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A review by gadicohen93
Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
5.0
A book I loved and felt connected with on a deep level. The way the main character described his interactions with people carried a sense of real alienation, and a consciousness of that alienation, that I completely identified with. Lerner writes his character's social life so convincingly, so piercingly.
It was not an irreverent book, but there were moments of extreme whimsy, or perhaps just sharp randomness, that felt faithful to the amorphous condition of humans' personalities and their interactions. And I very much identified with how lost, purposeless and dependent the main character was. He handled philosophical questions in an intensely interesting way, provoking thoughts that I have about my own life constantly and about art and literature and poetry that I have also played with.
The writing was precise but moved in waves, like a real thought process -- propelled forward, idea after idea, by a "sheer directionality". The setting -- Madrid -- was only icing on the cake. A great book.
It was not an irreverent book, but there were moments of extreme whimsy, or perhaps just sharp randomness, that felt faithful to the amorphous condition of humans' personalities and their interactions. And I very much identified with how lost, purposeless and dependent the main character was. He handled philosophical questions in an intensely interesting way, provoking thoughts that I have about my own life constantly and about art and literature and poetry that I have also played with.
The writing was precise but moved in waves, like a real thought process -- propelled forward, idea after idea, by a "sheer directionality". The setting -- Madrid -- was only icing on the cake. A great book.