fouanth's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-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? Yes
4.0
cdelorenzo's review against another edition
5.0
"...en aquel preciso instante en que la gente se mira con cariño a medida que avanza hacia la ausencia y la memoria, cuando el deseo aguijonea con tal agudeza que adivina su vanidad frente a la partida de su objeto, nosotros estábamos el uno frente al otro en silencio, y yo era incapaz de hacer nada aparte de largarme (...) solo la esperanza o la desesperanza cambian el mundo, a partes iguales".
"A fin de cuentas, veinte años es la edad más hermosa de la vida".
"A fin de cuentas, veinte años es la edad más hermosa de la vida".
angryglitterwitch's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Heartbreaking and wonderful. The most vividly written story I've read in a long time. People use the word 'searing' to describe books way too easily, but in this case there's no better adjective. Wow.
.
.
.
"I was on my way to my prison, already locked up in the ivory tower of books, which is the only place on earth where life is good."
.
.
.
"I was on my way to my prison, already locked up in the ivory tower of books, which is the only place on earth where life is good."
charlotte_molloy_'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
sjeffery's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
jgauthier's review against another edition
3.0
Read in translation. This dark, existential coming-of-age story follows Lakhdar, a Moroccan teen, from his homeless youth to brushes with radical Islam and a fragile illegal-alien existence in Barcelona. All the while, he struggles to escape the labels others attribute to him — Moroccan, Muslim — and chart his own path.
Finished this book in four days — the prose and plot had quite the pull on me. Good book.
Finished this book in four days — the prose and plot had quite the pull on me. Good book.
cjf's review against another edition
4.0
Around 3 a.m. last night, I picked up Paterson, a book-length poem by William Carlos Williams that I have not read, and got into bed, finally pulling into the sheets. I opened to the author’s preface to the first section, which describes the task of beginning, the precariousness inherent (apparent here), and dogs. Still disinterested in sleep, I focused my energies, however diminishing, onto Williams’s mongrels.
"To make a start,
out of particulars
and make them general, rolling
up the sum, by defective means —
Sniffing the trees,
just another dog
among a lot of dogs. What
else is there? And to do?
The rest have run out —
after the rabbits.
Only the lame stands — on
three legs. Scratch front and back.
Deceive and eat. Dig
a musty bone."
This is no Homeric invocation of the Muse; it’s the excavation of some insipid remains by a hobbling mutt. Your muse is dead. I remembered then that Mathis Énard’s new novel, Street of Thieves, also begins with dogs.
"Men are dogs, they rub against each other in misery, they roll around in filth and can’t get out of it, lick their fur and their genitals all day long, lying in the dust, ready to do anything for the scrap of meat or the rotten bone they want someone to throw at them, and I’m just like them, I’m a human being, hence the depraved piece of garbage that’s a slave to its instincts, a dog, a dog that bites when it’s afraid and begs for caresses. I can see my childhood clearly, my puppy dog’s life in Tangier; my young mutt’s strayings, my groans of a beaten mongrel; I understand my frenzy around women, which I took for love, and above all I understand the absence of a master, which makes us all roam around looking for him in the dark, sniffing each other, lost, aimless."
While Énard’s opening’s primary focus is the nature of man, the passage does serve as a subtle microcosm of the larger, more interesting themes he will eventually explore and poses the pertinent question that Williams, too, asks: What happens when your master is gone?
There are lesser masters than Williams’s, which, however seemingly absent, is ultimately creative. There are masters of violence, terror, and confusion. Ones bent on destruction. And ones insatiable that never disappear. These are masters that surround Énard’s narrator, Lakdhar: teen in exile, sometimes practicing Muslim, and bookseller. And lame dog; he, like Williams’s speaker, is less driven by instinct to serve than his peers. He’s not content to chase rabbits. His aimlessness is more specific, more discerning than that. Which is to say that a difference between Williams’s speaker and Lakdhar’s is their positioning in the world, which may in fact be where this, however coincidental, comparison falters. (It had a good run.) Though Williams doesn’t see a master at the moment, I don’t think, if he did, it’d be one of creation, not destruction. Williams’s is the master of few, not many, the kind of master that Lakdhar is looking for but, for reasons outside of his control, cannot find.
To conclude as precariously as I began, I’ll say that Street of Thieves is a fated novel, one whose protagonist — his entire world — is subjected to the muses, not of creation, but of destruction. He doesn’t choose them. He has no choice. Lakdhar’s doggish life, in his own words: “I ate from the hand of Fate.”
"To make a start,
out of particulars
and make them general, rolling
up the sum, by defective means —
Sniffing the trees,
just another dog
among a lot of dogs. What
else is there? And to do?
The rest have run out —
after the rabbits.
Only the lame stands — on
three legs. Scratch front and back.
Deceive and eat. Dig
a musty bone."
This is no Homeric invocation of the Muse; it’s the excavation of some insipid remains by a hobbling mutt. Your muse is dead. I remembered then that Mathis Énard’s new novel, Street of Thieves, also begins with dogs.
"Men are dogs, they rub against each other in misery, they roll around in filth and can’t get out of it, lick their fur and their genitals all day long, lying in the dust, ready to do anything for the scrap of meat or the rotten bone they want someone to throw at them, and I’m just like them, I’m a human being, hence the depraved piece of garbage that’s a slave to its instincts, a dog, a dog that bites when it’s afraid and begs for caresses. I can see my childhood clearly, my puppy dog’s life in Tangier; my young mutt’s strayings, my groans of a beaten mongrel; I understand my frenzy around women, which I took for love, and above all I understand the absence of a master, which makes us all roam around looking for him in the dark, sniffing each other, lost, aimless."
While Énard’s opening’s primary focus is the nature of man, the passage does serve as a subtle microcosm of the larger, more interesting themes he will eventually explore and poses the pertinent question that Williams, too, asks: What happens when your master is gone?
There are lesser masters than Williams’s, which, however seemingly absent, is ultimately creative. There are masters of violence, terror, and confusion. Ones bent on destruction. And ones insatiable that never disappear. These are masters that surround Énard’s narrator, Lakdhar: teen in exile, sometimes practicing Muslim, and bookseller. And lame dog; he, like Williams’s speaker, is less driven by instinct to serve than his peers. He’s not content to chase rabbits. His aimlessness is more specific, more discerning than that. Which is to say that a difference between Williams’s speaker and Lakdhar’s is their positioning in the world, which may in fact be where this, however coincidental, comparison falters. (It had a good run.) Though Williams doesn’t see a master at the moment, I don’t think, if he did, it’d be one of creation, not destruction. Williams’s is the master of few, not many, the kind of master that Lakdhar is looking for but, for reasons outside of his control, cannot find.
To conclude as precariously as I began, I’ll say that Street of Thieves is a fated novel, one whose protagonist — his entire world — is subjected to the muses, not of creation, but of destruction. He doesn’t choose them. He has no choice. Lakdhar’s doggish life, in his own words: “I ate from the hand of Fate.”
mcglassa's review
4.0
I found this novel engaging and driven. Enard immerses us in complex topics of religion, sexuality, immigration... the list goes on, all wrapped up in a riveting plot that maintained my interest throughout. The narrative has a magical, dreamy, glow and was a joy to read. The three parts of the novel weren't necessarily distinct but flow together and different themes and genres weave throughout the novel. The ending becomes a sort of building psychological study and ends the novel perfectly.
daneekasghost's review
5.0
It's just a really good story that's really well told. It's current and exciting and it kept me reading throughout.