A review by tgbuck
Night Theater by Vikram Paralkar
3.0
On a scale of no-thank-you to Everyone Read This Now, I land somewhere a little past neutral -- not for lack of visceral response to the strange gore of it, but for lack of feeling particularly moved to ponder all the juicy questions about being human that the description promised.
The blend of poeticism and technical precision was mesmerizing, and Paralkar clearly knows his anatomy. Reading his descriptions of surgery reminded me of how I felt as a 3 year old, staring in jaw-dropped awe at surgery shows (what exactly I was watching I don't remember, and why my parents let me is another question...), so close to the television screen I was almost cross-eyed. There's something so beautiful about the science of the human body.
That said, the far-fetchedness of the plot paired with the shiftiness and slight inconsistencies of the characters kept me from really trusting and letting myself fall into the story.
All in all, an entertaining and well-written adventure into some dark shit. 3 stars, as in "wouldn't read again, but glad I did" and "I feel kind of sick after reading this, but not in a bad way?"
The blend of poeticism and technical precision was mesmerizing, and Paralkar clearly knows his anatomy. Reading his descriptions of surgery reminded me of how I felt as a 3 year old, staring in jaw-dropped awe at surgery shows (what exactly I was watching I don't remember, and why my parents let me is another question...), so close to the television screen I was almost cross-eyed. There's something so beautiful about the science of the human body.
That said, the far-fetchedness of the plot paired with the shiftiness and slight inconsistencies of the characters kept me from really trusting and letting myself fall into the story.
All in all, an entertaining and well-written adventure into some dark shit. 3 stars, as in "wouldn't read again, but glad I did" and "I feel kind of sick after reading this, but not in a bad way?"