Reviews - Awake | The StoryGraph

34 reviews for:

Awake

Harald Voetmann

3.48 AVERAGE

beccadbuss's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark funny informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: N/A

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

nicknjeffers's review

4.0

funny reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Very interesting - and as i wrote this i kind of hyped myself up about this a bit more, was going to go with 3.5 or 3.75 but bumping up a bit.

First - on the overall format, i appreciated the inventiveness; it might have grown tedious in a longer work, but the academic proceedings of the encyclopedia followed by Pliny's crazed ramblings followed by his nephew's roast made for entertaining and occasionally enlightening content. If there's a greater ambition to the structure, it's lost on me (an encyclopedia of encyclopedic works? Has someone assembled this for a diegetic purpose? Or is it solely for the reader of this fictional work?); so it goes.

But above the amusement (!), it feels true! So much of that knowledge in the Natural History is fleeting and tenuous, and often just wrong. And this is a man's life's work -- his greatest achievement. We're feeble dumbasses in the face of a bigass, (at least frequently) hostile universe. But what is certain? The effects of our treatment of others (and here i go on a tangent that is maybe not that supported by the book but it's my takeaway). Things that are undeniable real: an orphan's hunger, a slave's exhaustion, a servants pain after breaking his leg with a hammer. And so many brilliant people in history have missed this--willingly or incidentally. But given its so often overlooked, maybe we need more literature that engages with this deceptively challenging truth. You can have brilliance, you can have experience with suffering, but it's still a herculean task to apply these to have empathy and (the key) to act in a way that ameliorates the suffering of others at the expense of ourselves. I'm excited for book 2.

highestiqinfresno's review

2.25

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mindthebook's review against another edition

3.0

Yourcenar-stämningen gick mig inte förbi där på ett av Foyles bokbord vid Southbank. Hadrianus minnen är en av mina favoritromaner och här handlar det om Plinius den Äldres sista dagar.

Som alltid med antikens Rom kan jag inte få nog av det poetiska och det vackra, men blir äcklad och onödigt uppskrämd av det perversa och vidskepliga. Just den här skildringen har en stark närvaro med markörer som pelargångar, fikon, skuggiga marmorbänkar, villor med atrium och impluvium och det vi lärde oss på latinkurserna, skrivtavlor med stylus och - what have the Romans ever done for us - BRÖD och VIN.

Trots detta får jag nog vända mig annorstädes, eller tillbaka till Maggan*, för att finna mitt litterära tusculum.

* Marguerite Yourcenar.

dialhforhgai's review

“I implore you to consider whether you’re really capable of accepting that over time the border between the known and the unknown has been erased. And if you can’t, what do you intend to do about it?”