introduced and we are immersed in a short segment of their life, with no context whatsoever. Just as one thinks you are getting a sense of the story, the whole scene changes and the character that you just met is never mentioned in the book again.

There is also no linear progression or character growth, just loose movement from one moment of a character’s life, to the next moment in the life of another character. We never get the opportunity to really get to know the characters, before moving on, and so the characters seem very superficial. Just like the title, the whole book is so random and chaotic, that I felt unable to grasp and hold on to any of the story.

The three characters that we encounter most, Emma, Ginie and Royanda, spend most of the book on the bus ride, where they have meaningless conversations that borders on annoying, while there are other characters whose lives seem to be much more interesting, but their stories are neglected.
There is a lot of British slang used in the text, making it harder to read and sometimes difficult to understand, and some of these slang words are overtly overused “innit”.

That being said, I think the goal of the author was for the book to remind us of the chaos of life, where there isn’t always a happy ending, nor always a complete story with all the answers.
While the book was purposefully written in this way, I give it 2 out of 4 stars, as I would not recommend this book to anyone, but it was quite funny at times.

This book is mostly suited for a young adult audience, due to the slang used (Millennial and GenerationX), and the gritty language.

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Ironing
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