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mmarody's review against another edition
I read the first 20 pages and did not enjoy the style of writing enough to justify spending 980 more pages reading this book.
classicbhaer's review
1.0
This is a book I would have never tried to read if it was not on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize. Saying that, you can most likely see I ended up giving this book 1 star. While the idea of this book did sound very appealing as soon as I started to read it a red flag for my personal reading tastes went up. The first few pages was just a never ending list with commas, never a period. The book was being told by someone who is just rambling on and on, which I can see is most likely a choice to get the feel for how thee narrator is feeling about life.
For me, this was so stress inducing for a few reasons. I felt like I was reading the equivalent to Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder movie) taking the winners down the chocolate river through a tunnel. It was just getting more and more intense because I was reading faster and faster just trying to find a period. I. just wanted a natural stopping point to put the book down. The second being, I personally dislike stream of consciousness writing.
Mainly due to the formatting and how the author choose to write this book, I did not like it. But, thesee are mainly personal reasons and if any of these don't bother you I say give it a go. Like I said the idea of this book is great, it was just ruined for me based upon the formatting.
For me, this was so stress inducing for a few reasons. I felt like I was reading the equivalent to Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder movie) taking the winners down the chocolate river through a tunnel. It was just getting more and more intense because I was reading faster and faster just trying to find a period. I. just wanted a natural stopping point to put the book down. The second being, I personally dislike stream of consciousness writing.
Mainly due to the formatting and how the author choose to write this book, I did not like it. But, thesee are mainly personal reasons and if any of these don't bother you I say give it a go. Like I said the idea of this book is great, it was just ruined for me based upon the formatting.
hegesteindal74's review against another edition
5.0
"It will either be a success or a failure"- er en av de mange repeterende tankene som gjentas i hovedpersonens evigvarende tankestrøm. Og for de fleste lesere av denne romanen kan det fort bli likedan. Liker du den, er det ganske sannsynlig at du syns den er fantastisk, men misliker du den, kan det fort bli en stjerne og full slakt. Årsaken til denne påstanden ligger i den spesielle skrivestilen. Ellmann har sin helt egen "stream of cousiousness"- teknikk. Den er sikkert ikke for alle. Men finner du ut av den, kan du forvente deg en leseopplevelse av de sjeldne. Fortellingen siver ut i små drypp, og sakte men sikkert trer det frem et bilde av en kvinne og hennes familie, nå og før. Hovedpersonen tenker selv at denne indre monologen kommer til å vare til hun dør, bare avbrutt av søvn og de merkverdige drømmene hennes.
Det kan muligens være verdt å vente på oversettelsen i dette tilfellet, på tross av at en del av Ellmans lek med ord kan fryktes å gå tapt. Den store ordflommen i fri dressur, gjør engelsken vanskeligere enn vanlig, etter mitt syn.
Det kan muligens være verdt å vente på oversettelsen i dette tilfellet, på tross av at en del av Ellmans lek med ord kan fryktes å gå tapt. Den store ordflommen i fri dressur, gjør engelsken vanskeligere enn vanlig, etter mitt syn.
worm_blizzard's review against another edition
5.0
I'm going to miss it so, now that it's done. My immediate inclination is to pick it up and to read it again right away
efg1217's review against another edition
2.0
The most anxiety inducing book I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading.
ainepalmtree's review against another edition
5.0
wowow this was such a tough book but so great and incredibly rewarding to read. not just tough bc big postmodern books are tough (tho that is true) but also tough bc this speaks so directly to the anxieties of life in trump's america (and felt like an amplification of everything going through my noggin rn). can deeply recommend if you love big books & contemporary fiction & women's literary voices
karp76's review against another edition
3.0
The fact that, what are we to make of this? This endlessness of thought, unwielding and broken only by the occasional vignette of a stray mountian lion? How are we to understand this and digest it, either accept or reject it the narrative and its purpose, whatever meaning and whatever effect it seeks to lull to us? Here in the afterwards, the last page closed, the sense is we cannot. There are no small moments to enjoy. No little pockets to examine or to savor. There is only its entirity, the mammoth of its being. The narrative, the fact that that may be too bold of to call it, or if we must define it, the work's breath and expanse of the mundane and Midwestern is so much - pies, chickens, guns, Ohio, musicals, baking - to the point of too much, to the very verge of exceeding the necessary or even extraordinary, that it renders and power of its expermient into the trifleness of gimmick. The fact that, perhaps, just perhaps, this was too much.
davidsteinsaltz's review against another edition
5.0
Before I started reading I worried that I wouldn't be sufficiently engaged with the material or the superficially challenging style to carry me through 1000 pages. I planned to pave myself, reading it over several months. Instead, I rushed headlong through it in a few days, and my main concern is whether I can find other novels satisfying after this experience.