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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
Found via the narrator in 'Fake Accounts.'
I did like it. Really smart, interesting commentary on the way we present ourselves to the world. No huge plot or a ton of fleshed out characters; it's mainly Adam's inner monologue about his feeling fraudulent in his work and life, and the fact that he moved to a new country but doesn't feel that the life he is living there is 'real'- which I can relate to.
"Convinced I should go home, that this life wasn’t real, I had been a tourist for a year, indubitably needed to return to the US; I was prolonging the inevitable; I would never live apart from my language and family permanently, even if I could work out the logistics, renew contact with the reality if my life... (pg. 163) things in Iberia were inherently more immediate."
I found that quote super interesting and will be reflecting on that more.
I did like it. Really smart, interesting commentary on the way we present ourselves to the world. No huge plot or a ton of fleshed out characters; it's mainly Adam's inner monologue about his feeling fraudulent in his work and life, and the fact that he moved to a new country but doesn't feel that the life he is living there is 'real'- which I can relate to.
"Convinced I should go home, that this life wasn’t real, I had been a tourist for a year, indubitably needed to return to the US; I was prolonging the inevitable; I would never live apart from my language and family permanently, even if I could work out the logistics, renew contact with the reality if my life... (pg. 163) things in Iberia were inherently more immediate."
I found that quote super interesting and will be reflecting on that more.
this dude and the heroine from Berlin should get together and drive everyone around them insane actually
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A really good read exploring the interiority of a tortured creative. This book depicts almost overwhelming interiority and borderline neuroticism and is drenched in overthought pathos that reminds me of the work of Osamu Dazai. Along the way is an engaging plot, with a lot of cringeworthy moments.
Read 5 paragraphs, skimmed a third, flipped quickly through the rest. Didn't give it an honest try but it in no way grabbed me.
After reading Ben Lerner’s debut novel I searched out John Ashberry’s poem of the same name.
A hadn’t read either Ashberry’s poem nor Lerner’s for that matter.
Nor had I made the connection between Ashberry’s poem and the setting for the 2004 terrorist attack at the Madrid train station of the same name. But I do sense a kinship between the two as Ashberry’s poetry clangs like the explosions in the tunnels.
More than 190 people died in the attack.
So what is the connection between the poem, the explosion, and poet about whom this novel is centred?
Fragments of the story tie in directly to Lerner’s lived experience. His mother and father appear as characters by the narrator, although they are the stuff of lies he tells a woman to gain her confidence.
The narrator is a poet so different from the swaggering Jake Barnes of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises to whom he is compared.
This writer is on tranquilizers, is constantly smoking hash or grass, and is drunk most of the time. He considers himself a fraud. He pretends that his Spanish is rudimentary, and he fears his translator will discover that he is no poet at all.
His friends think otherwise.
The themes are familiar, the setting exotic to a N. American audience, and the narrator as spoiled and dishonest as J.P. Donleavy’s Ginger Man.
What is new is our understanding of the mind and the constructions he makes to make sense of his blurry landscape, grabbing from memory what he makes of himself and filling in the rest with not what is real, but what will work.
This is what we know of the mind today.
When the terrorist attacks galvanize the opposition on the eve of a national election, the narrator’s friends act as one. To them it is history in the making. He is not a part of this history, or only the history of poetry.
A hadn’t read either Ashberry’s poem nor Lerner’s for that matter.
Nor had I made the connection between Ashberry’s poem and the setting for the 2004 terrorist attack at the Madrid train station of the same name. But I do sense a kinship between the two as Ashberry’s poetry clangs like the explosions in the tunnels.
More than 190 people died in the attack.
So what is the connection between the poem, the explosion, and poet about whom this novel is centred?
Fragments of the story tie in directly to Lerner’s lived experience. His mother and father appear as characters by the narrator, although they are the stuff of lies he tells a woman to gain her confidence.
The narrator is a poet so different from the swaggering Jake Barnes of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises to whom he is compared.
This writer is on tranquilizers, is constantly smoking hash or grass, and is drunk most of the time. He considers himself a fraud. He pretends that his Spanish is rudimentary, and he fears his translator will discover that he is no poet at all.
His friends think otherwise.
The themes are familiar, the setting exotic to a N. American audience, and the narrator as spoiled and dishonest as J.P. Donleavy’s Ginger Man.
What is new is our understanding of the mind and the constructions he makes to make sense of his blurry landscape, grabbing from memory what he makes of himself and filling in the rest with not what is real, but what will work.
This is what we know of the mind today.
When the terrorist attacks galvanize the opposition on the eve of a national election, the narrator’s friends act as one. To them it is history in the making. He is not a part of this history, or only the history of poetry.
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
lighthearted
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Enjoyable sections of the book were largely overshadowed by the contrived and tortured prose. Repetitive without a message. There’s not even a fun story to tell here. I liked the translation bits