thomasgoddard's review against another edition
4.0
Ten vignettes. Ten small sketches of a world that feels a little like Borges imagined it.
I can't really say that it has much to offer except this really scrumptious descriptive style.
For example: 'No one's left, the ball of black heat has fallen, every time the sun is red a meteorite falls and one's in darkness, the fire pours from it, a thick fire like motor oil pouring out onto our feet, no, its other bodies roasting and dancing....'
The best way to describe this is like the moment after waking up. Before you've had a chance to rearrange the images from your dreams into a coherent narrative. That jumble. That's Duvert. But really it's reality, just all jostling for attention. Everything is happening at once.
And there's a beautiful grotesque to it... such as with this... 'Down the length of the urinal's outer slabs, along the mossy slate or the zinc, runs a thin rivulet of water that gurgles like a fountain. And softly, the mosses receive both the water and the light.'
But ultimately, egotistically, this is another one that I rate highly because it reads like my own short stories. The same weak grip on the factual. The same alliterative dance over sprawling, incoherent images.
whogivesabook's review against another edition
4.0
Ten vignettes. Ten small sketches of a world that feels a little like Borges imagined it.
I can't really say that it has much to offer except this really scrumptious descriptive style.
For example: 'No one's left, the ball of black heat has fallen, every time the sun is red a meteorite falls and one's in darkness, the fire pours from it, a thick fire like motor oil pouring out onto our feet, no, its other bodies roasting and dancing....'
The best way to describe this is like the moment after waking up. Before you've had a chance to rearrange the images from your dreams into a coherent narrative. That jumble. That's Duvert. But really it's reality, just all jostling for attention. Everything is happening at once.
And there's a beautiful grotesque to it... such as with this... 'Down the length of the urinal's outer slabs, along the mossy slate or the zinc, runs a thin rivulet of water that gurgles like a fountain. And softly, the mosses receive both the water and the light.'
But ultimately, egotistically, this is another one that I rate highly because it reads like my own short stories. The same weak grip on the factual. The same alliterative dance over sprawling, incoherent images.
norah's review
3.0
Dark and strange and, honestly, not that enjoyable. His fluency in matter-a-fact description is admirable, though. I just didn't enjoy living in his mind for 20 minutes.
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