Reviews

In der Ferne by Hernán Díaz

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sydneyrp143's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

alwill24's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

baileydouglass's review against another edition

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3.0

I think this is probably a very good book if you like Oh Brother Where Art Thou. or other content about about western men trying to get home in the wilderness but honestly it wasn't my favorite and this one wasn't either.

Very exciting first half with a lot more man alone in nature stuff than I needed and a lot of violence. If this is your kind of book it's probably a 5 star, which makes me feel a little bad about the 3 star rating, but if anyone who shares my taste reads this I hope they find something else.

I read this because I LOVED Trust. It was absolutely one of my favorite books of last year, and this is just a totally different kind of book. Diaz's range is impressive and I'll absolutely read his future books as long as he doesn't repeat the western/man on his own genre.

lysskv's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes

5.0

this kinda blew me away ngl! I read Trust earlier this year and liked it well enough but this was INCREDIBLE. I want to buy a physical copy and mark it all up. One of those books I think I can start reading once a year/every other year. May also have to go onto all time list as well

the way I almost cried when Asa died while I was on a plane

mmcbride's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

p_t_b's review against another edition

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4.0

latest entry into my longstanding open-door policy re stories where bad shit happens to people in the 19th century. what do you call an open door policy when the door is not only open but someone tries to force you to go through it. door compulsion. there is no door, it's just a guy shoving you.

inadequate/immaterial plot summary: a blank swedish immigrant travels to america with his brother, immediately gets separated from said brother, winds up being used as like a family mule in the gold rush, then he becomes a sex slave, then he gets ... i forget. at some point he gets sort of dragooned into being like this weird charles darwiny dude's assistant science guy, then they almost die from being too dedicated to science to notice they are in a desert, then they rescue some indians using white man things but also learn double secret indian things because noble savage, then he falls in love with a grim but enchanting settler lady just after like one touch of a chaste finger, but then wild white mormon banditos kill her, then he kills them, then he kind of becomes this weird buster keaton meets batman meets phantom of the opera guy known to frontier folks as THE HAWK then he lives in a hole in the ground for a while and then there's a curveball gay-romance MFK fisher interlude about foraging herbs to make stew with, then more people he loves get murdered and the universe is tuff

you might think from this plot summary that i disliked this book, and i definitely disliked elements of it (some of the stuff about _the realest wildest west is inside of people_ is ... bad. just like embarrassing but maybe what i mean is, it made me cringe as a writer). like if there was an instagram filter that made Blood Meridian fan fiction

I LIKED THIS BOOK. despite having some sort of not unstale thematics, it takes some of the strains of the western genre and turns them inside out and snips them up into weird paper flowers and just goes, like it has that thing that good books have wherein they just kind of chug along doing their good thing and you don't really even notice it's happening until it ends.

one last complaint: i dont really understand why he cares about his brother so much, and also the part where the narrator claims that Hakan doesn't know how money works, right at the very end... come on, he doesn't have to be that pure of heart, he has already killed like 10 people and been a sex slave, i have a feeling he could have just sort of intuited the idea of how money works ...

have to say this one more time: this book is not subtle or very pleasant and sometimes it just totally goes into Bad JR Smith mode and starts taking off balance 19 footers with 20 seconds left on the shot clock. but i want to know what comes next for this Hernan Diaz individual.