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3.19 AVERAGE
3.19 AVERAGE
The writing is absolutely brilliant, but the story left me wanting…
Pre-read: Never have I been more excited about an Advance Reader Copy.
Post-read: You know, I really wanted to take my time with this one and make it last because books like this don't come around often. I didn't succeed in that. I read the majority of it all in one day. John Darnielle is a damn national treasure and I hope he never stops writing.
Post-read: You know, I really wanted to take my time with this one and make it last because books like this don't come around often. I didn't succeed in that. I read the majority of it all in one day. John Darnielle is a damn national treasure and I hope he never stops writing.
About half way through Universal Harvester I was about to get annoyed with it. The character development was lacking and it didn't know what it wanted to be and it wasn't living up to Wolf in Whit Van...or so I thought.
I grew up in a religious family in a rural town. I was a movie fanatic and pretty much lived at the local video store. I recall with joy our getting our first VCR in what must have been 1984 and hiring Raiders of the Lost Ark and John Carpenters The Thing before we even got the VCR out of the box - we even stumped up for the Stereo sound one! I have spent most of my adult life living in countries foreign to my homeland in big cities that are the antithesis of the small town I grew up in and, since moving back to Australia, I have lived in three different states. I have moved 15 times in the last 20 years. In short, I am exactly the person this booked is about.
Universal Harvester beautifully captures that feel of what used to be life made up of much more transient memories than we have memorexed on so many platforms today. I have been involved in that conversation a few times about how we did lots of interesting things and travelled to amazing places prior to social media but how it doesn't seem to count so much now because it hasn't been immortalised on social media and validated by dozens of people I vaguely remember. I jest in a slightly curmudgeonly manner here, but what's amazing is that John Darnielle has managed to craft a novel out of this concept. He even manages to draw a character that turns to social media prior to it really existing and it comes across more than a little creepy.
I love a book that tries something new and leaves you thinking, not just about the story told, but also your own outlook on the world. This book does both of those things and does them well. Is it perfect? No, but it is a solid calling card from an author on only his second book. Will it appeal to everyone? No, but writers are always being told to write what they have to say rather than what people want to hear. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, I think it's worked well and left me with a book I will think about for time to come.
I grew up in a religious family in a rural town. I was a movie fanatic and pretty much lived at the local video store. I recall with joy our getting our first VCR in what must have been 1984 and hiring Raiders of the Lost Ark and John Carpenters The Thing before we even got the VCR out of the box - we even stumped up for the Stereo sound one! I have spent most of my adult life living in countries foreign to my homeland in big cities that are the antithesis of the small town I grew up in and, since moving back to Australia, I have lived in three different states. I have moved 15 times in the last 20 years. In short, I am exactly the person this booked is about.
Universal Harvester beautifully captures that feel of what used to be life made up of much more transient memories than we have memorexed on so many platforms today. I have been involved in that conversation a few times about how we did lots of interesting things and travelled to amazing places prior to social media but how it doesn't seem to count so much now because it hasn't been immortalised on social media and validated by dozens of people I vaguely remember. I jest in a slightly curmudgeonly manner here, but what's amazing is that John Darnielle has managed to craft a novel out of this concept. He even manages to draw a character that turns to social media prior to it really existing and it comes across more than a little creepy.
I love a book that tries something new and leaves you thinking, not just about the story told, but also your own outlook on the world. This book does both of those things and does them well. Is it perfect? No, but it is a solid calling card from an author on only his second book. Will it appeal to everyone? No, but writers are always being told to write what they have to say rather than what people want to hear. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, I think it's worked well and left me with a book I will think about for time to come.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Woah, what a read. I tore through this in a few days, eager to unfold the mystery further. So much but so little happens. And I actually still really liked it. I have a lot of thoughts.
Quick plot synopsis: The 90's, a video store. Customer return their tapes with a strange complaint: the movie cuts out in the middle to show some weird, dark, home video. The employees look into it, the setting familiar. Do they investigate?
First, it was a fun read, guessing along the way. The author did a great job with twists and red herrings. Second, I loved that this story evolved past a straightforward mystery into a meditation on the curiosity of strangers and coping with loss.
How nosy are you? That is the test. How far will you go to pry into someone’s business, or, framed differently, would you spring into action to right a stranger’s wrongs? I feel more like Stephanie— c’mon we have to poke around and figure this out. So, I felt frustrated by Jeremy’s ability to let it go — how could you not want to know? Then I realized, he didn’t want to know because he already knew. He already knew the loss and the pain, experiencing it himself, and knew it was best to not disturb.
We don’t get any answers until the book cuts to a new cast of characters, when the tapes are discovered a second time. Again, the reader struggles — how deep should we dig here? When do you let it go, as not your business, something you will never understand?
It’s irresponsible to stir up a story that is emotionally complex and birthed from pain; it’s causing another to suffer for your own selfish desire for closure. That’s why Jeremy was sympathetic, and that's why our final friends kept driving…
Ah, I just loved that take. I will admit there were definitely some moments in the book when I felt lost, when the writing become more abstract. When the plot line bled into the rambling musing of the narrator. I love how we get some resolution, enough, but not a perfectly tied bow. Because that’s the lesson— you don’t need to know everything.
Quick plot synopsis: The 90's, a video store. Customer return their tapes with a strange complaint: the movie cuts out in the middle to show some weird, dark, home video. The employees look into it, the setting familiar. Do they investigate?
First, it was a fun read, guessing along the way. The author did a great job with twists and red herrings. Second, I loved that this story evolved past a straightforward mystery into a meditation on the curiosity of strangers and coping with loss.
How nosy are you? That is the test. How far will you go to pry into someone’s business, or, framed differently, would you spring into action to right a stranger’s wrongs? I feel more like Stephanie— c’mon we have to poke around and figure this out. So, I felt frustrated by Jeremy’s ability to let it go — how could you not want to know? Then I realized, he didn’t want to know because he already knew. He already knew the loss and the pain, experiencing it himself, and knew it was best to not disturb.
We don’t get any answers until the book cuts to a new cast of characters, when the tapes are discovered a second time. Again, the reader struggles — how deep should we dig here? When do you let it go, as not your business, something you will never understand?
It’s irresponsible to stir up a story that is emotionally complex and birthed from pain; it’s causing another to suffer for your own selfish desire for closure. That’s why Jeremy was sympathetic, and that's why our final friends kept driving…
Ah, I just loved that take. I will admit there were definitely some moments in the book when I felt lost, when the writing become more abstract. When the plot line bled into the rambling musing of the narrator. I love how we get some resolution, enough, but not a perfectly tied bow. Because that’s the lesson— you don’t need to know everything.
This was enjoyable to read but tbh I’m not sure I actually kept up with a lot of the plot points.
I live in Iowa. I’ve lived in Iowa for 23 years. Darnielle masterfully detailed the general solitude and simultaneous small-town gossipy energy of low population Midwest towns. The soft, eerie quiet of driving through tiny, rural strip mall streets and then the shriek of wind blowing through cornfields as you push 70 down I-35. Everything was there. Everything was perfectly intact and in place and the malaise and the grief and thirst of exploration but the settling for okay. What an enchanting read. Until…what?
What is this book about? I get the big picture. I understand the nitty gritty. I feel the characters. A few meandering plot lines that are maybe supposed to snake together to completion in the end, but don’t? Not really, at least.
It’s so hard to describe a book that I really truly loved, and was so well written, and was so unsettling and suspenseful. But at the same time, I’m left so unfulfilled, so frustrated.
This book is going to get picked up by A24 in a few years and turned into some art house horror movie and I’m going to like it, obviously, but I won’t understand it, still.
What is this book about? I get the big picture. I understand the nitty gritty. I feel the characters. A few meandering plot lines that are maybe supposed to snake together to completion in the end, but don’t? Not really, at least.
It’s so hard to describe a book that I really truly loved, and was so well written, and was so unsettling and suspenseful. But at the same time, I’m left so unfulfilled, so frustrated.
This book is going to get picked up by A24 in a few years and turned into some art house horror movie and I’m going to like it, obviously, but I won’t understand it, still.
John Darnielle writes such beautiful prose. But this just wasn’t what I was expecting. I really enjoyed Part One and then it just lost me a bit. Didn’t help that I speed-read Parts 3 and 4 to finish it just barely in time for book club. But I was under the impression I’d be reading a horror novel, an impression strongly supported by Part One, and was just kind of disappointed with what I got, plot wise - again cannot emphasize enough how great the writing is! And it explores interesting themes for sure. Will re-read at some point when I can take it slower and really chew on what it’s giving me, without false expectations that surely soon something disturbing is going to happen, right? (The car crash was disturbing, but then I was right back to thinking that again, and nope, nothing else really happened).