A review by floralfox
There Is No Year by Blake Butler

3.0

Blake Butler's writing is certainly poetic—it's very beautiful, even though it's describing really horrible and disgusting things. I love the style, but for a 400 page novel? It's a bit tough to get through. I'd find I'd go through several pages and only half-remember what I'd read. It was easy to get distracted, to not feel I had to pay attention to details. I was at the last page and didn't even realize it. In some ways, this is a cool effect, because that's also kind of what's going on in the novel. It gives a distorted sense of time while you read, which is also happening to the characters, but it also takes away a bit of the enjoyment. It felt like some of those chapters could've been eliminated even though all of the writing was strong. I found myself paying attention to things like how often the word "nodule" was used. Butler has a genius mind, the way he can continue creating the most bizarre scenarios, and I'll continue reading all of his work, but I just wish this one had been a tiny bit shorter. It's the kind of book that I think a second reading would really benefit for understanding or tying together some ends, but I don't think I could pay attention any better the second time simply because it's so long.