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3.32 AVERAGE
3.32 AVERAGE
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A love letter to New York, chock full of magical realism. Some of the things he said/predicted about New York were really eerie in a post-9/11 world. It was written in the early 80s, and some of the things he posited about the turn of the new millennia were kind of creepily spot-on. Great characters, wonderful narrative. (Don't judge it by the movie adaptation which was TERRIBLE.)
Okay. As a teacher of English language arts, I'm typically am avid book-lover and discoverer. I'll give you a chance, young book, if only you put some more words on page and create a conflict. However, I gave this book a chance and hated it every single page I kept continuing to force myself to read. Magical horse, a love story that doesn't even take up the bulk of the book, 3000 characters, and none of the plots resolved: Recipe for disaster. Did I mention it's a mythical New York City? And that it's 750 pages? And that I'm pretty sure that 675 of those pages are just lugubrious descriptions of yet another setting? Rarely do I finish a book and want to throw it across the room. This one made it at least 25 yards.
Personally, I am a dork and as much as I wanted to like this book. I could not. I have a hard, hard, time with Science Fiction.. Thank You Seasonal Reading Challenge for taking me outside of my comfort zone. I thought that this book was full of adjectives that Lost me. I thought that it was mentally frustrating and by the end I was exhausted because of all the voices in the head. I actually liked what I got to know of the characters but was so lost in the LONG descriptions that I gave up. I think that the author can write but I think that he could have trimmed the book a little by taking out some of these descriptions. I am giving the book 2 stars because a.) I finished it and b.) because if I ever need to describe something I am using this book...
Starting the book in the mind of an anthropomorphic horse is not a good sign, but I forged ahead because it is book club. Never got into it- giving up. Some nice things, but didn't hold my attention.
I DID IT!
I survived this book!
I am the STRONGEST!
RAAAAAAAAAR!
That's me after finishing this story.
Soooo...I hated it.
I totally read this in the wrong age (both in terms of my physical age and in terms of the century in which I am currently living) - I should have read this when I was in my young 20's, still idealistic and full of wonder, before the world changed over to the new millennium and 9/11.
I think had I read this back then, I'd have been enchanted.
In fact, I was enchanted through probably the first half of Peter Lake's story. Oh, the magic of the beautiful Belle Epoque when all things glistened, even orphans in tenements dying of TB. So perfectly touching.
Then the slipstream aspect of time and place showed up and I haven't been a fan of time manipulation in years so that was an unwelcome surprise. After that, I found I was trying to figure out just where/when in hell I was throughout most of the rest of the book and how it all related.
(It didn't relate. It was just smooshed together and forced to get along)
For me, it went from surreal and magical, charming and quaint to full-on pretentious and then to plain, ol' silly.
I suppose if I had to write a paper on this book, I'd say something about Peter Lake being a representation of the last beautiful age in America and Pearly Somes being the antithesis/reality of our sentimentality. The Ghost is probably a mockery of our own ridiculous, gluttonous, vain, indolent, self-involved society with Craig Binky being the representation of the 1% and Harry Penn being his antithesis as the hard-working, respected, talented, deserving millionaire.
Maybe had the entire book been written as a poking satire, laughing at our culture's wish to harness the perceived perfection of times long gone while simultaneously making terrible decisions that will lead even further away from a golden age, it might not have been so tedious. All the word misuse (I was highly offended at the misuse of "sesquipedalean" among others) was not fanciful, the ridiculous names not whimsical. It was grating and it irritated because the story was not a simple satire. It was also a love poem to New York City. We also have a...what? Fallen angel trying to make the rainbow bridge in order to get home? Did I read that right? Or maybe the rainbow bridge was to connect other realities with this one. I don't know. I'm not sure I care. And we have the magical, stuck-in-time-and-space Lake of the Coheres which is like a stepping stone from the last golden age to the turn of this past century and where wise women who love words live. We have a Jesus baby, we have lineage, and then there's the romance story, too, complete with otherworldly superpower protection born of true love. And a magical white horse.
Yay.
It was too much for me. The author's little bio thingy says he doesn't belong to any set "literary school, movement, tendency, or trend" and I think I've come to realize in my stodgy old age that I need less of that and more of structure because my intellect can no longer handle anything wobbly.
I survived this book!
I am the STRONGEST!
RAAAAAAAAAR!
That's me after finishing this story.
Soooo...I hated it.
I totally read this in the wrong age (both in terms of my physical age and in terms of the century in which I am currently living) - I should have read this when I was in my young 20's, still idealistic and full of wonder, before the world changed over to the new millennium and 9/11.
I think had I read this back then, I'd have been enchanted.
In fact, I was enchanted through probably the first half of Peter Lake's story. Oh, the magic of the beautiful Belle Epoque when all things glistened, even orphans in tenements dying of TB. So perfectly touching.
Then the slipstream aspect of time and place showed up and I haven't been a fan of time manipulation in years so that was an unwelcome surprise. After that, I found I was trying to figure out just where/when in hell I was throughout most of the rest of the book and how it all related.
(It didn't relate. It was just smooshed together and forced to get along)
For me, it went from surreal and magical, charming and quaint to full-on pretentious and then to plain, ol' silly.
I suppose if I had to write a paper on this book, I'd say something about Peter Lake being a representation of the last beautiful age in America and Pearly Somes being the antithesis/reality of our sentimentality. The Ghost is probably a mockery of our own ridiculous, gluttonous, vain, indolent, self-involved society with Craig Binky being the representation of the 1% and Harry Penn being his antithesis as the hard-working, respected, talented, deserving millionaire.
Maybe had the entire book been written as a poking satire, laughing at our culture's wish to harness the perceived perfection of times long gone while simultaneously making terrible decisions that will lead even further away from a golden age, it might not have been so tedious. All the word misuse (I was highly offended at the misuse of "sesquipedalean" among others) was not fanciful, the ridiculous names not whimsical. It was grating and it irritated because the story was not a simple satire. It was also a love poem to New York City. We also have a...what? Fallen angel trying to make the rainbow bridge in order to get home? Did I read that right? Or maybe the rainbow bridge was to connect other realities with this one. I don't know. I'm not sure I care. And we have the magical, stuck-in-time-and-space Lake of the Coheres which is like a stepping stone from the last golden age to the turn of this past century and where wise women who love words live. We have a Jesus baby, we have lineage, and then there's the romance story, too, complete with otherworldly superpower protection born of true love. And a magical white horse.
Yay.
It was too much for me. The author's little bio thingy says he doesn't belong to any set "literary school, movement, tendency, or trend" and I think I've come to realize in my stodgy old age that I need less of that and more of structure because my intellect can no longer handle anything wobbly.
This book was one of the most frustrating things I've ever read. And as such it deserves my only comment/review. I don't mind a story taking 700 pages to reach its conclusion as long as it actually has one. Where was this going the whole time? What was the point? I'm looking into my heart and it's telling me all that flowery language only served to mask a poorly conceived story. Cool horse though?
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A love letter to New York City and an excavation of the seeming inherently balanced nature of a dense urban context. Helpin makes verbose observations on justice throughout the book and while poetically done, I occasionally found myself wondering what he was actually trying to say. However, I tend to think the winter is meant for meandering and ornate writing even if grandiose at times.