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melissah94's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
codosbankarena's review against another edition
3.0
While it’s written with that bohemian descriptive style that easily portrays summer-brightness imagery that I can appreciate, the plot didn’t exactly feel all too moving or special, and parts of it just felt like a love letter to Leonard Cohen.
Nicely written but the execution was lacking. Makes me think whether the endorsements from the big names on the back are genuine or not.
Nicely written but the execution was lacking. Makes me think whether the endorsements from the big names on the back are genuine or not.
tripleheaven's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
kirajoy's review against another edition
3.0
This book was an interesting character study, but you never feel like you get to know the characters very well, it drifted through and was pretty plotless. Read a bit like a memoir but of course it isn’t. It certainly does make you want to visit a Greek island in the 60s though. I wonder where those places exist now. I don’t regret reading it, and it did make me interested in reading Peel Me A Lotus, which sounds to be an actual memoir written by someone who was really there. This beatnik lifestyle is quite romanticized but the main character never has any true problems happen to her, except her runaway boyfriend, and then that just comes and goes in 2 pages of writing.
frmereads's review against another edition
i'm sorry but i had to dnf bc i, personally, wasn't enjoying reading it.
afraid_not_scared's review against another edition
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.0
tnfrances's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
This book broke my heart a few times over. It was extremely frustrating to read about the blatant sexism of the beats generation. But also moving to see Erica muddle her way through tremendous grief to build something like a family. I'm glad l read this book, even if I can't wholeheartedly recommend it to most people, l enjoyed the heartache.
daja57's review against another edition
3.0
It is 1960. The protagonist, Erica, and her brother, Bobby, leave their abusive father following their mother's death and take the beatnik trail to the Greek island of Hydra where they join the artist's colony there for a glorious summer. We're talking sun, sand, skinny-dipping, ouzo and lots of sex. There is work going on: typewriters up and down the island are being hammered by wannabe writers who talk about their muses while those muses cook and clean and carry ice to the ice-store and water to the cistern. This point is made repeatedly: that the women are propping up the men. This is particularly true of the key relationship in the book: the marriage between Charmian Clift and George Johnston: he has TB and sweats buckets trying to write books which will keep them solvent while she juggles housework, the demands of three young children, keeping him inspired and motivated, and never has enough time for their own writing. He treats her abominably. Very few of the men are anything other than baddies (the mad Swede Axel treats his wife even worse than George treats his) although the key complaint seems to be their promiscuity (which, given that almost all of the relationships are heterosexual, is sauce for the goose as well as the ganer); many of the women, on the other hand, are saints.
Charmian and George were real people, as are many of the other characters in the book, including Leonard Cohen the singer-songwriter who appears as a sort of guru-like figure, always ready to resolve a conflict (and there are plenty, mostly to do with the incorrigible bed-hopping of these promiscuous outsiders) with wise words. The second key relationship is between Marianne Ihlen and Axel Jensen, with Marianne leaving Axel after having Axel's baby and moving in with Leonard.
I found it a very interesting book, as a sort of fictionalised multi-person biography. Its biggest failing was the huge cast-list. As well as the characters above there are Jimmy, Erica's boyfriend, and Edie, Bobby's girlfirend, and Trudy, later Bobby's wife, and Dinos, and Chuck, and Gordon, and Patrick Greer (who is almost always, anomalously, surnamed), and Goran, and Jean-Claude Maurice (another with a surname), and Janey, and Charmian and George's children Martin and Shane and Booli, and Nancy, and a playwright called Kenneth and his wife Janis, and Angela and David, and Bim and Robyn, and Demetri and Carolyn, and Greg Corso, and to be honest I lost track of most of them. The trouble is that so many of them are real people so I suppose that the author didn't feel that she could cull any of them. But then the trouble is that they can't all be given any more than the most rudimentary characters: they are little more than spear carriers. And this extended to the central cast. The only characters that were developed with any complexity were Charmian and George, and, perhaps, Marianne. Even the narrator was little more than an observer. Other major characters were fundamentally one-dimensional: Bobby was depressed, Jimmy was beautiful and unfaithful, Leonard was, as already said, a guru and guide. As for Erica's father back in London, he was a wife-and-child beating villain straight out of melodrama: if he had possessed moustaches he would have twirled them; I was just surprised he wasn't called Sir Jasper. Encountering such a caricature so early on almost made me give up on the book.
It's mostly well-paced, with the trip up the mountain to worship the sun god at the 25% mark, the transfer of Marianne from Axel to Leonard at the half-way mark and the disappearance of unfaithful Jimmy at the 75% mark. However the last 10% of the book, which acts as a sort of extended epilogue after Erica has returned from Hydra, and in which so many of the books revelations are concentrated, seems cramped and rushed.
Charmian and George were real people, as are many of the other characters in the book, including Leonard Cohen the singer-songwriter who appears as a sort of guru-like figure, always ready to resolve a conflict (and there are plenty, mostly to do with the incorrigible bed-hopping of these promiscuous outsiders) with wise words. The second key relationship is between Marianne Ihlen and Axel Jensen, with Marianne leaving Axel after having Axel's baby and moving in with Leonard.
I found it a very interesting book, as a sort of fictionalised multi-person biography. Its biggest failing was the huge cast-list. As well as the characters above there are Jimmy, Erica's boyfriend, and Edie, Bobby's girlfirend, and Trudy, later Bobby's wife, and Dinos, and Chuck, and Gordon, and Patrick Greer (who is almost always, anomalously, surnamed), and Goran, and Jean-Claude Maurice (another with a surname), and Janey, and Charmian and George's children Martin and Shane and Booli, and Nancy, and a playwright called Kenneth and his wife Janis, and Angela and David, and Bim and Robyn, and Demetri and Carolyn, and Greg Corso, and to be honest I lost track of most of them. The trouble is that so many of them are real people so I suppose that the author didn't feel that she could cull any of them. But then the trouble is that they can't all be given any more than the most rudimentary characters: they are little more than spear carriers. And this extended to the central cast. The only characters that were developed with any complexity were Charmian and George, and, perhaps, Marianne. Even the narrator was little more than an observer. Other major characters were fundamentally one-dimensional: Bobby was depressed, Jimmy was beautiful and unfaithful, Leonard was, as already said, a guru and guide. As for Erica's father back in London, he was a wife-and-child beating villain straight out of melodrama: if he had possessed moustaches he would have twirled them; I was just surprised he wasn't called Sir Jasper. Encountering such a caricature so early on almost made me give up on the book.
It's mostly well-paced, with the trip up the mountain to worship the sun god at the 25% mark, the transfer of Marianne from Axel to Leonard at the half-way mark and the disappearance of unfaithful Jimmy at the 75% mark. However the last 10% of the book, which acts as a sort of extended epilogue after Erica has returned from Hydra, and in which so many of the books revelations are concentrated, seems cramped and rushed.
malidrewg's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0