baklavopita's review against another edition
4.0
I was completely into this story about this little French man going about his day-to-day business because it was amusing and clever. The latter third of the book took a nosedive for me though. I didn't relate very well to the existential crisis he was going through or WHY he was going through it, and I had no idea what was going on. Still, I really liked the book.
kylegarvey's review against another edition
3.0
An anonymous man -- calmly riding the ups and downs of driver's ed training, a dull social life, and a giddy romance -- abruptly faces a new, more serious savagery, the philosophical questions of perception and movement. The adventures start out plainly enough: the narrator enters a driving school and is immediately smitten with the receptionist. Their romance blossoms, and after a series of jokey but grim episodes involving petrol containers and the mysterious workings of automobiles, they decide to take a trip together to England. An odd beginning for a philosophical novel? Maybe. But there were hints that something deeper and more sinister was at work: the sad, sophisticated voice underneath the comic surprises; the ominous notes covering even the silliest situations; and Toussaint's ever-present turns toward intricate and unstable structures. England then becomes an inversion of what it was in Hamlet, a place to tighten up spiritual knots instead of unravel them. This is where the ironically labored tone (like a dry, complex sitcom) starts to become actually, attentively labored.
Camera would be an intriguing experiment with these qualities left intact, but the novel is troubled by some very small but recurring problems in editing. Most are forgivable within a few pages, but some last through an entire reading. I don't know whether it's some quirk in French writing, faithfully reproduced in this edition; whether Toussaint's editors or translator purposely ignored it in the pursuit of some new, unorthodox style; or whether it's just my imagination. But the basic, fundamental syntax of this entire book strikes me as a little screwed up. It might be the huge, interminable paragraphs that seem quite arbitrary and unnecessary. It might be the stingy and wasteful dialogue that gets crunched together in a mountain of unrelated material. It might be the thoroughly odd and distracting paranthetical digressions, some of which aren't even digressive and most of which aren't very funny at all. It might be the way the sentences wander, in a train of silly phrases and clauses and addendums, like some undisciplined child who doesn't yet understand cause and effect; I know, thanks to the interview with the author included as a supplement to the novel, that the language was intended to be long and complicated, but there is rarely any hint of control or restraint to excuse its excesses.
Odd, given that these are all such petty and embarrassing qualms, most of which I'm fairly sure could (maybe?) yield some decent writing elsewhere. Especially odd, given that they're left inside a novel that is so seriously, intractably enmeshed in the basic grammar of observation and activity and life. The surface of this book is marred by a similar problem it's struggling with on the inside: how expectations created by systems and organization, like the machinery of a car engine, can lead people so far from the fluidity and humor of modern life. And, considering how sublime and impressive Camera is outside of these, I'm willing to overlook the majority of them. It can't escape them all -- even art is subject to regulations and standards – but sometimes these are okay to shrug off.
Camera would be an intriguing experiment with these qualities left intact, but the novel is troubled by some very small but recurring problems in editing. Most are forgivable within a few pages, but some last through an entire reading. I don't know whether it's some quirk in French writing, faithfully reproduced in this edition; whether Toussaint's editors or translator purposely ignored it in the pursuit of some new, unorthodox style; or whether it's just my imagination. But the basic, fundamental syntax of this entire book strikes me as a little screwed up. It might be the huge, interminable paragraphs that seem quite arbitrary and unnecessary. It might be the stingy and wasteful dialogue that gets crunched together in a mountain of unrelated material. It might be the thoroughly odd and distracting paranthetical digressions, some of which aren't even digressive and most of which aren't very funny at all. It might be the way the sentences wander, in a train of silly phrases and clauses and addendums, like some undisciplined child who doesn't yet understand cause and effect; I know, thanks to the interview with the author included as a supplement to the novel, that the language was intended to be long and complicated, but there is rarely any hint of control or restraint to excuse its excesses.
Odd, given that these are all such petty and embarrassing qualms, most of which I'm fairly sure could (maybe?) yield some decent writing elsewhere. Especially odd, given that they're left inside a novel that is so seriously, intractably enmeshed in the basic grammar of observation and activity and life. The surface of this book is marred by a similar problem it's struggling with on the inside: how expectations created by systems and organization, like the machinery of a car engine, can lead people so far from the fluidity and humor of modern life. And, considering how sublime and impressive Camera is outside of these, I'm willing to overlook the majority of them. It can't escape them all -- even art is subject to regulations and standards – but sometimes these are okay to shrug off.
yvonnep's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
melanie_page's review against another edition
2.0
I have this terrible feeling that I'm not into literature that is important and imperative because it's over my head. Oy. I would stick this novel under "cute," if that was a star ranking. I might appreciate it more in the context of a graduate class, where a nice bundle of peers who could tell me what to think would improve my rating.
teosolar's review
3.0
Nothing groundbreaking, finished the book really quickly and there wasn't that sense of something within me changing, that I get from quality literature.
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