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mechem 's review for:
The Book of Elsewhere
by China Miéville, Keanu Reeves
2.5 ⭐️
TLDR; while this book certainly had pages and plot points occurred, I can't really say anything happened in this book aside from China Miéville demonstrating that he, in fact, knows a lot of a fancy words.
The world and mysteries around B and his existence are the most intriguing part of the book. I wish more of it was developed and they made those aspects more concrete as opposed to taking the "some mysteries are not meant to be known" approach. And the same goes for the overall theme of death, immortality and what that means. B's anguish and frustration with it is well developed, but he learns nothing from it and by the end of the book, nothing really about his situation is learned. He's essentially back to where he started in the book. So, nothing intellectually interesting about the whole living forever question, but nor in B's search for an answer to his issue either.
Lastly, China's writing style is pretentious as hell and I can't say that it added more to my reading experience. If I need to look a definition every chapter, I don't think this novel is for me.
At least it's short.
TLDR; while this book certainly had pages and plot points occurred, I can't really say anything happened in this book aside from China Miéville demonstrating that he, in fact, knows a lot of a fancy words.
The world and mysteries around B and his existence are the most intriguing part of the book. I wish more of it was developed and they made those aspects more concrete as opposed to taking the "some mysteries are not meant to be known" approach. And the same goes for the overall theme of death, immortality and what that means. B's anguish and frustration with it is well developed, but he learns nothing from it and by the end of the book, nothing really about his situation is learned. He's essentially back to where he started in the book. So, nothing intellectually interesting about the whole living forever question, but nor in B's search for an answer to his issue either.
Lastly, China's writing style is pretentious as hell and I can't say that it added more to my reading experience. If I need to look a definition every chapter, I don't think this novel is for me.
At least it's short.