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noelleamk's review against another edition
2.0
This was very strange...
It was like you could understand the linear stream of consciousness of a dream in its entirety. Or if you could conceptualize what it is like to have a 106° fever. If you could find small pockets of coherence in radio distortion. If you could run every image through a spectrogram and create a world from it
... and I think that was the point
It was like you could understand the linear stream of consciousness of a dream in its entirety. Or if you could conceptualize what it is like to have a 106° fever. If you could find small pockets of coherence in radio distortion. If you could run every image through a spectrogram and create a world from it
... and I think that was the point
bookishdea's review against another edition
1.0
This book was on my Nook, and when I started it, I had no idea what it was. It wasn't until a few chapters in that I realized that this was the weirdish horror novel I had gotten a while ago.
I also read this book while taking the bus home from work -- after working an eight hour shift and getting off at 7am. So yes, not optimal reading conditions.
I am really not a fan of post-modernist literature. Actually, I despite it with a passion, and the last piece of post-modernist literature I unfortunately read was Douglas Copland's Coma Girl and I ended up throwing it halfway across the room into a wall.
It really depends on my mood, but different writing styles besides your basic paragraphs can really annoy me as well.
Also, apparently I'm not a huge fan of speculative fiction. And I know that I am quite wary of horror.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
I finished the book. But I was left just as confused as I was when I started it. There was nothing really horrifying about the book. I just found it really strange. And no, I didn't like the book. It didn't send me into a rage (seriously, what was up with Coma Girl, that was like the most pointless book I've ever read...post-modernism is why I dropped out of my lit-based American Studies program*). I'm sure for the right reader, this book is excellent. But unfortunately, I am not that reader. This isn't a YA paranormal romance with vampires/werewolves/whatever that makes me scream about the way it's upholding the rape culture and romanticizing abusive partners. No, this book was simply a book that I should never have picked up because it's not a genre I like, it's not a style I like, and it really requires more thought than reading when you're half-asleep.
If you like post-modernism, different kinds of writing styles, or want a new face in the horror genre (that is a different kind of creepy), I recommend this book to you.
If you don't want any of that...stay away. You'll probably just end up confused.
*well, not the only reason. But my professors ADORED post-modernist lit and I despise it and unfortunately the program that advertised both literary AND cultural AND historical aspects of the US turned out to be an extremely post-modernist literature based program. So yeah. Not the only reason, but a big one.
I also read this book while taking the bus home from work -- after working an eight hour shift and getting off at 7am. So yes, not optimal reading conditions.
I am really not a fan of post-modernist literature. Actually, I despite it with a passion, and the last piece of post-modernist literature I unfortunately read was Douglas Copland's Coma Girl and I ended up throwing it halfway across the room into a wall.
It really depends on my mood, but different writing styles besides your basic paragraphs can really annoy me as well.
Also, apparently I'm not a huge fan of speculative fiction. And I know that I am quite wary of horror.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
I finished the book. But I was left just as confused as I was when I started it. There was nothing really horrifying about the book. I just found it really strange. And no, I didn't like the book. It didn't send me into a rage (seriously, what was up with Coma Girl, that was like the most pointless book I've ever read...post-modernism is why I dropped out of my lit-based American Studies program*). I'm sure for the right reader, this book is excellent. But unfortunately, I am not that reader. This isn't a YA paranormal romance with vampires/werewolves/whatever that makes me scream about the way it's upholding the rape culture and romanticizing abusive partners. No, this book was simply a book that I should never have picked up because it's not a genre I like, it's not a style I like, and it really requires more thought than reading when you're half-asleep.
If you like post-modernism, different kinds of writing styles, or want a new face in the horror genre (that is a different kind of creepy), I recommend this book to you.
If you don't want any of that...stay away. You'll probably just end up confused.
*well, not the only reason. But my professors ADORED post-modernist lit and I despise it and unfortunately the program that advertised both literary AND cultural AND historical aspects of the US turned out to be an extremely post-modernist literature based program. So yeah. Not the only reason, but a big one.
jasminenoack's review
4.0
Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. I started this book a long time ago, actually the same day I started the girl who couldn't come, on the same subway to the same airport, I started this first, then switched cause I got sleepy. Then when David left I picked up escape and some books greg recommended and I'm just getting back to these now.
I don't really know how to talk about this book so instead I think I'm going to pretend to understand readers advisory instead of actually reviewing this.
If you like Mark Danielwinski, Blake Butler will drive you crazy
I know, I know that's not right. When I read this it felt like house of leaves, but butler manages to create the intertextual confusion of house of leaves in a book that doesn't look that different than any other book.
appeal categories
Storyline
Um... I don't know, have you seen the science of sleep, it's kind of like that. It's imagination driven, or dream driven, can I say that? It is not plot or character driven. (complex-non-plot)
Pace
slow but fast. the story crawls, but the book goes by quickly. It's time magic (relaxed pace)
Tone
sad. But not like sad for the sake of being sad, like sad like people who really love each other getting a divorce, or a dad missing his kids first steps. just sad. (bittersweet, disturbing, haunting, melancholy, nostalgic)
Writing Style
Disconnected, minimal, unclear. (complex style, experimental, lyrical, spare, thoughtful)
I don't really know how to talk about this book so instead I think I'm going to pretend to understand readers advisory instead of actually reviewing this.
If you like Mark Danielwinski, Blake Butler will drive you crazy
I know, I know that's not right. When I read this it felt like house of leaves, but butler manages to create the intertextual confusion of house of leaves in a book that doesn't look that different than any other book.
appeal categories
Storyline
Um... I don't know, have you seen the science of sleep, it's kind of like that. It's imagination driven, or dream driven, can I say that? It is not plot or character driven. (complex-non-plot)
Pace
slow but fast. the story crawls, but the book goes by quickly. It's time magic (relaxed pace)
Tone
sad. But not like sad for the sake of being sad, like sad like people who really love each other getting a divorce, or a dad missing his kids first steps. just sad. (bittersweet, disturbing, haunting, melancholy, nostalgic)
Writing Style
Disconnected, minimal, unclear. (complex style, experimental, lyrical, spare, thoughtful)
sshabein's review
(I can't put a star rating on this because it's the sort of book that resists it.)
I am impressed with Blake Butler's ability to redefine what we typically consider "the novel." This book is unlike anything else I have ever read.
There is No Year is a challenging read, to put it mildly, though its 400 pages certainly did not drag. However, readers looking for anything resembling a straightforward plot or a resolution are not likely to enjoy the book. The ending is only a designated cut-off point, the end of the exhibit. Butler's writing comes closer to performance art in some ways, the literary version of disorienting video installations, housed in dark rooms at the MOMA. It would be disingenuous of me to define this book in terms of "good" or "bad" — All I can tell you is that it's an experience.
(My full review can be found on Glorified Love Letters.)
I am impressed with Blake Butler's ability to redefine what we typically consider "the novel." This book is unlike anything else I have ever read.
There is No Year is a challenging read, to put it mildly, though its 400 pages certainly did not drag. However, readers looking for anything resembling a straightforward plot or a resolution are not likely to enjoy the book. The ending is only a designated cut-off point, the end of the exhibit. Butler's writing comes closer to performance art in some ways, the literary version of disorienting video installations, housed in dark rooms at the MOMA. It would be disingenuous of me to define this book in terms of "good" or "bad" — All I can tell you is that it's an experience.
(My full review can be found on Glorified Love Letters.)
drewsof's review
1.0
There Is No Year: http://t.co/AfZExdn
Wow. I'm not sure I can even fully articulate my disappointment in this book - and in having spent the last week reading it. Huge waste of my time.
Wow. I'm not sure I can even fully articulate my disappointment in this book - and in having spent the last week reading it. Huge waste of my time.
werdfert's review
dear blake, i tried. i'm telling you i tried. to like your books and get into them and not let the lilting quality of your prose lull me to sleep. to not forget after turning pages that i was reading a book. but, i am sorry, it just didn't happen. for me, it is not going to happen.
whatsheread's review
When Erica from Harper Perennial mentioned that There Is No Year is a challenging book, she was not exaggerating. Mr. Butler's latest novel is virtually indescribable in its plot but powerful in the emotions it evokes. Part poetry, part artistic rendering, it is a novel like no other.
There Is No Year follows, in a very meandering and disturbing fashion, the lives of an unnamed family after they move into their house of dreams. Each family member is haunted by his or her own memories and thoughts. The entire story is told in a dream-like fashion, where nightmares become reality in some way. Rooms mysteriously appear and disappear. Roads lead to nowhere and everywhere. What was once familiar is now strange. The passage of time is arbitrary and uneven. Through it all, the sense of foreboding is unmistakable and ever-present.
Just when the story delves into the most fantastical descriptions, Mr. Butler brings up a scene which diverts the reader's attention back to the normal. Life is not as strange as the father, mother and son would have the reader expect. They still go to work, clean the house, go grocery shopping, go to school, etc. They lead normal lives. Yet, everything they "see", "hear" and experience is anything but normal. Is it mental illness? Are they just dreams? Is it just their mind's interpretation of their experiences? Isn't life dream-like? The answer is up to the individual reader.
There Is No Year is as much a work of art as it is a novel. Told in sparse chapters, the reader needs to pay as much attention to the individual placement of each word as to the words themselves. Interspersed throughout are images devoted to the play of shadow and light, and the pages themselves cover the spectrum of black to various shades of gray and even white. It is simply visually stunning.
The entire novel is meant to be devoured by all the senses. The textures and colors of the pages, the words, and the images are all meant to help enhance the dream-like quality of the story. Yet, it is not a novel that one can simply pick up and read cover to cover. There Is No Year requires careful reading and even more careful thought before the message reveals itself to the reader. Once it does, though, it is well worth the time and effort it takes to get through the novel.
There Is No Year follows, in a very meandering and disturbing fashion, the lives of an unnamed family after they move into their house of dreams. Each family member is haunted by his or her own memories and thoughts. The entire story is told in a dream-like fashion, where nightmares become reality in some way. Rooms mysteriously appear and disappear. Roads lead to nowhere and everywhere. What was once familiar is now strange. The passage of time is arbitrary and uneven. Through it all, the sense of foreboding is unmistakable and ever-present.
Just when the story delves into the most fantastical descriptions, Mr. Butler brings up a scene which diverts the reader's attention back to the normal. Life is not as strange as the father, mother and son would have the reader expect. They still go to work, clean the house, go grocery shopping, go to school, etc. They lead normal lives. Yet, everything they "see", "hear" and experience is anything but normal. Is it mental illness? Are they just dreams? Is it just their mind's interpretation of their experiences? Isn't life dream-like? The answer is up to the individual reader.
There Is No Year is as much a work of art as it is a novel. Told in sparse chapters, the reader needs to pay as much attention to the individual placement of each word as to the words themselves. Interspersed throughout are images devoted to the play of shadow and light, and the pages themselves cover the spectrum of black to various shades of gray and even white. It is simply visually stunning.
The entire novel is meant to be devoured by all the senses. The textures and colors of the pages, the words, and the images are all meant to help enhance the dream-like quality of the story. Yet, it is not a novel that one can simply pick up and read cover to cover. There Is No Year requires careful reading and even more careful thought before the message reveals itself to the reader. Once it does, though, it is well worth the time and effort it takes to get through the novel.
johnmckinzie's review
1.0
On of the worst couple books I've ever read. Different for the sake of being different. Only second book in last 15 years I stopped reading halfway through.