A Taste for Apocalypse

6 Comments

  1. Birne
    Birne March 7, 2013 at 4:56 pm .

    My personal favorite of his books is War And War (originally published in 1999). But I have to admit that I also like Satantango. But that's just my personal opinion. I can perfectly understand that this kind of book is not for everyone. The books he wrote after War And War have a very strong Asian influence and are in general completely different in orientation. New Direction is the first to

  2. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison March 7, 2013 at 2:20 pm .

    Thanks for your excellent response, Birne. Yes, Esti doesn't inspire antipathy as the others do; but she doesn't inspire much of anything, because she's not a realized character. None of the personas wandering through this book are fully developed—by design, I'm sure. I don't have to like or admire the design. Any reader who enjoys such slogs through the mud is welcome to them

  3. Birne
    Birne March 7, 2013 at 9:09 am .

    &quot;The story, such as it is, promises revelation but doesn&#39;t deliver it, delivering instead a fatalistic circle.&quot;<br /><br />That&#39;s pretty much one of the main points of the book. Take this very nice sentence from the 2nd chapter:<br /><br />&lt;&lt;&quot;And so the words prepared for the occasion tumble over each other and begin sparring round as in a whirlpool, having formed the

  4. Ed Baker
    Ed Baker March 3, 2013 at 11:38 pm .

    this opening the opening of his novel&quot; :<br />&quot;His imagination was bewitched almost to the point of paralysis by the notion… &quot;<br /><br />jeesh ! that&#39;s enough for me…. all of these demands for any conceptualization-ings is kind of a colossal bore, eh ?<br /><br /><br />

  5. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison March 3, 2013 at 10:47 pm .

    Throughout the book he strains for SIGNIFICANCE. I didn&#39;t know until just about half an hour ago that this was his first book, so some slack is probably due. Still—yes, one can almost smell the sweat glazing his forehead….

  6. Conrad DiDiodato
    Conrad DiDiodato March 3, 2013 at 9:43 pm .

    Joseph,<br /><br />I think a passage like that fails by virtue of style only. It&#39;s perhaps a Saramago who whould have penned it. Some authors just try too damn hard for their own good. As Nicklaus would say: maybe it&#39;s not the clubs but just you.

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