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luvrunr's review against another edition
3.0
This book was interesting. I'm still not even sure what happened in the book but I did enjoy the way it was written. It is a complex, ambiguous book and you are left to use your imagination as to what's really going on. In general I like my books more cut and dry.
mehitabels's review against another edition
2.0
I admit to being spoiled lately with excellent books, but this was not one of them. In all fairness, I have never been a fan of Kafka, and this is so very much in that voice (I also relate to Camus). Having been so involved in either Russian novels or modern-day fantasy, cynical and raw, this was too tortured snag for me. I mostly wanted to smack the main character and throw the book across the room. I kept reading it out of a sadomasochistic belief that it would get interesting. Alas, no . . .
bookherd's review against another edition
3.0
Goodreads' description is a little over the top, but this is definitely a dark book with many layers. Unsettling and alarming things start happening to the main character. He sets out to try to understand what is going on, but in a secretive way that seems designed to make things worse. His thinking is skewed. More alarming things happen and things do get worse. The world in this book is a barren, wet, polluted place. I liked that there was no big reveal at the end, like in old-fashioned mysteries where all the perplexing details get explained to the mystified innocents.
soymilkduck's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
pjgal22's review against another edition
3.0
I sought out this book because I had read a review that said it was "unputdownable". I have to admit that was true, but it was also really weird and had a very disappointing ending.
philo_sophica's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.5
rosekk's review against another edition
4.0
This was a strange little story, reminiscent of the kind of thing I remember as set reading for certain modules when I was studying literature. It has that post-modern quality of nothing being 'actual' - there doesn't seem to be one particular 'truth' to the fictional world; the events that occur in the plot could be read a variety of different ways. Still, somehow, there was a strange and satisfying circularity to events in the story which meant that although the conclusion doesn't provide you with certainty, the book still feels whole. I always find reading this sort of work strange (although I like it), because many of my most-read genres (e.g. fantasy) usually encourage wholehearted abandonment into the story and it's world, and have an expectation that you'll take what's indicated to you about the fictional world by the writing as read, where as this is the kind of book that seems to want to actively make you conscious of being a reader, and think about the story as something you're interacting with. I think this is the reason that although I find post-modern stories interesting, I rarely give them five stars - I think something I value about reading is the chance to suspend all sense of myself and the wider world, and it takes a very rare and special book for me to sacrifice that feeling and still love a book (I think Lolita might be the only such book that has achieved that for me). My reservations about the book are all to do with personal preference rather than the quality of the work itself, which I found fairly flawless.
kiramke's review against another edition
1.0
I did not like this at all. It was reminiscent of something I've already read, but I suspect that I would forgive or enjoy that if this were a story I liked. But though it seems reasonably well written, allusive, and snappy, that didn't stop it from being a deeply unlikable journey, and not at all redemptive. I don't want to be in this head without a point.
jordankindig's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
nonna7's review against another edition
4.0
This is probably one of the creepiest books I've read in a long time. Lawrence Miller is an English expatriate and professor of gender studies at an American college. His wife has recently left him. When he "finds" things he didn't realize were there in his office that had recently been occupied by a now deceased professor, his life begins to unravel. He becomes more and more divorced from reality as his life spirals downward. The writing in this book is outstanding. This is truly what should be called a literary thriller. What a story and writer!