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abbie_'s review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
I didn't love this one. That’s probably obvious since it took me four days to finish a 200-page book. There’s a line in it where the protagonist says she is reading a ‘quiet, well written but dull story about deer-hunting’. Remove the deer-hunting bit and that’s my experience with this book. I love quiet novels and the writing is lovely, but there was just no spark. I might recommend it to people who enjoy musings on memory and other writers!
loulamaga's review against another edition
2.0
Como en otras ocasiones no sé qué pensar. Si la autora buscaba ser parca, fría y sin pasión para así mostrar a su personaje impávido frente no sólo al amor sino a la vida, entonces es un buen libro.
Previamente intenté leer el libro de relatos de Lydia Davis y no pude, la escritora se engolosina con las palabras y describe detalles que no necesariamente aportan algo a la historia.
Es frustrante encontrar una historia que habla de una relación muy significativa para la protagonista y en ningún lado se siente ni la piel, ni la pasión, ni la empatía... claro, en parte es lo que quiere mostrar la autora, pero ni siquiera me hace fidedigna la indiferencia con la que pretende apartarse de la relación para describirla; ni siquiera sé por qué quiso escribir esta historia si finalmente no la vuelve significativa ni por el terror, ni por el amor ni la pasión.
Y aunque no me gustó, si generé un vínculo con la novela sin clímax; y obviamente vinieron a mi mente algunos recuerdos...
Aunque no paré de leerlo, quería ya acabarlo para deshacerme de él pronto.
Previamente intenté leer el libro de relatos de Lydia Davis y no pude, la escritora se engolosina con las palabras y describe detalles que no necesariamente aportan algo a la historia.
Es frustrante encontrar una historia que habla de una relación muy significativa para la protagonista y en ningún lado se siente ni la piel, ni la pasión, ni la empatía... claro, en parte es lo que quiere mostrar la autora, pero ni siquiera me hace fidedigna la indiferencia con la que pretende apartarse de la relación para describirla; ni siquiera sé por qué quiso escribir esta historia si finalmente no la vuelve significativa ni por el terror, ni por el amor ni la pasión.
Y aunque no me gustó, si generé un vínculo con la novela sin clímax; y obviamente vinieron a mi mente algunos recuerdos...
Aunque no paré de leerlo, quería ya acabarlo para deshacerme de él pronto.
ckr34ds's review against another edition
1.0
This book has no characters no plot. I miss both those things. It's just one woman telling you about a series of her days... and sometimes they are bad but it's like... who are you? and why should i care? Answer: you dont know or care!
Some of it was so mundane and boring i feel like id have been better off doing mundane boring things than reading this. I really dont know how anyone enjoyed this... if you did you can probably go ahead and read Ulysses next.
Some of it was so mundane and boring i feel like id have been better off doing mundane boring things than reading this. I really dont know how anyone enjoyed this... if you did you can probably go ahead and read Ulysses next.
zandwacht's review against another edition
1.0
Of your partner ever comes home tired and starts a long story in the middle, remembering bits and pieces, you roll with it or tune out. This book is the same, but The way elements are presented: random, uncertain, jumpy, is not for me.
ampersunder's review against another edition
3.0
‰ЫПI used to try to study what it meant to love someone. I would write down quotations from the works of famous writers, writers who did not interest me otherwise, like Hippolyte Taine or Alfred de Musset. For instance, Taine said that to love is to make one‰ЫЄs goal the happiness of another person. I would try to apply this to my own situation. But if loving a person meant putting him before myself, how could I do that? There seemed to be three choices: to give up trying to love anyone, to stop being selfish, or to learn how to love a person while continuing to be selfish. I did not think I could manage the first two, but I thought I could learn how to be just unselfish enough to love someone at least part of the time.‰Ыќ
cliff's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
penguininabluebox's review against another edition
2.0
I just didn't care for this much - I probably skimmed the biggest part of it because it just felt like the author was just rambling. There was no real plot and barely even characters.
emilyrowan1990's review against another edition
4.0
I don't know why I liked this. Nothing happens, there is no dialogue, and it is very, very repetitive.
Yet somehow it worked for me. I found it very readable and I liked the sense of being unable to capture the past.
Yet somehow it worked for me. I found it very readable and I liked the sense of being unable to capture the past.
charlie1000r's review against another edition
5.0
Like many, I first came to Lydia Davis through her short stories, many of which are EXTREMELY short, on the order of tens of words. I was intrigued to see she had written a novel, and much to my delight her modus operandi scaled beautifully; I don’t think there is a wasted word on any of these 240 pages. The central theme of the work is memory, and Davis approaches this subject in a unique and compelling way. The novel is almost scientific in nature, and its form evoked the image of a jeweler scrutinizing a gem under a loupe, looking at each facet in different lights and at different angles in order comprehend the whole of it totally and fully. Most books I read leave something to be desired, but this one was polished to perfection.