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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
This book was just delicious. First of all, I've loved Vienna ever since I fell in love with Mozart when I was little. I love stories of boarding schools and romances, carefully considered causes and effects, time travel, surprise (or not-so-surprise) twists, etc. This really was Mr. Edwards's life work. It is easy to see where some of his characters and their opinions came from, and the way he pulled it off after 30 years of writing really worked. Many thanks to whichever Bookling recommended it!
It's not the worst book I've ever read. I'm a sucker for time travel, or I probably wouldn't have finished. There are so many places you have to slog through, and so many holes, but there are small things that hook you. Don't start it if you're not good at setting down books even when you don't like them.
Who would think that time travel, pre-Nazi occupation Vienna and the arts would come together in one novel to create such a captivating and mind boggling story? I remained puzzling to the end... is it time travel or something else? Highly recommended.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I adored this book! The narrative voice sucked me in from the very beginning and I was captivated from page one. The Little Book is a hybrid of historic fiction, murder mystery, epic family saga, time travel, romance, and bildungsroman. Protagonist Wheeler Burden (dissect that name in the context of the novel and you'll find an entire thesis!), Harvard baseball hero, rock legend, and author suddenly finds himself transported to Vienna, Austria 1897, and living (reliving?) his family history. There's so much more to tell, but to tell anymore would not only tangle this short review, but would not do justice to the narrative brilliance of this book.
Highly recommended!!
Highly recommended!!
Gave it 125 pages but am not going to finish. I found it ridiculous, pretentious, repetitive and dull.
Summary from publisher:
“The Little Book is the extraordinary tale of Wheeler Burden, California-exiled heir of the famous Boston banking Burdens, philosopher, student of history, legend's son, rock idol, writer, lover of women, recluse, half-Jew, and Harvard baseball hero. In 1988 he is forty-seven, living in San Francisco. Suddenly he is - still his modern self - wandering in a city and time he knows mysteriously well: fin de siècle Vienna. It is 1897, precisely ninety-one years before his last memory and a half-century before his birth.
It's not long before Wheeler has acquired appropriate clothes, money, lodging, a group of young Viennese intellectuals as friends, a mentor in Sigmund Freud, a bitter rival, a powerful crush on a luminous young American woman, a passing acquaintance with local celebrity Mark Twain, and an incredible and surprising insight into the dashing young war-hero father he never knew.
But the truth at the center of Wheeler's dislocation in time remains a stubborn mystery that will take months of exploration and a lifetime of memories to unravel and that will, in the end, reveal nothing short of the eccentric Burden family's unrivaled impact on the very course of the coming century.”
I wanted to love this book, but it was so plodding and slow. I understand if took Edwards 30 years to write it. It felt like it took me 30 years to read it. There was also a bit of an ick factor due to a plot line I won’t spoil, but it did affect my enjoyment of the story quite a bit.
“The Little Book is the extraordinary tale of Wheeler Burden, California-exiled heir of the famous Boston banking Burdens, philosopher, student of history, legend's son, rock idol, writer, lover of women, recluse, half-Jew, and Harvard baseball hero. In 1988 he is forty-seven, living in San Francisco. Suddenly he is - still his modern self - wandering in a city and time he knows mysteriously well: fin de siècle Vienna. It is 1897, precisely ninety-one years before his last memory and a half-century before his birth.
It's not long before Wheeler has acquired appropriate clothes, money, lodging, a group of young Viennese intellectuals as friends, a mentor in Sigmund Freud, a bitter rival, a powerful crush on a luminous young American woman, a passing acquaintance with local celebrity Mark Twain, and an incredible and surprising insight into the dashing young war-hero father he never knew.
But the truth at the center of Wheeler's dislocation in time remains a stubborn mystery that will take months of exploration and a lifetime of memories to unravel and that will, in the end, reveal nothing short of the eccentric Burden family's unrivaled impact on the very course of the coming century.”
I wanted to love this book, but it was so plodding and slow. I understand if took Edwards 30 years to write it. It felt like it took me 30 years to read it. There was also a bit of an ick factor due to a plot line I won’t spoil, but it did affect my enjoyment of the story quite a bit.
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Simply amazing!