dcmr's review against another edition
1.0
This book is one indulgent sentence after another.
I loathed the narrator. Did the author intentionally create an awful American male poet/traveler/poser character? Is the point of this novel to confirm that Americans really are lazy, self-centered, and pretentious?
If the aim is satire, it only works for a very short time and only with some sort of payoff at the end — and not, as this story suggests, that the pseudo-intellectual poet is not a bumbling idiot but rather a brilliant fountain of creativity. Give me a break!
I loathed the narrator. Did the author intentionally create an awful American male poet/traveler/poser character? Is the point of this novel to confirm that Americans really are lazy, self-centered, and pretentious?
If the aim is satire, it only works for a very short time and only with some sort of payoff at the end — and not, as this story suggests, that the pseudo-intellectual poet is not a bumbling idiot but rather a brilliant fountain of creativity. Give me a break!
kaibastos's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.5
laura_r's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
gapingvoid's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
--> reading diary
ashleygracew's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
niki_eileen's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
michaelwong's review against another edition
5.0
“Under the arc of the cello”
“I am speaking grammar, pure and universal, but also suggesting a higher form of music...”
“Isabel assigned profound meanings, to my fragmentary speech, intuiting from those fragments depths of insight and latent eloquence, and because she projected what she thought she discovered, she experienced...an intense affinity for my mind”.
“I was at first put off and threatened by the handsome countenances of the other listeners, faces the hat displayed an absorption I refused to believe was felt, each face carefully positioned to imply a lively interior world...”
“...believing the ideological machinery of their grammar was being deconstructed...”
“One cannot overcome the commodification of language by fleeing into an imagined past...by rather one must seek out new forms of language”
“...this strange experience of reading, the sense of harmony between the rhythms of a reproduction and the real, their structural identity, so that the subject of the4 sentence was prcisely the time of its being furthered...”
"'...Why does everything it the apartment, from a pile of books to those papers on your desk, seem so beautifully arranged? How is it that your cat communicates so muc intelligence, that t blinks so significantly?'...'Why are you speaking English?'"
"You can see all of this from a great height and zoom out until it is no longer visible or you can zoom in on the writing hand or the face of the dead, zoom in until it's no longer a face. Or you can click on something and drag it. You can adjust the color or you can make it black and white. You can view any object from any angle or multiple angles simultaneously or you can shut your eyes and listen to the crown in the arena or the sirens slowly approaching the red car or the sound of the pen writing down the years as silver is hammered and shaped."
"...I was nevertheless outside the language I was speaking, building simple sentences with blocks I'd memorized, not communicating through a fluid medium."
"in the last phase of my research fireflies were disapearing. Bats were flying around confused in the middle of the day, colliding wth each other, falling into little heaps...Why not let children touch the paintings?"
I wonder if this is the best novel ever written. Do I always say that? This time I mean it. Maybe.
“I am speaking grammar, pure and universal, but also suggesting a higher form of music...”
“Isabel assigned profound meanings, to my fragmentary speech, intuiting from those fragments depths of insight and latent eloquence, and because she projected what she thought she discovered, she experienced...an intense affinity for my mind”.
“I was at first put off and threatened by the handsome countenances of the other listeners, faces the hat displayed an absorption I refused to believe was felt, each face carefully positioned to imply a lively interior world...”
“...believing the ideological machinery of their grammar was being deconstructed...”
“One cannot overcome the commodification of language by fleeing into an imagined past...by rather one must seek out new forms of language”
“...this strange experience of reading, the sense of harmony between the rhythms of a reproduction and the real, their structural identity, so that the subject of the4 sentence was prcisely the time of its being furthered...”
"'...Why does everything it the apartment, from a pile of books to those papers on your desk, seem so beautifully arranged? How is it that your cat communicates so muc intelligence, that t blinks so significantly?'...'Why are you speaking English?'"
"You can see all of this from a great height and zoom out until it is no longer visible or you can zoom in on the writing hand or the face of the dead, zoom in until it's no longer a face. Or you can click on something and drag it. You can adjust the color or you can make it black and white. You can view any object from any angle or multiple angles simultaneously or you can shut your eyes and listen to the crown in the arena or the sirens slowly approaching the red car or the sound of the pen writing down the years as silver is hammered and shaped."
"...I was nevertheless outside the language I was speaking, building simple sentences with blocks I'd memorized, not communicating through a fluid medium."
"in the last phase of my research fireflies were disapearing. Bats were flying around confused in the middle of the day, colliding wth each other, falling into little heaps...Why not let children touch the paintings?"
I wonder if this is the best novel ever written. Do I always say that? This time I mean it. Maybe.
yossarian_rish's review against another edition
funny
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
neemzilla's review against another edition
5.0
Truly a remarkable and understated book. Freakin’ phenomenal.