matthew4's review against another edition
3.0
Copy number: 13,783
It’s hard to write a review for this book to be honest. When I first heard of the idea behind the novel, I loved it. And to some extent I still do. However, it must be said, it was not the most exciting or enjoyable read - a lot of the reading experience was quite mundane.
I don’t blame Balestrini for this though. In theory, even with the confusion caused by all proper nouns being replaced by the letter ‘C’, it should be possible for this experimental novel to work. Balestrini has laid out the skeleton of the story, and it’s up to our imagination, as co-authors, to fill in the details and create an interesting story within these pages.
Unfortunately it didn’t quite work like that for myself, and from the look of other reviews, for many others too. I would argue that perhaps this novel has simply been released at the wrong point in history. As a class, we are tired, alienated and busy, and through the structures that cause these things, also limited in our pursuit of creativity and imagination. Our current societal conditions arguably do not allow for the sort of imagination and creativity that Balestrini’s Tristano needs and deserves, to be the masterpiece it could be. Perhaps it would be better to save any re-read of this text for a future communist society, in which creativity and leisure will flourish.
With all that in consideration, I’ve given the text 3/5, despite the fact the reading experience was almost certainly below that.
It’s hard to write a review for this book to be honest. When I first heard of the idea behind the novel, I loved it. And to some extent I still do. However, it must be said, it was not the most exciting or enjoyable read - a lot of the reading experience was quite mundane.
I don’t blame Balestrini for this though. In theory, even with the confusion caused by all proper nouns being replaced by the letter ‘C’, it should be possible for this experimental novel to work. Balestrini has laid out the skeleton of the story, and it’s up to our imagination, as co-authors, to fill in the details and create an interesting story within these pages.
Unfortunately it didn’t quite work like that for myself, and from the look of other reviews, for many others too. I would argue that perhaps this novel has simply been released at the wrong point in history. As a class, we are tired, alienated and busy, and through the structures that cause these things, also limited in our pursuit of creativity and imagination. Our current societal conditions arguably do not allow for the sort of imagination and creativity that Balestrini’s Tristano needs and deserves, to be the masterpiece it could be. Perhaps it would be better to save any re-read of this text for a future communist society, in which creativity and leisure will flourish.
With all that in consideration, I’ve given the text 3/5, despite the fact the reading experience was almost certainly below that.
paperbackbones's review against another edition
2.0
Sadly, incomprehensible. Very disappointed that I didn’t enjoy it. :(
mcsbooks's review against another edition
3.0
This is a really tricky book to truly rate, so three stars seems a fairly neutral decision.
I read number 13492 of this text, each one before and one after is different. It’s an experiment in writing and what writing can do, especially now in this age of technology. So this isn’t what you would expect from your usual narrative.
There is a fairly basic narrative happening in here although this gets muddied by the rearrangement of sentences without a true logic. The experiment of it relies too heavily on the maths and the brain to really speak to the heart, so as a story, for me it failed.
Considering what it is though, it was an interesting experience as I tried to navigate all the possible ways the text could be rearranged and how exactly it would change. I imagine that this book would be of greater pleasure were it something you could compare with it’s other counter parts to really track the methodology behind it. Otherwise you have nothing to really attach meaning to or to at least realise exactly the science behind it.
I read number 13492 of this text, each one before and one after is different. It’s an experiment in writing and what writing can do, especially now in this age of technology. So this isn’t what you would expect from your usual narrative.
There is a fairly basic narrative happening in here although this gets muddied by the rearrangement of sentences without a true logic. The experiment of it relies too heavily on the maths and the brain to really speak to the heart, so as a story, for me it failed.
Considering what it is though, it was an interesting experience as I tried to navigate all the possible ways the text could be rearranged and how exactly it would change. I imagine that this book would be of greater pleasure were it something you could compare with it’s other counter parts to really track the methodology behind it. Otherwise you have nothing to really attach meaning to or to at least realise exactly the science behind it.
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