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3.06 AVERAGE
3.06 AVERAGE
I loved the idea of this book, the execution wasn't good. There was too much jumping around and the beauty that makes Midsummer one of my favorites was lacking.
See my full review here:
http://newportlibrary.blogspot.com/2011/05/torn-with-briers-i-can-no-further-crawl.html
http://newportlibrary.blogspot.com/2011/05/torn-with-briers-i-can-no-further-crawl.html
Why oh why did I read a book with faeries in it? Because Chris Adrian has an interesting back story for one. For another it is a reimagining of Shakespeare. For a third I never thought I'd like The Hobbit and I did. I'm not going to lie, I space out a little on the faerie parts and it took me way longer than it should have to make the necessary connections between characters (duh!) but Adrian's writing is wonderful, magical even, and he made me like what is generally for me unlikable. If faeries are your thing, you'll love it. If faeries aren't your thing, but great writing is, you'll really like it.
Would've been only one star if it hadn't been for the fact that the story takes place mostly in Buena Vista park. Good idea, but execution was lame.
DNF
He's undoubtedly very intelligent but this feels like a book that began as a short-form story and was stretched and padded into something completely unbearable.
The fairies were fascinating, but the human encounters with them were all more or less interchangable. Three people having the same reactions to the same things. I found the narrative voice was strongest and most poignant with Titania's passages, but full disclosure I didn't finish the book.
I dropped it about the halfway point. I was disheartened by how transgender people had featured and been represented in the story until then, and noted a general absence of people of color until someone's coming-into-their-sexual-identity backstory. This involves, to my understanding, falsely accusing their foster brother of sexual assault. Lots of layers there. Not many redeemable ones given the context of what I'd read to that point.
It's going on my shortlist for books that try stepping-to Shakespeare and fall ultimately short.
He's undoubtedly very intelligent but this feels like a book that began as a short-form story and was stretched and padded into something completely unbearable.
The fairies were fascinating, but the human encounters with them were all more or less interchangable. Three people having the same reactions to the same things. I found the narrative voice was strongest and most poignant with Titania's passages, but full disclosure I didn't finish the book.
I dropped it about the halfway point. I was disheartened by how transgender people had featured and been represented in the story until then, and noted a general absence of people of color until someone's coming-into-their-sexual-identity backstory.
It's going on my shortlist for books that try stepping-to Shakespeare and fall ultimately short.
I really liked the idea of bringing some of the characters from A Midsummer Night's Dream to San Fransisco but I did find that there were a few too many characters for the length of this book. I think I would have enjoyed it much more had the "actors" been dropped from the story and the focus had stayed with Molly, Will, Henry, and Titania.
This book had been on my 'to read' list for long, long time, stemming from an NPR review that included The Great Night and The Last Werewolf. I enjoyed The Last Werewolf immensely, which puts that review at 50/50.
The Great Night wasn't really my thing. I didn't enjoy this book on account of the weird sexual overtones. There are too many gratuitous references to people masturbating, orgy parties, people having sex on trees, people masturbating on trees. When I got to a part with a room of disembodied penises and flying, biting vaginas, I knew I was done. That was the point of no return, from which the book would not be able to recover no matter how enchanting the following 70 pages might be. I would have been tempted to stop reading then, but I was so close to the end. And if I don't finish, I'd be behind on my reading goal.
The idea for the book was interesting. The interconnected plots were well-done. I didn't really connect with the characters, but the book could have been right up my alley. It was the execution that did the book in.
Actual rating: 2.5 if Goodreads would allow the use of a half star.
The Great Night wasn't really my thing. I didn't enjoy this book on account of the weird sexual overtones. There are too many gratuitous references to people masturbating, orgy parties, people having sex on trees, people masturbating on trees. When I got to a part with a room of disembodied penises and flying, biting vaginas, I knew I was done. That was the point of no return, from which the book would not be able to recover no matter how enchanting the following 70 pages might be. I would have been tempted to stop reading then, but I was so close to the end. And if I don't finish, I'd be behind on my reading goal.
The idea for the book was interesting. The interconnected plots were well-done. I didn't really connect with the characters, but the book could have been right up my alley. It was the execution that did the book in.
Actual rating: 2.5 if Goodreads would allow the use of a half star.
I saw him read a chapter of this at UC Berkeley, and, having read neither any of his work nor A Midsummer Night's Dream, I was blown away by his beautiful visual writing style, and how quickly I was drawn into the story. Also, as a San Francisco native, I am super excited to read this homage to the magical potentials of our city.
So now that I've read it, and /The Children's Hospital/(Jordan Sasscock, what's up with that), I think I've gotten pretty familiar with Adrian's style, and I really like it. I miss reading books about magic and fairies and really impossible things, that allow you to just let the words happen and, you know, picture it in your mind, without needing a reason. Sure, /The Time Traveler's Wife/ is sort of like that, but /The Great Night/ is so much less heavy and a lot more fun. But I digress. A lovely book, a lot of things happen in the end, and a lot of fun to imagine -- the images conjured are so pretty and romantic, and it helps if you're familiar with San Francisco and sort of "get" the geography, the streets, and the little asides, i.e. fancy cheese shops, the treelessness of the Marina.
So now that I've read it, and /The Children's Hospital/(Jordan Sasscock, what's up with that), I think I've gotten pretty familiar with Adrian's style, and I really like it. I miss reading books about magic and fairies and really impossible things, that allow you to just let the words happen and, you know, picture it in your mind, without needing a reason. Sure, /The Time Traveler's Wife/ is sort of like that, but /The Great Night/ is so much less heavy and a lot more fun. But I digress. A lovely book, a lot of things happen in the end, and a lot of fun to imagine -- the images conjured are so pretty and romantic, and it helps if you're familiar with San Francisco and sort of "get" the geography, the streets, and the little asides, i.e. fancy cheese shops, the treelessness of the Marina.
I liked this, but it felt a bit like two separate stories, and I was far more interested in the one that didn't take place in the fairy lands.
This book - a modern retelling of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, is written by an obviously very talented and intelligent author. Maybe if you really like the original Shakespeare, you'd like it. I don't have a problem with a bit of fantasy woven into literature myself, but this book called for a bit more suspension of reality that I had going for me today. In fact, the only reason I finished it at all was because I was stuck on a 5 hour flight with nothing else to read. Also, the book was extremely sexual, it seemed to me in a gratuitous way; at times felt more like porn than literature.