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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Four and a half stars for repetitiveness (I'll explain). This book makes the most sense to me if I think of it as a series of prose poems. Every time I started getting annoyed by the book's echoing itself (and it did, repeatedly, no pun intended, but, y'know, poetry?), Whitehead turned a phrase that made me so glad I kept reading, to the point where I just finished and kind of want to start over again. Which I guess means I want to buy a copy, to come back to from time to time, just open a random page and read as much as I like. Which looks a little crazy when I've written it down like that, but it's also how I read Finnegan's Wake, and how the hell do I end up drawing comparisons between Colson Whitehead and The Greatest Literature (I think I likened Zone One to Infinite Jest?) I guess he's just that good.
An absolute must read. For those who live in New York and for those who miss it.
funny
reflective
slow-paced
3 stars. The first essay was PHENOMENAL. After that the book kind of fell flat for me… The writing was good, but it was good in a way that almost seems like it’s trying too hard. I know Whitehead’s a great writer, but personally I wasn’t hooked unfortunately.
I'm not too sure if this book cracked my heart open, or if my heart was already cracked open and it simply slipped on in to fill the empty spaces.
I miss NYC dearly - more than I expected to - and Whitehead so well captures various bits of the city in this essay collection. I'd read an excerpt from the opening essay before, about how "You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it." (Love that idea.) From there he goes on to describe the Port Authority, city sidewalks in the rain, the subway, walking down Broadway, Coney Island, rush hour, and more.
This isn't a romanticization of the city, rather, it's an enscapulation of what so many of us have experienced. Definitely the sort of book I'll reread.
CW: passing references to jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge and shooting a Broadway star at the stage door
I miss NYC dearly - more than I expected to - and Whitehead so well captures various bits of the city in this essay collection. I'd read an excerpt from the opening essay before, about how "You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it." (Love that idea.) From there he goes on to describe the Port Authority, city sidewalks in the rain, the subway, walking down Broadway, Coney Island, rush hour, and more.
This isn't a romanticization of the city, rather, it's an enscapulation of what so many of us have experienced. Definitely the sort of book I'll reread.
CW: passing references to jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge and shooting a Broadway star at the stage door
4th book for BookTubeAThon, completed the challenge «Read a book completely outdoors»! (Not too hard since i'm camping)
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
