skolastic's review
3.0
Tough to think of a place to start here. I had come to this because I was kind of fascinated by Erickson's short story (which I guess is now a novel?) Zeroville, and this was the only book of his I ever seemed to find (and it had a glowing blurb from William Gibson, which, that's certainly something).
I finished this book and didn't feel that I enjoyed it. This reviewer: http://quarterlyconversation.com/arc-dx-by-steven-erickson-review and I seem to be mostly on the same page - I almost want to email this person and track them down to talk this out further, because the Lynch connection seems even stronger in light of the Twin Peaks material that's come out between then and now (watch the third season and read this book and tell me they're not on the same wavelength).
Anyhow, that's me digressing. The point in that review I wanted to get to here is this idea of Erickson "breaking the piano", hammering on these metaphors to the point that you kind of lose any sense of what the characters are doing. Twin Peaks is always interesting to me because you have these very human, down-to-earth stories overlapping and bouncing off of the activities of this weird, higher-dimensional battle that the show never really explains all that well. Here, what you do get of that human element (and I'm not saying it's not there, because it certainly is) is wrapped up in layer upon layer of all this other stuff (which, to be clear, is nowhere near as weird as that other stuff is in Twin Peaks, it's just that it feels impenetrable).
Overall, I came away from this feeling like Erickson's a really great writer, but he's just not for me, and that's fine.
I finished this book and didn't feel that I enjoyed it. This reviewer: http://quarterlyconversation.com/arc-dx-by-steven-erickson-review and I seem to be mostly on the same page - I almost want to email this person and track them down to talk this out further, because the Lynch connection seems even stronger in light of the Twin Peaks material that's come out between then and now (watch the third season and read this book and tell me they're not on the same wavelength).
Anyhow, that's me digressing. The point in that review I wanted to get to here is this idea of Erickson "breaking the piano", hammering on these metaphors to the point that you kind of lose any sense of what the characters are doing. Twin Peaks is always interesting to me because you have these very human, down-to-earth stories overlapping and bouncing off of the activities of this weird, higher-dimensional battle that the show never really explains all that well. Here, what you do get of that human element (and I'm not saying it's not there, because it certainly is) is wrapped up in layer upon layer of all this other stuff (which, to be clear, is nowhere near as weird as that other stuff is in Twin Peaks, it's just that it feels impenetrable).
Overall, I came away from this feeling like Erickson's a really great writer, but he's just not for me, and that's fine.
justlucyamelia's review
4.0
More than anything else, this book brought into focus the failings of the five start rating system for me. Not because I had a particularly strong opinion one way or the other that five measly categories couldn't possibly manage to summarise, but rather the opposite.
Reading through the other reviews of this book (all twenty two of them), I was struck by how I empathised with them all. From the people who couldn't make it through the first one hundred pages because it was too uncomfortable - if uncomfortable even comes close - to the people who accepted that it was never supposed to be an easy read. From the people who were genuinely stunned by Erickson's construction of sentences to the people who thought it was pretentious and ridiculous. From the people who thought the structure was a mess to the people who thought it was a revelation.
I do think the book suffered from the inclusion of the Erickson (an American novelist in the book?) and Georgie sections. They made me check the clock on my phone every ten pages - the number one sin in literature - and didn't add much to the narrative. However, I'd definitely say to someone that they should read it, if only it meant that there was one more person in the world to discuss it with, but I couldn't recommend it in the same uncomplicated way I can recommend books I've rated 4+.
Reading through the other reviews of this book (all twenty two of them), I was struck by how I empathised with them all. From the people who couldn't make it through the first one hundred pages because it was too uncomfortable - if uncomfortable even comes close - to the people who accepted that it was never supposed to be an easy read. From the people who were genuinely stunned by Erickson's construction of sentences to the people who thought it was pretentious and ridiculous. From the people who thought the structure was a mess to the people who thought it was a revelation.
I do think the book suffered from the inclusion of the Erickson (an American novelist in the book?) and Georgie sections. They made me check the clock on my phone every ten pages - the number one sin in literature - and didn't add much to the narrative. However, I'd definitely say to someone that they should read it, if only it meant that there was one more person in the world to discuss it with, but I couldn't recommend it in the same uncomplicated way I can recommend books I've rated 4+.
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