Here's a cool blog with a post on a novel I plan to get back to soon. Like, probably right after The Savage Detectives soon. Latin American fiction rock block, anyone? Which, actually, will be three books long, if I can remember what the third book was I also wanted to read right now. Blast. It was probably something mentioned in Detectives. Book mentions everything ever.
I'm now into the brick-work second part of the book and I've decided I'm either not smart enough for this novel or this novel isn't as smart as it wants to be. Either way, I'm enjoying it, but not in a "I've got time to look up everything I would need to look up to fully grasp what this book is talking about" way. There's entire passages I pretty much fail to follow. Which I'm okay with because the book generally seems to circle back around eventually to something I can follow. But.
I'm now into the brick-work second part of the book and I've decided I'm either not smart enough for this novel or this novel isn't as smart as it wants to be. Either way, I'm enjoying it, but not in a "I've got time to look up everything I would need to look up to fully grasp what this book is talking about" way. There's entire passages I pretty much fail to follow. Which I'm okay with because the book generally seems to circle back around eventually to something I can follow. But.
Posted by Darby M. Dixon III at 1:26 PM.
5 comments. Post a Comment.
So I just started the second section of TSD last night, and my question is about the details--the lack of vivid physical details. Is this some sort of joke, that a novel about "visceral realists" would lack specificity? It does seem to be deliberate. Over and over the narrator(s) make(s) excuses for not giving details: details are forgotten, not noticed, not important, etc., etc. What is the reason?
Yours,
Muddled in Mechanicsville
2:02 PM, April 27, 2008
Interesting point. I'll have to look into that. Like, reality itself is too slippery for even the realists to hang on to.
One can certainly argue the first part of the book is far from realistic, viscerally or not. Seems a bit romantic more often than not. (Like, fifteen times? Really?)
3:07 PM, April 27, 2008
http://maureenmcq.blogspot.com/2007/07/novel-episode-1-i-begin-anew.html
3:15 PM, April 27, 2008
Hey, thanks for the link. You're making me want to re-read TSD -- one of my favorites of the last year.
11:34 PM, April 28, 2008
No prob!
1:11 AM, April 29, 2008
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