Checkout 19 is a novel written by Claire-Louise Bennett released to great critical acclaim in 2022 that is a plotless and action-starved observation of the day-to-day minutiae occupying the thoughts of a nameless woman. The focus is on the small details and "nothing happens" in the traditional sense of dramatic storytelling as the novel seeks to defiantly reject nearly every expectation of the mainstream narrative experience.
One expects there to be a point to the decision by a writer for their protagonist to remain anonymous and that point is usually because the reader is supposed to identify more closely with the character through whose eyes we enter the narrative. Such a purpose seems highly unlikely in this case since Bennett's narrator/protagonist can in no possible universe be considered an "everywoman." The point more likely seems to be that not giving her lead character a definite name has to do with keeping readers from attaching personal experience to the name itself.
The narrator is an idiosyncratic individual who likely would not fit the expectations brought by the reader to any name given her. Even if a reader personally knows only one Bronwyn or Adeline, that Bronwyn or Adeline may bring a certain expectation that is at least subconsciously going to be working against the narrator. Trying to imagine someone writing something like "We could sit for a long time couldn't we with a book beside us and not even open it. We certainly could. And it was very edifying. It certainly was. It was entirely possible we realised to get a great deal from a book without even opening it" who shares a name with an ordinary person we know seems difficult.
That is a feeling applicable to reading this entire book. The narrator does not seem like anyone most people would ever know. For that matter, the narrator doesn't feel like anyone most could ever know. The novel is touted as something approaching semi-autobiography, but that seems increasingly unlikely the more one reads. This is a strange symptom of narratives that purposely avoid those external aspects that make them feel mainstream: they seem to lack realism.
The choice to not burden such a story with something as counterfeit to reality as a "plot" is aggressively pursued in this novel. The story begins with the narrator recalling her childhood when she fell in love with books and proceeds through the first section to become a story about a woman talking about the books she loves.
The middle of the novel is the narrator telling of writing a story about a literal Renaissance man named Tarquin Superbus and his majestic library filled with books that have covers but are empty inside. The narrator's writing of his story and the story of Tarquin's bizarre library itself seem to be leading to a change of course and a pivot in direction in which more traditional storytelling principles will come into play. Instead, showing a full commitment to the process, they become little more than the origination points for more stream-of-consciousness digressions by the narrator.
Which, ultimately, turns out to be the whole point. Those aspects of storytelling which transform the reality of a narrative into a "plot" are intellectually perceived as fake, but over time become emotionally necessary to fulfill expectations of reality. When one reads a story like that told in Checkout 19 which rejects every opportunity to construct a plot, the result is paradoxical. Not dependent on the fakery, the story itself is perceived as unrealistic.
Real people don't talk like, for instance, this: “Yes. The whole thing goes up in flames. Flames. Roaring. Yes. It all burns up quickly. Every inch of her included. Yes. Leaving behind an iridescent pile of the softest ash. The sort of ash you want to stir. Softer than feathers. Run your fingers through. It tingles doesn’t it. Yes. Yes. Yes it does." No, but they do think like this. The narration doesn't feel like a character speaking to the reader, but it very much feels like a person's thoughts being broadcast. In this sense, the book is absolutely realistic even as it feels absolutely unrealistic.
The story ends with the narrator commenting upon writers commenting upon the lives of another writer. By this stage, it has become clear that the woman telling her story sees no difference at all between reading and living. Books are her life, and her life is a living book. Her philosophy to life and books is not just similar, but identical. "When we turn the page we are born again. Living and dying and living and dying and living and dying. Again and again. And really that's the way it ought to be. The way that reading ought to be done. Yes. Yes. Turning the pages. Turning the pages. With one's entire life."
Checkout 19 is clearly not a book for everyone. But one thing is crystal clear. This is a novel for people love to read. It is, in fact, a love letter to the abstract concept of the very thing that the people who will enjoy it most are actually doing.
