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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I found this book when going through my late dad's belongings. (Which when I think about the subject is ironic.) I don't think he actually read it. He would often start a book and not finish it or not read it at all. It looks like he bought this while vacationing in Virginia Beach, possibly. The receipt inside is from Boarders Books, Music, and Cafe but it's for a Lindt dark chocolate bar and it bookmarked on page 28. The date was September 16, 2010 at 1:18PM. So either he read to page 28 and never finished or he just stuck the receipt in the book.
I thought that since it's only 208 pages I can read it quickly. While it is a short book it took me longer to read than I anticipated.
There are no chapter breaks. There are no quotation marks when characters are speaking. It took a while to get used to and then you realize that it's written that way because Homer, who is blind, is typing his story on a Braille typewriter.
Which makes the story one endless diary that moves through the decades. It shows the descent of his brother Langley's madness, the downward spiral condition of their house, and the colorful characters who come in and out of their lives.
The story is quite depressing. The brothers spiral further down into isolation and hoarding. Homer wonders if his brother is insane but is not proactive to help him. He's an enabler, even when he feels oppressed in the home and trips over things. Also, it blows my mind how Langley can make such a dangerous environment for his blind brother.
Langley's crazy idea about the one newspaper to rule them all makes it sound like he would have loved working at the Ministry of Truth in 1984. He was clearly suffering from PTSD from WWI and needed mental help. And then a job at the New York Public Library since he liked cataloguing newspaper stories.
I realize this is somewhat based off the real Collyer brothersand so we know how their story ends, but the end of this historical fiction was abrupt and ambiguous. But maybe that was the point.
I'm glad I finished it because at 208 pages it would be embarrassing to say I couldn't. There were parts that I liked. Some characters were interesting. Some incidents and quotes were thoughtful. But overall this was not a favorite. I might hold on to it for a while but if I need to make space I'm going to give it away.
2 out of 5 Newspaper Stacks.
Memorable quotes:
Page 23 - Langley was almost court-marshaled for seeming to threaten an officer. He had said, Why am I killing men I don't know? You have to know someone to want to kill him.
Page 103 - When I played the piano for the silent movies the picture would end the projectionist would stick his head out of the booth. The next feature will begin shortly, he'd say. A moment, please, while we change reels.
And so there we were at war in Korea...
Page ? - The bad news is that if we do in fact get off the earth we will contaminate the rest of the universe with our moral insufficiency.
Page 198 - ...we were the ghosts who haunted the house we had once lived in. Not able to see myself or hear my own footsteps, I was coming around to the same idea.
I thought that since it's only 208 pages I can read it quickly. While it is a short book it took me longer to read than I anticipated.
There are no chapter breaks. There are no quotation marks when characters are speaking. It took a while to get used to and then you realize that it's written that way because Homer, who is blind, is typing his story on a Braille typewriter.
Which makes the story one endless diary that moves through the decades. It shows the descent of his brother Langley's madness, the downward spiral condition of their house, and the colorful characters who come in and out of their lives.
The story is quite depressing. The brothers spiral further down into isolation and hoarding. Homer wonders if his brother is insane but is not proactive to help him. He's an enabler, even when he feels oppressed in the home and trips over things. Also, it blows my mind how Langley can make such a dangerous environment for his blind brother.
Langley's crazy idea about the one newspaper to rule them all makes it sound like he would have loved working at the Ministry of Truth in 1984. He was clearly suffering from PTSD from WWI and needed mental help. And then a job at the New York Public Library since he liked cataloguing newspaper stories.
I realize this is somewhat based off the real Collyer brothersand so we know how their story ends, but the end of this historical fiction was abrupt and ambiguous. But maybe that was the point.
I'm glad I finished it because at 208 pages it would be embarrassing to say I couldn't. There were parts that I liked. Some characters were interesting. Some incidents and quotes were thoughtful. But overall this was not a favorite. I might hold on to it for a while but if I need to make space I'm going to give it away.
2 out of 5 Newspaper Stacks.
Memorable quotes:
Page 23 - Langley was almost court-marshaled for seeming to threaten an officer. He had said, Why am I killing men I don't know? You have to know someone to want to kill him.
Page 103 - When I played the piano for the silent movies the picture would end the projectionist would stick his head out of the booth. The next feature will begin shortly, he'd say. A moment, please, while we change reels.
And so there we were at war in Korea...
Page ? - The bad news is that if we do in fact get off the earth we will contaminate the rest of the universe with our moral insufficiency.
Page 198 - ...we were the ghosts who haunted the house we had once lived in. Not able to see myself or hear my own footsteps, I was coming around to the same idea.
adventurous
dark
funny
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
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is a fictionalized novel based only very loosely on the real-life eccentric hoarders, the Collyer brothers. Doctorow plays with the details of their lives and has they living through parts of history they didn't really live through, but it's more a commentary on social change through the 19th century than it is about the Collyer brothers. You really are pulled along by the narrative of Homer, the blind brother, because not a lot happens in the book in the sense of a traditional plotline. Recommended to lovers of literary fiction but be aware that Doctorow has taken liberties with the facts of the true story.
emotional
reflective
sad
An introspective treat; a story that shows us so much of 20th century "America" without ever leaving New York City. Written from the perspective of Homer Collyer (who is blind), the reader is taken on a nearly century long journey that never strays more than a few blocks from the Collyer's Fifth Ave. estate. Homer and his eccentric older brother, Langley, prove to be a captivating team as they navigate the mental and physical burdens of expectation, tradition and myth.
A story loosely based on the real life Collyer brothers who lived in a Fifth Avenue brownstone. One brother is blind, both a bit paranoid and eccentric and after the death of their parents, they slowly became reclusive and started hoarding.
They died in their home in 1947, one asphyxiated by a pile of junk (the house was booby trapped to foil intruders) and the other - who by that point was paralyzed - starved to death a few days later. It's a gruesome story and after their death 120 tons of trash was removed from the residence. The site was later razed and is now home to a pocket park.
The story is told from the POV of Homer, the blind, younger brother with musical talents though it seems the author took a whole lot of liberties with him and his older brother, Langley. In real life, their birth order was opposite, Doctorow sets the book later in time, etc.
I'm having a hard time putting my finger on why I didn't care for this one - it was interesting, but the time I spent reading up on the brothers online was more interesting to me. It was just also very ho-hum when in reality this is a crazy story! It was basically a recounting of what their days might have been like and while it does depict how things started off relatively normal and then devolved into really, really bad it just didn't do it for me.
They died in their home in 1947, one asphyxiated by a pile of junk (the house was booby trapped to foil intruders) and the other - who by that point was paralyzed - starved to death a few days later. It's a gruesome story and after their death 120 tons of trash was removed from the residence. The site was later razed and is now home to a pocket park.
The story is told from the POV of Homer, the blind, younger brother with musical talents though it seems the author took a whole lot of liberties with him and his older brother, Langley. In real life, their birth order was opposite, Doctorow sets the book later in time, etc.
I'm having a hard time putting my finger on why I didn't care for this one - it was interesting, but the time I spent reading up on the brothers online was more interesting to me. It was just also very ho-hum when in reality this is a crazy story! It was basically a recounting of what their days might have been like and while it does depict how things started off relatively normal and then devolved into really, really bad it just didn't do it for me.