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micklesreads's review
5.0
I've rarely been upset by a book like I was by this one. The story is haunting, detailed, beautifully written and so so painful. After finishing this I immediately went to the library to get more of Doctorow.
dstuart's review
4.0
I didn't expect this book to reflect our current times as much as it did. Really powerful. A great bildungsroman, trying to find our way in this really, really weird time for america.
thefavoritenpc's review
3.0
I have mixed feelings about this novel. There were huge chunks I read eagerly, hanging on Doctorow's strange, disconnected prose. Then there were chunks that did nothing but ramble on about Communism. The final chapters were so touching a beautiful that I ALMOST gave this novel 4 stars, but a passing reference to desired incest (for the millionth time) trumps that wonderful scene at Disneyland.
raychelreads's review
5.0
My favorite part of this book is the mode in which it is written, as it jumps narratives between first and third person and often feels like we are reading Daniel's most intimate journal or even his mind. This has to be in my top selection of books ever read for its delicate imagery, its refusal of the conventional, and its ability to transport the reader through this historical era through fiction.
bucket's review
4.0
I really enjoyed the premise here - that Daniel is procrastinating on his dissertation and what we're reading is what he is writing instead. It's clear that he's reliving his and his sister's childhood because it's the only thing he can write while his sister is fading. He unconsciously switches from 3rd person to 1st in his writing and he holds places for vignettes and scenes he wants to add later. He also gets a little meta about the reader, especially when discussing things that make him look bad or weak, and this strikes me as pretty cutting edge in when Doctorow published the book in 1971.
Daniel is struggling to come to terms with not knowing the truth about what his parents did. He wants to believe they're innocent, and just victims of circumstance:
"In a world divided in two, the radical is free to choose one side or the other. That's the radical choice. The halves of the world are like the two hemispheres of Mengleburg. My mother and father fell through an open seam one day and then the hemispheres pressed shut."
He also is struggling with his need for complete control - over his wife, his sister, and his family's story. He needs to know the truth and be in control, even when it hurts those he loves. Along those lines, Daniel is not a nice person. He's pompous and abusive, especially toward his wife and infant son. But he is saved from being unsympathetic by the innocent child version of himself who lives through a nightmare.
Doctorow includes many asides in the novel, which are part of who Daniel is, and document his obsessions with the past through a tendency to wax philosophical. They feel like lectures.
A man in Daniel's youth talks a while about television: "Look there, what do you see? Little blue squares in every window. Right? Everyone digging the commercials. That is today's school, man. In less than a minute a TV commercial can carry you through a lifetime...commercials are learning units."
There is also a long lecture on the downfalls of Disneyland which isn't worth quoting. I did, however, enjoy a musing on technology:
"Technology is the making of metaphors from the natural world. Flight is the metaphor of air, wheels are the metaphor of water, food is the metaphor of earth. The metaphor of fire is electricity."
Finally, there's a long quotation about prison as a metaphor for death that I want to hold on to:
"Who wrote that Russian story, was it Babel or maybe Yuri Olesha, about a man dying in his bed. His death is described as a progressive deterioration of possibilities, a methodical constriction of options available to him. First he cannot leave the room, so that a railroad ticket, for instance, has no more meaning for his life. Then he cannot get out of bed. Then he cannot lift his head. Then he cannot see out the window. Then he cannot see his hand in front of him. Life moves inward, the sensations close in, the horizons diminish to point zero. And that is his death. A kind of prison cell concept of death, the man being locked in smaller and smaller cells, his own consciousness depleted of sensations being the last and smallest cell. It is a point of light. If this is true of death, then a real prison is death's metaphor and when you put a man in prison you are suggesting to him the degrees of death that are possible before life is actually gone. You are forcing him to begin his dying. All constraints on freedom enforce conditions of death. The punishment of prison inflicts the corruption of death on life"
Themes: 1950s, 1960s, American communism, family, innocence, Cold War, sex, family legacy, destruction of childhood, sibling love, the obscurity of truth
Daniel is struggling to come to terms with not knowing the truth about what his parents did. He wants to believe they're innocent, and just victims of circumstance:
"In a world divided in two, the radical is free to choose one side or the other. That's the radical choice. The halves of the world are like the two hemispheres of Mengleburg. My mother and father fell through an open seam one day and then the hemispheres pressed shut."
He also is struggling with his need for complete control - over his wife, his sister, and his family's story. He needs to know the truth and be in control, even when it hurts those he loves. Along those lines, Daniel is not a nice person. He's pompous and abusive, especially toward his wife and infant son. But he is saved from being unsympathetic by the innocent child version of himself who lives through a nightmare.
Doctorow includes many asides in the novel, which are part of who Daniel is, and document his obsessions with the past through a tendency to wax philosophical. They feel like lectures.
A man in Daniel's youth talks a while about television: "Look there, what do you see? Little blue squares in every window. Right? Everyone digging the commercials. That is today's school, man. In less than a minute a TV commercial can carry you through a lifetime...commercials are learning units."
There is also a long lecture on the downfalls of Disneyland which isn't worth quoting. I did, however, enjoy a musing on technology:
"Technology is the making of metaphors from the natural world. Flight is the metaphor of air, wheels are the metaphor of water, food is the metaphor of earth. The metaphor of fire is electricity."
Finally, there's a long quotation about prison as a metaphor for death that I want to hold on to:
"Who wrote that Russian story, was it Babel or maybe Yuri Olesha, about a man dying in his bed. His death is described as a progressive deterioration of possibilities, a methodical constriction of options available to him. First he cannot leave the room, so that a railroad ticket, for instance, has no more meaning for his life. Then he cannot get out of bed. Then he cannot lift his head. Then he cannot see out the window. Then he cannot see his hand in front of him. Life moves inward, the sensations close in, the horizons diminish to point zero. And that is his death. A kind of prison cell concept of death, the man being locked in smaller and smaller cells, his own consciousness depleted of sensations being the last and smallest cell. It is a point of light. If this is true of death, then a real prison is death's metaphor and when you put a man in prison you are suggesting to him the degrees of death that are possible before life is actually gone. You are forcing him to begin his dying. All constraints on freedom enforce conditions of death. The punishment of prison inflicts the corruption of death on life"
Themes: 1950s, 1960s, American communism, family, innocence, Cold War, sex, family legacy, destruction of childhood, sibling love, the obscurity of truth
kierajwilson's review
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
ferns's review
4.0
i am... conflicted about this book.
the writing is stunning. i cannot bring myself to rate this lower than 4 stars. and the exploration of history, the weaving together of fragments of cold war america to create a sprawling, convoluted image – it's done spectacularly. but this book grapples on so many different fronts that it is remarkably easy to get lost in them. even now, i am struggling to create a single picture of it in my mind. it would have been easier to tell a single story, the story of the isaacsons (or the rosenbergs), but that is not what this book does: it uses the trial and execution as the central point in an exploration that envelops themes of identity, legacy, history, personal and political struggle and how they are interweaved. there is not one single ideology in this book; there is not one single verdict. were they guilty or innocent? that's not what matters.
this is not an easy book to read. i would also say this is not a particularly enjoyable book either. but i suppose enjoying it is not the point; the reader, more than receiving the text passively, has become another criminal of perception. why are you here? why are you reading this? and what effect does the fact that you are reading this have on what is being told? there is a multiplicity of perspectives in the narrative voice as well as in the story: it goes back and forth, past and present, first and third person, history and daniel's reconstruction of it. but here is the thing: i do not particularly enjoy reading books that feel like they are doing their best to confuse me. is this confusion a part of the story? who knows. perhaps i am not smart enough for this book. i certainly feel like i have missed a fair amount of what it is trying to say.
(also – i understand that we are to view daniel's character and actions as "damaged" by his family history. but i feel like i have to say that daniel's general asshole-ness and violently degrading attitude to his wife were kind of… uncomfortable to read. even though the way this book is written makes an unlikeable narrator much more bearable.)
so. what else? i would consider this a good book, albeit a confusing and not very enjoyable one. is this review all over the place? it seems kind of fitting.
the writing is stunning. i cannot bring myself to rate this lower than 4 stars. and the exploration of history, the weaving together of fragments of cold war america to create a sprawling, convoluted image – it's done spectacularly. but this book grapples on so many different fronts that it is remarkably easy to get lost in them. even now, i am struggling to create a single picture of it in my mind. it would have been easier to tell a single story, the story of the isaacsons (or the rosenbergs), but that is not what this book does: it uses the trial and execution as the central point in an exploration that envelops themes of identity, legacy, history, personal and political struggle and how they are interweaved. there is not one single ideology in this book; there is not one single verdict. were they guilty or innocent? that's not what matters.
this is not an easy book to read. i would also say this is not a particularly enjoyable book either. but i suppose enjoying it is not the point; the reader, more than receiving the text passively, has become another criminal of perception. why are you here? why are you reading this? and what effect does the fact that you are reading this have on what is being told? there is a multiplicity of perspectives in the narrative voice as well as in the story: it goes back and forth, past and present, first and third person, history and daniel's reconstruction of it. but here is the thing: i do not particularly enjoy reading books that feel like they are doing their best to confuse me. is this confusion a part of the story? who knows. perhaps i am not smart enough for this book. i certainly feel like i have missed a fair amount of what it is trying to say.
(also – i understand that we are to view daniel's character and actions as "damaged" by his family history. but i feel like i have to say that daniel's general asshole-ness and violently degrading attitude to his wife were kind of… uncomfortable to read. even though the way this book is written makes an unlikeable narrator much more bearable.)
so. what else? i would consider this a good book, albeit a confusing and not very enjoyable one. is this review all over the place? it seems kind of fitting.
donifaber's review
5.0
This book was so good, it made my teeth hurt! What bumped it up to a five for me was the scene/analysis of Disneyland. I particularly appreciated Doctorow's use of different levels of recall to increase the realism. At a pivotal moment, the protagonist zeroes in on the details of a peripheral character, while at another moment, he can't recall what number of school house he attended.