On the faultline between the locution analysis of Olga Tokarczuk and the storytelling genius of Clarice Lispector comes a beautiful and unsettling novel from Anna Moschovakis. An Earthquake is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth is both a mouthful to say and a mouthful to digest, but this book asks us to consume as one does at a Michelin star restaurant, chewing contemplatively and eager for the next course.
Following a devastating earthquake, we embark on a contemplative journey with an unnamed narrator who has more difficulty walking than she did before. Struggling not only physically with a cane as the tremors continue, she is also alone, lost in the wake of losing her mediocre acting career and her roommate leaving without notice. Soon begins an obsession with challenging the rational thoughts in her mind and a violent fixation on her roommate, Tala. The woman allows herself to entertain murderous fantasies of killing Tala, and slowly returns to the city in search of her.As she wanders deeper into her own thoughts, her mental stability grows shakier, matching the earth beneath her feet.
Throughout, the narrator does a lot of meditation on metaphors and the casual idioms she hears often. I really enjoyed the encouragement I felt to look more closely into the words we say and consider where they come from. She seemed to be deciding that these sayings weren’t for her, either because of their lack of originality or the uncertainty of why we say the things we do.
She certainly says a lot, though. The woman keeps notebooks and lists that take on a range of purposes: daily tasks to reliving past memories to full scenes from acting classes. She also continues to receive somewhat mysterious cards, asking questions like “WHO WOULD BE WRONG IF YOUR LIFE BEGAN TO WORK?” These ominous words poke at her inner monologues, and offer a small mystery that adds depth to the book’s atmosphere.
Truly, it was the setting that made this work soar. The ground continues to tremor in random moments and the thoughts in the woman’s mind mirror that shakiness, that growing uncertainty of her surroundings. Specifically, the fact that she is (or was) an actress adds this layer of shapeshifting as the ground is shifting too. Moschovakis did a spectacular job carrying this feeling of off-balancedness that is only enhanced as her other relationships begin to shift as well. At its core, I found this book to be about finding your way when everything around you is shifting, and the different mindsets that you can choose to nurture.
An Earthquake is the Shaking of the Surface of the Earth certainly falls into a category of books that I like to call “beautifully meandering and heavily inner-monologued women’s literature”. What I mean is that for what this book lacks in plot, it more than makes up for with its philosophical considerations and ability to transport us to and from different moments in time that are weaved together masterfully—though it is sometimes difficult to see until the end.
Moschovakis’s work reminded me a lot of Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Man, both in prose style, atmosphere, and narration style. Moving (literally and metaphorically) and memorable, An Earthquake is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth found its way into my mind in unexpected ways, and I encourage anyone with a love of literature and language to pick it up.
FICTION
An Earthquake Is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth
by Anna Moschovakis
Soft Skull
Published November 19th, 2024
