A review by danmacha18
VAS: An Opera in Flatland by Steve Tomasula
2.0
27th book of 2022
I'm not really interested in experimental fiction. The quest to push the novel beyond its known limits seems rather pointless to me, and reading this book confirmed my feelings toward experimental fiction.
The amateur always looks at a piece of abstract experimental art and says with great confidence, "I could do that", and I guess the true value of art lies in the amateur's ability to actually do it. I could not do what Tomasula does in this novel. There are moments that are truly poetic, and it's of no doubt to me that Tomasula put a lot of time and effort into perfecting this novel's minimalism. However, the form was truly confusing. I don't really know exactly what the different strands of narrative were leading towards, and while I could grasp the underlying connections between the strands, it was all too much at times.
I think VAS would be a great text for someone whose mind scatters from place to place, but if you're comfortable with the predictability and consistency of narrative, VAS can be a difficult exercise. And I ultimately didn't really care too much for it.
I'm not really interested in experimental fiction. The quest to push the novel beyond its known limits seems rather pointless to me, and reading this book confirmed my feelings toward experimental fiction.
The amateur always looks at a piece of abstract experimental art and says with great confidence, "I could do that", and I guess the true value of art lies in the amateur's ability to actually do it. I could not do what Tomasula does in this novel. There are moments that are truly poetic, and it's of no doubt to me that Tomasula put a lot of time and effort into perfecting this novel's minimalism. However, the form was truly confusing. I don't really know exactly what the different strands of narrative were leading towards, and while I could grasp the underlying connections between the strands, it was all too much at times.
I think VAS would be a great text for someone whose mind scatters from place to place, but if you're comfortable with the predictability and consistency of narrative, VAS can be a difficult exercise. And I ultimately didn't really care too much for it.