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A review by iupiter
The Hollow Man by Dan Simmons
4.0
4
(Immediate impressions after finishing the book, not a structured review.)
A bit irregular in quality. At times the mathematical/physics-related technical jargon is overdone. The attempt to mathematically (and I mean, *really* mathematically, with very advanced vocabulary) describe telepathy comes off as overly ambitious and takes on a Dan Brown-esque tone.
Where the book excels however is setting up a hazy, highly philosophical, metaphysical sort of inner "mindspace", shared between Gail and Jeremy (and Robby, ultimately) and combining it with the grit and gore of homelessness, alcoholism, the American Midwest, organized and disorganized crime.
I liked the gore, and I liked the fact that its perpetrators were either caricatures of criminals much like we see in popular culture, or completely animal-like and whose motivations remained unexplained. It mixed interestingly -- surprisingly well -- with the metaphysical tone of the book.
Some of the metaphysical gets collapsed (like a wave function... hardy-har-har) into more unsatisfying or anticlimactic conclusions (Jeremy's whole fear of telling Gail that he had fertility problems coming down to him being deeply afraid of fatherhood, for example) but in other ways the story almost reads like Siddhartha: it's the story of a man being confronted with life itself, as he learns to navigate through the world, learning about pain, helping others (the terminally ill children at Disney World), physical strain, being fascinated by money (during the brief time he gambled).
Developing the above mentioned events would perhaps have made the story a bit stronger because they would have made Jeremy's "journey" (literal and figurative) more explicit, but in a way I do appreciate that the author strayed away from taking himself too seriously and making the "moral" of the story about the deeper meaning of life. Indeed, in the end, there is really no moral to this story, and the ending demonstrates that it is perhaps more so an ode to family and to love.
(Immediate impressions after finishing the book, not a structured review.)
A bit irregular in quality. At times the mathematical/physics-related technical jargon is overdone. The attempt to mathematically (and I mean, *really* mathematically, with very advanced vocabulary) describe telepathy comes off as overly ambitious and takes on a Dan Brown-esque tone.
Where the book excels however is setting up a hazy, highly philosophical, metaphysical sort of inner "mindspace", shared between Gail and Jeremy (and Robby, ultimately) and combining it with the grit and gore of homelessness, alcoholism, the American Midwest, organized and disorganized crime.
I liked the gore, and I liked the fact that its perpetrators were either caricatures of criminals much like we see in popular culture, or completely animal-like and whose motivations remained unexplained. It mixed interestingly -- surprisingly well -- with the metaphysical tone of the book.
Some of the metaphysical gets collapsed (like a wave function... hardy-har-har) into more unsatisfying or anticlimactic conclusions (Jeremy's whole fear of telling Gail that he had fertility problems coming down to him being deeply afraid of fatherhood, for example) but in other ways the story almost reads like Siddhartha: it's the story of a man being confronted with life itself, as he learns to navigate through the world, learning about pain, helping others (the terminally ill children at Disney World), physical strain, being fascinated by money (during the brief time he gambled).
Developing the above mentioned events would perhaps have made the story a bit stronger because they would have made Jeremy's "journey" (literal and figurative) more explicit, but in a way I do appreciate that the author strayed away from taking himself too seriously and making the "moral" of the story about the deeper meaning of life. Indeed, in the end, there is really no moral to this story, and the ending demonstrates that it is perhaps more so an ode to family and to love.