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A review by candacesiegle_greedyreader
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
5.0
I read "White Tears" until late, and then had trouble sleeping the rest of the night. It is a very disturbing, uncomfortable novel, yet, in an equally uncomfortable way, satisfying. I can compare it a little to "Syndrome E," Franck Thilliez's novel about a piece of old film that causes whose who watch it to go blind, and the mentally precarious detective who tries to figure out what's happening.
Now that it's daylight I can try to clear up some of the questions that pop up as I think about the story, the theory that a sound, once made, exists forever, the idea that these sounds can be heard again; the raw power of old recordings; the fear that cruel acts live forever. The first part of "White Tears" follows a pair of mismatched friends who have a passion for old blues records. It branches off into the obsession of record collecting and from there to a place where the past and present wrap themselves around the obsessed and haunted collector.
It would be easy to lose track of the story if Hari Kunzru didn't pin you to the page with the unraveling of the main character and old tales of greed and worry. So different from what I usually read, it has left me spinning.
Now that it's daylight I can try to clear up some of the questions that pop up as I think about the story, the theory that a sound, once made, exists forever, the idea that these sounds can be heard again; the raw power of old recordings; the fear that cruel acts live forever. The first part of "White Tears" follows a pair of mismatched friends who have a passion for old blues records. It branches off into the obsession of record collecting and from there to a place where the past and present wrap themselves around the obsessed and haunted collector.
It would be easy to lose track of the story if Hari Kunzru didn't pin you to the page with the unraveling of the main character and old tales of greed and worry. So different from what I usually read, it has left me spinning.