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A review by phane
The Stone Raft by José Saramago
3.0
I had a few issues with this book, the first being the writing style which tends to forget that punctuation exists and just uses commas for everything. It took me a while to get used to it and this almost made me drop the book.
The 2nd thing that turned me off was the abuse of repetitions to emphasize a simple point. There were page-long paragraphs used to describe the simplest of concepts.
And the last thing that I disliked about this book was the ending. It felt disappointing because you expected something grand at the end since the fate of the 5 protagonists seems so tied to the mystery of the drifting island, but what you get is simply the journey of regular people looking for enlightenment, brought together by mysterious circumstances.
I've talked about the bad, but this book also had its good parts. The mystery of the island kept me hooked till the end and the peculiar circumstances that brought the 5 characters together also intrigued me. I liked how the reactions of the rest of the world are documented regarding the island because it added a touch of realism and detail that appealed to me.
In conclusion, I didn't dislike this book, but I wouldn't put it in my top 10 either. It's a novel about how, even though the world goes crazy around you and starts ignoring the laws understood by humans so far, life continues on in its normal ways, with its normal dramas.
The 2nd thing that turned me off was the abuse of repetitions to emphasize a simple point. There were page-long paragraphs used to describe the simplest of concepts.
And the last thing that I disliked about this book was the ending. It felt disappointing because you expected something grand at the end since the fate of the 5 protagonists seems so tied to the mystery of the drifting island, but what you get is simply the journey of regular people looking for enlightenment, brought together by mysterious circumstances.
I've talked about the bad, but this book also had its good parts. The mystery of the island kept me hooked till the end and the peculiar circumstances that brought the 5 characters together also intrigued me. I liked how the reactions of the rest of the world are documented regarding the island because it added a touch of realism and detail that appealed to me.
In conclusion, I didn't dislike this book, but I wouldn't put it in my top 10 either. It's a novel about how, even though the world goes crazy around you and starts ignoring the laws understood by humans so far, life continues on in its normal ways, with its normal dramas.