Ian Colford’s Reviews > Paradise Rot

Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval

Read in November 2024

3 of 5 stars

In Paradise Rot, Jo, a young Norwegian woman, has arrived in the English town of Aybourne to attend college and study biology. She has no place to live and initially stays in a hostel before securing a room in an apartment located in a converted brewery. Her roommate in the brewery apartment is Carral, who works as an office temp and has a degree in English Literature but reads trashy romance novels. From the outset, Jo’s narration emphasizes her physical surroundings, the fleshly textures of the food she eats and the people around her: “The food in the breakfast hall was slippery and fluid.” And, “The foreign students too were smooth and gleaming.” Jo’s “room” does not afford much in the way of privacy because Carral’s apartment is divided only by flimsy partitions that don’t reach the ceiling. Thus, noises of all sorts, from pages being turned to sounds of a more intimate nature, reverberate throughout the apartment. As the days pass, Jo’s experience of the space in which she resides becomes dominated by biological processes. Jo’s narrative details bodily secretions, such as urine and blood. Carral brings home a load of apples—far too many for the two of them to eat—which begin to spoil, and which saturate the apartment with the stench of decay even after the rotting fruit is consigned to the compost. When humidity levels rise and fog embraces the town, the apartment grows soggy, moss appears on the walls and between the floorboards, and mushrooms sprout in the bathroom. The two women grow together and seem to merge, sharing thoughts and sensations. Carral comes to Jo’s bed. And near the end of the book, when Carral takes a sip of hot tea, Jo can feel the liquid sear the roof of her mouth. In Paradise Rot, the symbolism is clear, but Aybourne is no Eden, and Jo’s escape from the brewery is more salvation than banishment. This is a novel that spins an elusive flesh and blood tale of bodies stewing in their own juices. It’s as if we’re observing specimens under a microscope, cells clinging to one another, consuming each other. The world of Jenny Hval’s first novel (originally published in 2009) is familiar but alien and hints at something horrifying just below the surface, but well out of sight. Paradise Rot does not divulge its secrets. But it does leave an imprint on the reader that is not quick to fade.