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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
I liked the fictional story even with the weird time-travelling potential incest part. But once again you have an author that wants to inform you of everything they learned. It can also be hard to follow with all of the bouncing back and forth between times and characters.
This book was quite, quite cool and thoroughly engrossing. I came away narratively pleased, and also with more knowledge of Freud, Hitler, and all things Vienna in the late 19th century...who knew that last would be fascinating?! There is also time travel, I should note, which makes me quite happy but can be a deterrent, I realize, for those who like their fiction to have no trace of sci to it...
This was one of those books that I just couldn't read. Every time I read it, I liked it, but nothing compelled me to keep reading it once I put it down. And so it sat...and a read a few pages...and it sat around...and I read a few pages...until I was stuck on an airplane runway for 2 hours and couldn't turn on my Kindle because the airplane doors were closed and the only book I had with me was this one. Well...then I read, and read, and read...and when we finally took off...and when I finally COULD turn on my Kindle I didn't want to because I suddenly became immersed in the world of this book. (This was probably when I was already about half way through the book.) And this book...well it just blew my mind. My head literally exploded on the plane in a million different pieces!
Okay, let me back up...it's a time travel book. And at the best of times, time travel books confuse me when I start thinking about how they work and their implications and how everyone got back in time. In this book the main character goes back to turn of the century (19th century) Vienna and meets up with his (much younger) father who he never met who was also traveling to the same time period. There are long rambling parts of this book that go back and forth between the present and the past. But as events in the past unravel you suddenly understand why so much time was spent on one issue (the plagiarism of a paper in college, for instance). And as these things are revealed...my brain exploded a little...and then a little bit more...and then there was brain matter all over the plane. Wow - in the end I really liked the book.
But...it took me a while to get there. The writing style is definitely different and takes a bit to get used to. I say - give it time, give it time and you'll be rewarded in the end.
Okay, let me back up...it's a time travel book. And at the best of times, time travel books confuse me when I start thinking about how they work and their implications and how everyone got back in time. In this book the main character goes back to turn of the century (19th century) Vienna and meets up with his (much younger) father who he never met who was also traveling to the same time period. There are long rambling parts of this book that go back and forth between the present and the past. But as events in the past unravel you suddenly understand why so much time was spent on one issue (the plagiarism of a paper in college, for instance). And as these things are revealed...my brain exploded a little...and then a little bit more...and then there was brain matter all over the plane. Wow - in the end I really liked the book.
But...it took me a while to get there. The writing style is definitely different and takes a bit to get used to. I say - give it time, give it time and you'll be rewarded in the end.
I believe our impressions of books are caught by the time and/or order in which we read them. I happen to be a big fan of The Time Traveler's Wife, which in my opinion, nailed the time travel thing with characters I cared about.
It feels like The Little Book flits over way to many subjects. I would have found it more compelling if the story had been more focused on either the Burden family OR the historical aspects. It seems as though the story just 'skims'...the characters, the historical component, the relationships.
Maybe if Mr. Selden had completed this work in 20 instead of 30 years, it would have spoken to me more.
It feels like The Little Book flits over way to many subjects. I would have found it more compelling if the story had been more focused on either the Burden family OR the historical aspects. It seems as though the story just 'skims'...the characters, the historical component, the relationships.
Maybe if Mr. Selden had completed this work in 20 instead of 30 years, it would have spoken to me more.
I give up. This book was dull as dishwater, despite its premise. I am nearly half-way done and have no desire to find out how it ends. Too much info dumping and no character development. Blech.
I loved the first quarter of this book -- so clever and delightful. But as I got into the middle of it, it started to really stall. It lost the tone of wonderment. The book is so far-fetched, that it really needed a wink now and then to keep the tone light.
Turn of the century Vienna is full of great minds we've heard of, so it's interesting to read this story of worlds colliding. While there is an element of time travel, it is not in any way science fiction-y.
http://mariesbookgarden.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-little-book.html
I'd been looking forward to reading The Little Book for my book group this month, and in the beginning I was sure I would love it--time travel fascinates me. But love it I did not. I would give it a solid three stars, but I felt bogged down by some of the plot. It took me a few weeks to finish it.
Edwards took 30 years to finish this book, and in some ways it felt like he was overambitious. He tackles fin de siecle Vienna, the life of Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler, World War II, Mark Twain, and Adolf Hitler...oh, and baseball and rock music and supposedly the beginning of the feminist movement, too.
Wheeler Burden is the protagonist--a character so perfect (star baseball player and brilliant rock musician) that he reminds me of Peekay in that dratted book The Power of One (although I liked this book better than that one). His father was perfect too, and even a war hero worshipped in several different countries. The book starts when Wheeler is 47 in 1988, and he goes back to fin de siecle Vienna in the year 1897, where he falls in love with his grandmother and befriends his now-dead father. (Yes, he was in love with his grandmother...is that weird and creepy or what??? Who cares if he's not technically related by blood? Still creepy.)
I enjoyed the descriptions of Vienna during the turn of the century, and many of the characters were colorful and interesting (I would have liked to have seen more of Wheeler's mother, though). I learned more about the formation of Sigmund Freud's ideas and the rise of fascism in Europe...and I find it intriguing to consider: what would I do if I could change the course of the world by pre-empting an evil dictator's rise to power?
But the book also had some serious flaws. Enough of the baseball...boring, and I couldn't really see how it was important for the story. The ramblings about "the Venerable Haze" and the "Little Book" got tiresome too. What was so brilliant about the "Little Book"? It was entirely unclear to me. As Ron Charles writes in his review in The Washington Post, "We never hear anything from this book ourselves, but we're told again and again how great it is."
Charles sums up my thoughts:
"In fact, Edwards makes so many hyperbolic claims that The Little Book begins to sound rather flat, like a tall tale told without a wink. Edwards can't stop petting Wheeler and reminding us how wonderful he is. Of course, he's incredibly good looking and sexually athletic, but he also writes a foundational work of 20th-century philosophy and inspires "the beginning of the American feminist movement." (You didn't think women could do that on their own, did you?) And he throws the fastest pitch in college baseball (at Harvard, naturally). Then he writes "the most famous song of the 1970s" and becomes "one of People magazine's Most Recognizable." Then he publishes a bestselling book in the 1980s. The whole narrative is soggy with hero-worship, like the fantasy of a skinny teenage boy staring into a mirror."
What finally makes my head hurt in this whole time travel adventure is that we never really learn how they are able to time travel. Is it hereditary? Or perhaps sort of afterlife experience? And supposedly they are in an endless loop, ever meeting again...so the world will never end? I just can't get my head around it. I wanted some sort of resolution to how this weird time travel thing happened, but I never got one.
This book was wildly inventive and wacky, and I give kudos to Selden Edwards for dreaming it up. Perhaps if he had worked on the book for fewer years and not tried to make it so full of meticulous research, I would have found it less frustrating. And what the heck would they do with a wooden frisbee? Find fame and fortune? The characters were just too damn perfect for my liking (except for that incest grandmother-grandson thing...which I still find incredibly odd that the author thought this was romantic), while at the same time I didn't feel that sympathetic or connected to Wheeler. I liked his mother better.
I'd been looking forward to reading The Little Book for my book group this month, and in the beginning I was sure I would love it--time travel fascinates me. But love it I did not. I would give it a solid three stars, but I felt bogged down by some of the plot. It took me a few weeks to finish it.
Edwards took 30 years to finish this book, and in some ways it felt like he was overambitious. He tackles fin de siecle Vienna, the life of Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler, World War II, Mark Twain, and Adolf Hitler...oh, and baseball and rock music and supposedly the beginning of the feminist movement, too.
Wheeler Burden is the protagonist--a character so perfect (star baseball player and brilliant rock musician) that he reminds me of Peekay in that dratted book The Power of One (although I liked this book better than that one). His father was perfect too, and even a war hero worshipped in several different countries. The book starts when Wheeler is 47 in 1988, and he goes back to fin de siecle Vienna in the year 1897, where he falls in love with his grandmother and befriends his now-dead father. (Yes, he was in love with his grandmother...is that weird and creepy or what??? Who cares if he's not technically related by blood? Still creepy.)
I enjoyed the descriptions of Vienna during the turn of the century, and many of the characters were colorful and interesting (I would have liked to have seen more of Wheeler's mother, though). I learned more about the formation of Sigmund Freud's ideas and the rise of fascism in Europe...and I find it intriguing to consider: what would I do if I could change the course of the world by pre-empting an evil dictator's rise to power?
But the book also had some serious flaws. Enough of the baseball...boring, and I couldn't really see how it was important for the story. The ramblings about "the Venerable Haze" and the "Little Book" got tiresome too. What was so brilliant about the "Little Book"? It was entirely unclear to me. As Ron Charles writes in his review in The Washington Post, "We never hear anything from this book ourselves, but we're told again and again how great it is."
Charles sums up my thoughts:
"In fact, Edwards makes so many hyperbolic claims that The Little Book begins to sound rather flat, like a tall tale told without a wink. Edwards can't stop petting Wheeler and reminding us how wonderful he is. Of course, he's incredibly good looking and sexually athletic, but he also writes a foundational work of 20th-century philosophy and inspires "the beginning of the American feminist movement." (You didn't think women could do that on their own, did you?) And he throws the fastest pitch in college baseball (at Harvard, naturally). Then he writes "the most famous song of the 1970s" and becomes "one of People magazine's Most Recognizable." Then he publishes a bestselling book in the 1980s. The whole narrative is soggy with hero-worship, like the fantasy of a skinny teenage boy staring into a mirror."
What finally makes my head hurt in this whole time travel adventure is that we never really learn how they are able to time travel. Is it hereditary? Or perhaps sort of afterlife experience? And supposedly they are in an endless loop, ever meeting again...so the world will never end? I just can't get my head around it. I wanted some sort of resolution to how this weird time travel thing happened, but I never got one.
This book was wildly inventive and wacky, and I give kudos to Selden Edwards for dreaming it up. Perhaps if he had worked on the book for fewer years and not tried to make it so full of meticulous research, I would have found it less frustrating. And what the heck would they do with a wooden frisbee? Find fame and fortune? The characters were just too damn perfect for my liking (except for that incest grandmother-grandson thing...which I still find incredibly odd that the author thought this was romantic), while at the same time I didn't feel that sympathetic or connected to Wheeler. I liked his mother better.
I love time travel books, especially when they morph into historical fiction. I loved learning about Vienna in 1897, who knew it was such a hub for artists, musicians, and Sigmund Freud! The plot, characters, and historical elements made this one of the best books I've read recently.
It’s a very interesting idea, implemented with moderate success. There is a lot of complex and interesting plot, it’s just… kind of slow and overwrought. I felt myself working hard to want to keep reading in parts and wanting to get on with it. The level of historical detail and the conversations got a bit bogged down.