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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
Nice short stories about different parts of the city. Some were more engaging than others, but I enjoyed the style
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
Really enjoyed reading this style of writing! Pretty much a collection of poems. The start of the book really had me imagining living daily life in NY, however some chapters lost me a bit and seemed to ramble on almost trying too hard at points to sound poetic. Shame but would recommend for a nice short read.
Poetically written ode to New York City. I haven't lived there in almost 30 years, but reading this felt like home.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Uffa. DNF, pagina 28.
Non è l'autore, è il soggetto. La familiarità genera disprezzo.
Non è l'autore, è il soggetto. La familiarità genera disprezzo.
slow-paced
This was great -- Whitehead is a beautiful writer, and he is all New York, down to the bones. These vignettes felt very much like the city itself -- a polyphonic mess of voices, noise, images, altogether overwhelming and gorgeous and a little bit grim at the same time. It's intimate but expansive, personal but broad. Whitehead's notion that nobody lives in the same New York really struck me, and his addressing of the eternal "When can you call yourself a New Yorker?" question. And while the book might show its age a little (the lovely meditation on the frustration of cabs is sort of supplanted by the rise of the Uber-behemoth in NYC), most of it still lands. I felt a sort of kinship reading the "Subway" chapter while stuck on a horribly delayed G train, like the book was coming to life right before me. Those living in the city will love this book, but it might dissuade those who admire the city from afar!
The only reason that this isn't a perfect review is that I was totally enamored by the more direct style of the first chapter/introduction "City Lights" and went in with the expectation that the book would be more invested in Whitehead's personal New York. It totally works as a broader strokes portrait of the city, but I would have been head over heels for a full book in the style of the introduction. But alas! This is a really unique piece of writing, and one that I would happily recommend.
The only reason that this isn't a perfect review is that I was totally enamored by the more direct style of the first chapter/introduction "City Lights" and went in with the expectation that the book would be more invested in Whitehead's personal New York. It totally works as a broader strokes portrait of the city, but I would have been head over heels for a full book in the style of the introduction. But alas! This is a really unique piece of writing, and one that I would happily recommend.
What failure in their upbringing pulls them here night after night, audience to this better bauble world of their exile.Three books and thirteen years later, it's time for Whitehead and I to call it quits. I say that as if the author was voluntarily involved at any point during this time, but for the last few years (I say few but it's been eight since [b:The Underground Railroad|30555488|The Underground Railroad|Colson Whitehead|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1493178362l/30555488._SX50_.jpg|48287641] came out, which mother of god where does the time go), I've seen a number of authors, were modestly mucking around while I modestly read them, go on to win big. Whitehead in particular has two Pulitzer wins more than the first time I read him, and while it would be more than understandable had I returned to him through one of those works, I'm the kind of reader who prefers to clean up their own messes outside of the limelight. This was the book in question, a short and weirdly structured meditation on the most obnoxious city in my country that I imagine I added in a heedless fit of diversification. How fitting, then, that I didn't track down a copy till my partial return to the library system of my highpowered former county of residence, for if there's any place that successfully seeks to be joined in the pantheon of the NYC on its own terms of avaricious banality, that's certainly one of them. For me, this was just my own experiences with cynical-before-the-baby's-even-entered-the-bathwater-let-alone-thrown-out-with-it urbanity stuck in the centrifuge that I may never have walked but sure can't ever fucking escape in my dalliances with books and their publishing houses, now can I. Probably unfair, as I can track my autopilot switching on barely twenty pages in, but the faustian bargain of my not ever giving up on a partial read is that, you really need to earn my attention. The incoming ending snapped me out of my self-absorbed fug to pick out a few choice sentences, but in the end, it's best that metropolis-infused madeleines take the form of Chaudhuri's [b:Calcutta|16156279|Calcutta Two Years in the City|Amit Chaudhuri|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1358750683l/16156279._SX50_.jpg|21995721]: for when the choice lies between razor-edged liminality and and sumptuous detail, I'll always prefer to drown.
This city is reward for all it will enable you to achieve and punishment for all the crimes it will force you to commit.