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taibreakfast 's review for:
White Tears
by Hari Kunzru
Extremely masterful novel - obviously written by someone who has thought a lot about and practiced his craft. Gripping for the reader but also makes you *work* hard! The first half reminds me of a blend of The Great Gatsby and, hear me out, Fight Club, in the sense that the narrator has an unreliable memory and is a passive sidekick to a charismatic, rich man. The second half blows out into a vengeful, haunting, and disorienting ghost story. It all revolves around obsession with music production, the purity of things that are old (aka nostalgia), and capture and accumulation (of sounds, of records, of people). And this is an entry point to reveal [white] America's unresolved relationship with (and complicity in) its history of race, power, profit, and exploitation.
Some themes of disorientation:
1) Sometimes time is moving forward, backwards, and also never moves at all. Look for moments of the narrator realizing, "We have always been in this motel room" and other moments of both being propelled by time and also completely moored and static.
2) Sometimes you don't know at first who is narrating a chapter, and this is on purpose, in service of #1.
3) Sometimes you don't know the race of the narrator, and this too is on purpose.
I'm very intrigued by the treatment of white and black characters by an author who is neither (though POC). I think it lends a layer to the analysis you might not have been expecting, of removed observation and deep implication at the same time.
Some themes of disorientation:
1) Sometimes time is moving forward, backwards, and also never moves at all. Look for moments of the narrator realizing, "We have always been in this motel room" and other moments of both being propelled by time and also completely moored and static.
2) Sometimes you don't know at first who is narrating a chapter, and this is on purpose, in service of #1.
3) Sometimes you don't know the race of the narrator, and this too is on purpose.
I'm very intrigued by the treatment of white and black characters by an author who is neither (though POC). I think it lends a layer to the analysis you might not have been expecting, of removed observation and deep implication at the same time.