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an_enthusiastic_reader's review against another edition
5.0
The second impressive novel in Millet's trilogy, written in a different character's voice, with its own sensibility, but with the same moral imperative as the first (How the Dead Dream).
maedo's review against another edition
4.0
Ghost Lights is an odd little book. It was recommended by a woman in my writing workshop for its sardonic narrative voice. And that voice is easily the book's biggest strength, the reason I chose four stars instead of the three I am inclined to give it.
The protagonist of the book is Hal, 50 years old and working for the IRS, having something of an everyman life crisis. His 20-something daughter is paralyzed, has a boyfriend he disapproves of, and is working as a sex line operator. He suspects his wife is cheating on him with a much younger paralegal at her office. Moreover, his wife's boss, T, has gone missing in Belize and she's obsessed with finding him, channeling (Hal thinks) her energy/enthusiasm for the paralegal into the search.
Wanting to prove himself capable, having accrued lots of vacation time, and having nothing to lose anyway, Hal volunteers to go to Belize and find T. There he meets a young German couple -- Hans and Gretel -- who make a project of helping Hal find the missing man. He has his own brief tryst with Gretel (not a spoiler, this is on the jacket). Things go otherwise wacky with regards to the disappearance.
The reason I didn't love the book: the plot. My mistake was probably not reading it in one shot, which produced some disjointedness in pacing. Too much time spent in the jungle! Not enough time spent on his relationship with his wife after he tells her he thinks she's cheating! I don't know. It's a wisp of a book, and maybe it's reflective enough to satisfy others, but there's a lot going on in Hal's head and in the pages that only 255 of them to explore this world feels somewhat like a short shrift.
Lydia Millet's writing, though, is worthy of these four stars, if only because many times Hal's trains of thought into the absurd made me laugh out loud. Whenever he thinks about the oppression of Guatemalans, for example, he thinks about Rigoberta Menchu. But it's such a privileged, American, innocently blithe recollection that all he can remember is that she wears bright scarves. He admires a co-worker's earnestness, while mentally castigating him for wearing high-waisted pants. Most hilarious, to me anyway, is his/Millet's sense of humor about the Germans. For example:
Once they were back on the powerboat, the boys hunched over and were pushing buttons on their handheld games again and the German couple became caught up in the momentum. They were enthusiastic.
"You must contact your embassy in Belmopan," said the husband. "They have military forces! Maybe they would help you."
Germans. They thought you could just call in the army.
Even though I feel a bit less fulfilled than I was hoping to feel by the close of the book, it's still a very good recommendation. German humor! Love it.
The protagonist of the book is Hal, 50 years old and working for the IRS, having something of an everyman life crisis. His 20-something daughter is paralyzed, has a boyfriend he disapproves of, and is working as a sex line operator. He suspects his wife is cheating on him with a much younger paralegal at her office. Moreover, his wife's boss, T, has gone missing in Belize and she's obsessed with finding him, channeling (Hal thinks) her energy/enthusiasm for the paralegal into the search.
Wanting to prove himself capable, having accrued lots of vacation time, and having nothing to lose anyway, Hal volunteers to go to Belize and find T. There he meets a young German couple -- Hans and Gretel -- who make a project of helping Hal find the missing man. He has his own brief tryst with Gretel (not a spoiler, this is on the jacket). Things go otherwise wacky with regards to the disappearance.
The reason I didn't love the book: the plot. My mistake was probably not reading it in one shot, which produced some disjointedness in pacing. Too much time spent in the jungle! Not enough time spent on his relationship with his wife after he tells her he thinks she's cheating! I don't know. It's a wisp of a book, and maybe it's reflective enough to satisfy others, but there's a lot going on in Hal's head and in the pages that only 255 of them to explore this world feels somewhat like a short shrift.
Lydia Millet's writing, though, is worthy of these four stars, if only because many times Hal's trains of thought into the absurd made me laugh out loud. Whenever he thinks about the oppression of Guatemalans, for example, he thinks about Rigoberta Menchu. But it's such a privileged, American, innocently blithe recollection that all he can remember is that she wears bright scarves. He admires a co-worker's earnestness, while mentally castigating him for wearing high-waisted pants. Most hilarious, to me anyway, is his/Millet's sense of humor about the Germans. For example:
Once they were back on the powerboat, the boys hunched over and were pushing buttons on their handheld games again and the German couple became caught up in the momentum. They were enthusiastic.
"You must contact your embassy in Belmopan," said the husband. "They have military forces! Maybe they would help you."
Germans. They thought you could just call in the army.
Even though I feel a bit less fulfilled than I was hoping to feel by the close of the book, it's still a very good recommendation. German humor! Love it.
loganlangston's review against another edition
2.0
In Ghost Lights, Lydia Millet has maintained her quick and confident writing style. This novel has all the same dry leeching humor and long build up as How the Dead Dream. Thankfully, this novel departs from HTDD with more subtlety, It contains none of self-indulgent ecologic rants from a disembodied narrator. However, Ghost Lights lacks any of the surprise that HTDD held, I missed all of the intriguing plot points that come to a crescendo. In this novel all of the subplots feel superfluous. Perhaps because of this disinterest in the general plot lines I became much more critical of the message of the novel. The humor of a cold feelingless T. in the previous novel did not translate well on Hal. He is distant, he admits, long dead before the start of the novel. Yet his realizations aren't profound and he doesn't really seem to learn anything by the end of the book. It all just feels a bit absurd. Perhaps I should just allow myself to enjoy the absurdity. I love the parallels of the two books and I am willing and somewhat excited to see how the third in the trilogy plays out. I hope she moves past the "benevolent savage", disparaging view on disabled peoples lives, and the blindingly random gay characters. I just hope it's all leading up to something more than this non-intersectional white liberal ecological message.
flogigyahoo's review against another edition
4.0
An Ordinary Man Tries to be a Hero
Lydia Millet is very funny and very sad in Ghost Lights
Hal is surprised when he gets home early to pass a member of his wife's office leaving his house. This leads to constant worrying about his wife's fidelity. She is worried about her boss, called T., who went to Central America and disappeared. Hal volunteers to go to look for him and bring him home.
Very well written and often quite witty.
Lydia Millet is very funny and very sad in Ghost Lights
Hal is surprised when he gets home early to pass a member of his wife's office leaving his house. This leads to constant worrying about his wife's fidelity. She is worried about her boss, called T., who went to Central America and disappeared. Hal volunteers to go to look for him and bring him home.
Very well written and often quite witty.
piccoline's review against another edition
5.0
It's hard to describe what makes Millet's novels work so well. She's got clean prose, true, and a good balance of event and internal revelation. She poetically and thematically weaves the human world of her characters with the "natural" world (communicating well why those quotation marks are around natural there earlier in this sentence).
Maybe what I love most is the risks she takes, certain happenings that almost shouldn't work. No, they shouldn't work. Heck, maybe they don't work, but the whole somehow still does. It's easy to be jaded in these times, but she helps me avoid that. She's smart, she's funny, but she also risks and attempts what Wallace urged the "new literary rebels" to do: say something and mean it.
I'm very excited to dig into the third novel in this loose trilogy.
Maybe what I love most is the risks she takes, certain happenings that almost shouldn't work. No, they shouldn't work. Heck, maybe they don't work, but the whole somehow still does. It's easy to be jaded in these times, but she helps me avoid that. She's smart, she's funny, but she also risks and attempts what Wallace urged the "new literary rebels" to do: say something and mean it.
I'm very excited to dig into the third novel in this loose trilogy.
bobareann's review
3.0
I am headed to Belize for vacation so I did a search for all novels featuring Belize in my local library. I just picked them off the shelves without much notice, including this one. At first, I thought this was a mystery novel, perhaps even a murder mystery, with "lyrical prose", but that angle never really materialized and I found that this was more a lyrical prose novel. And probably not the best choice for allaying fears about travel to another country.
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