You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
andreelouise 's review for:
Zone One
by Colson Whitehead
This was so confounding. I’ll admit I went in holding the wrong end of the stick due to my expectations after reading the blurb. I had been hoping for satisfying bursts of tension, frequent sprinkles of gore and characters that I would care about when they inevitably succumbed to the zombie condition or were lost in their efforts to redevelop the post-apocalyptic environment.
Instead, I felt like I read an elegy about New York City. If you know the area, or have seen that area, perhaps you could appreciate the obsession. So much of this novel was spent describing the city-scape and interior functions of various dwellings. I can appreciate the social commentary, sure. Lots of salient points were stated or inferred. I do think in this case too much environmental storytelling interfered with propelling the plot forward.
My biggest frustration with this novel was my failure to attach with any of the characters or the overarching story. I did feel like this was somewhat deliberate and was confused by the extreme extent of the reader’s exclusion.
The protagonist is a comically generic ‘everyman’, who I found uninspiring instead of wry. So many moments of tension or intrigue were interrupted by an anecdote from his past. I normally love a dual time-line sitch, but grew frustrated as these past memories often stalled the plot for a stretch.
It’s very clear to me that the author is a terrific literary talent. Yet, I literally felt written off the road of understanding for the duration. Here are a list of words I had to stop to look up while reading: Opine, Almanac, Panoply, Sundry, Esoteric, Venal, Insalubrious, Diaphanous, Invidious, Interregnum, Invective, Etiolated, Ersatz, Anodyne, Exsanguinated, Encomium, Verve, Antecedents, Striated, Argot, Winnowing, Occluded, Immolation, Magnanimity, Redolent, Reliquary, Homunculi, Recrudescent, Atavistic, Semaphore, Traducing, Farago, Senescent, Insouciant…
I read this book telling myself the whole time I guess I just didn’t ‘get it’. That every element must be intentional and it wasn’t supposed to matter whether the reader enjoyed it or not.
Either way, I’m sure you could work out which Shania lyric I was thinking about when I finished.
Instead, I felt like I read an elegy about New York City. If you know the area, or have seen that area, perhaps you could appreciate the obsession. So much of this novel was spent describing the city-scape and interior functions of various dwellings. I can appreciate the social commentary, sure. Lots of salient points were stated or inferred. I do think in this case too much environmental storytelling interfered with propelling the plot forward.
My biggest frustration with this novel was my failure to attach with any of the characters or the overarching story. I did feel like this was somewhat deliberate and was confused by the extreme extent of the reader’s exclusion.
The protagonist is a comically generic ‘everyman’, who I found uninspiring instead of wry. So many moments of tension or intrigue were interrupted by an anecdote from his past. I normally love a dual time-line sitch, but grew frustrated as these past memories often stalled the plot for a stretch.
It’s very clear to me that the author is a terrific literary talent. Yet, I literally felt written off the road of understanding for the duration. Here are a list of words I had to stop to look up while reading: Opine, Almanac, Panoply, Sundry, Esoteric, Venal, Insalubrious, Diaphanous, Invidious, Interregnum, Invective, Etiolated, Ersatz, Anodyne, Exsanguinated, Encomium, Verve, Antecedents, Striated, Argot, Winnowing, Occluded, Immolation, Magnanimity, Redolent, Reliquary, Homunculi, Recrudescent, Atavistic, Semaphore, Traducing, Farago, Senescent, Insouciant…
I read this book telling myself the whole time I guess I just didn’t ‘get it’. That every element must be intentional and it wasn’t supposed to matter whether the reader enjoyed it or not.
Either way, I’m sure you could work out which Shania lyric I was thinking about when I finished.