21 July 2009 | Uncategorized | salomd
This chaotic mess of a novel is the posthumous publication of Roberto Bolano, arguably one of the most important writers in Spanish of our time. His earlier work, including the very readable Savage Detectives, made him a star in his native Mexico and made him a darling in the literary and scholarly world.
This final novel, which is actually five novellas, was intended to be published in five parts. The publisher, however, subverted Bolano’s wishes and published the entire thing in one volume at one time. As a result, it is possible–and recommended–that you read the book as five separate novellas.
The first one is probably the most readable and palatable. It follows the trail of three academics searching for a reclusive German author. However, it takes about 75 pages of often-frustrating but beautiful language to finally get to the story itself. To be honest, the other four parts are not only difficult to get through, some of it is violent, graphic, and distasteful.
The story of Bolano’s death and the writing of this novel– over which he was laboring at his death in 2003–might be more interesting than this difficult and sometimes boring novel.
2666. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. 898pp. $30.00.
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21 July 2009 | Uncategorized | salomd
This is the second book by Ron Currie, Jr. His first was God is Dead, an interesting “fiction,” as he called it, that wondered what would happen if God took human form and was killed.
This new novel is superb. It literally follows the life of Junior Thibodeau from his birth to his death. He is born with a prophecy–one that is communicated to him by a voice–that a comet will hit the earth thirty-six years after his birth. Junior is confronted with some fairly serious philosophical issues including: how does one live his life knowing exactly when it will end. How much, if anything, matters. The book is funny in places, very surprising in others, and filled with more than a few plot twists and turns. I’m not sure what Currie is doing in the final 40 pages, and I had to wonder whether the book would have been better without them. But this is an intriguing read, and I highly recommend it.
Everything Matters! New York: Viking, 2009. 302pp. $25.95
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29 June 2009 | Uncategorized | salomd
The second novel by Chris Cleave, Little Bee has a plot that is indeed curious. The title refers to one of the characters, a young black South African girl who befriends a white woman from America. The jacket of the book is intentionally obtuse: “We don’t want to tell you what happens in this book.” It is a novel about choice, and it is a novel about consequences. I’m not going to ruin it for you either. Read it. This will be our Reunion Book Club Selection for June 2010.
Little Bee. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008. 271pp. $24.00.
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