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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
I feel like I've been trapped inside of a Las Vegas hotel suite with a PhD crack addict in the midst of a three-day bender who can't stop talking: I have no idea what's going on most of the time, but I am completely fascinated.
challenging
dark
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Wonderfully written sentences, but a lot of the situations created weren't realy solved at all in the (non) ending
Oh my. I really don't even know how to summarize this book. Uh...a woman's grandmother goes missing from a nursing home, her excessively verbose boyfriend becomes overly insecure with their relationship and problems existing within their relationship become evident, the past returns, a bird becomes an evangelist, phone lines are crossed, alternate dimensions discovered...uh...that's just a little taste of what is going on in this thing.
This audio book was like a story with ADD. It was so hard for me to follow what was going on. So many characters and times that went all over the place. I don’t know how much of my difficulty in following the story was the fact that it was an audio book rather than the written word. There were a lot of one-sided conversations and recitation of old documents and transcripts, strange dialogue and rambling stories.
However, on a positive note, moments of the book exuded a quirky dialogue that I loved!
There were also outrageously named characters like (all spelled phonetically, since this was an audiobook, so I've never seen their names written):
Peter Abbit (Peter Rabbit?)
Judith Preeth (Judas Priest?)
Rick Vigorous
Do you have any idea how much I DISLIKE Rick Vigorous?! Jeez, his babbling stories drove me nuts. He is a very annoying man.
I had high hopes for this story, as I had heard such good things about it. But holy moley! To me this was just a babbling mess with about 5 different storylines wrapped up in one story. And not in a neat and brilliant sort of way, but in a mish-mash of confusion. And I don’t even know what to make of the ending. It felt like everything was left open-ended with nothing resolved. It felt like there was NO ending-- it just broke midway through the storyline. Perhaps if I had read this story instead of listening to the audiobook I may have a different takeaway and it would make more sense to me. But as it is, the audiobook made absolutely NO sense to me at all!
So I was not a fan of this one, but that's just me. There are obviously plenty of people out there who disagree with me and feel that this was a brilliant story! But for me, it shone dimly.
This audio book was like a story with ADD. It was so hard for me to follow what was going on. So many characters and times that went all over the place. I don’t know how much of my difficulty in following the story was the fact that it was an audio book rather than the written word. There were a lot of one-sided conversations and recitation of old documents and transcripts, strange dialogue and rambling stories.
However, on a positive note, moments of the book exuded a quirky dialogue that I loved!
There were also outrageously named characters like (all spelled phonetically, since this was an audiobook, so I've never seen their names written):
Peter Abbit (Peter Rabbit?)
Judith Preeth (Judas Priest?)
Rick Vigorous
Do you have any idea how much I DISLIKE Rick Vigorous?! Jeez, his babbling stories drove me nuts. He is a very annoying man.
I had high hopes for this story, as I had heard such good things about it. But holy moley! To me this was just a babbling mess with about 5 different storylines wrapped up in one story. And not in a neat and brilliant sort of way, but in a mish-mash of confusion. And I don’t even know what to make of the ending. It felt like everything was left open-ended with nothing resolved. It felt like there was NO ending-- it just broke midway through the storyline. Perhaps if I had read this story instead of listening to the audiobook I may have a different takeaway and it would make more sense to me. But as it is, the audiobook made absolutely NO sense to me at all!
So I was not a fan of this one, but that's just me. There are obviously plenty of people out there who disagree with me and feel that this was a brilliant story! But for me, it shone dimly.
I read this one not too long after it came out. I noticed it on the shelf at the bookstore where I was working, and once I read the cover, I had to read it. I'm so glad I did. I even got him to autograph a copy while he was touring for Infinite Jest years later. I could tell he was flattered that I had a copy of this one--not sure too many people do!
Pynchonesque in the sense of being zany, — as much as DFW didn’t like to be compared to other writers, influences are too obvious with this one. Can’t help but think back to V. and the Crying of Lot 49, even though the levels of paranoia and scale are nowhere compared to the above-mentioned. It is also more friendly in terms of language and topics it provokes. At times homerically funny (The Road Runner part and Dr Jay raps), at times overly long (as if stream of consciousness was left unedited), — it packs a lot, is not successful at all its endeavors, but is quite pleasant nonetheless.
Literary metafiction hi-jinxs: fun, but I'd still like Wallace to at least pretend there's been some sort of narrative resolution.