You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
cavafy's Reviews (37)
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"as when a Poppy shames itself in a whip of Nude breeze"
I loved this book so much. The form is fascinating, a sort of pastiche of fragments. You have to think to piece everything together, not only due to the lack of punctuation but also due to the wonderful abstract language. It's such a meticulous homage to Stesichorus' fragments in this regard. I found the writing so lovable, there isn't a dull sentence and just the premise of a boy with little red wings tugs at my heart. I love how the book doesn't shy away from how people change, their relationships change, and the reality of heartbreak.
I loved this book so much. The form is fascinating, a sort of pastiche of fragments. You have to think to piece everything together, not only due to the lack of punctuation but also due to the wonderful abstract language. It's such a meticulous homage to Stesichorus' fragments in this regard. I found the writing so lovable, there isn't a dull sentence and just the premise of a boy with little red wings tugs at my heart. I love how the book doesn't shy away from how people change, their relationships change, and the reality of heartbreak.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
sweetest book in the world
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this book while I was ill and it made my fever rise by 2°C. This book is extremely boring, and I think this is mostly due to the author telling but not showing. "Its dark down there" "he seemed nice". I felt like ripping my hair out. This simplicity really didn't pair well with the attempted integration of philosophy, it just made it seem really shallow and fake deep. I read this book because I saw people lauding the "fantastic" twist... I'm not even going to breach how disappointed I was. It really was not as exciting as I had hoped and don't want to read it again to try to fully understand it (yes, the end of the book tells you to read the book again to try and understand it >:0). I liked the dairy queen scene though, the brief snatches of the truly uncanny are this book's only redeeming quality.
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is the best translation of the Oresteia you could hope to find. Comparing Carson's work to the others available online, the difference is clear. Carson's translation has soul and uses language that is appropriately modern. It is smooth where other translations are awkward, focusing on getting the point across rather than forcing every single word from the original Greek. The combination of the different playwrights is interesting to see the variation is styles; my favourite is Euripides' Orestes because it feels so self aware and almost sardonic.
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I loved this book as much as I loved autobiography of red. Carson's poetry prose is my favourite thing, it is extremely enjoyable to decipher and its uniqueness is thrilling. This story is much more plot driven than its prequel, focused on one connected story rather than a series of events in Geryon's life as in AoR. My only complaint is Ida, simply because I feel like I never learnt enough about her to like her. She felt more like a catalyst for plot points rather than a character.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
I found the poems unimpressive, they simply are not written in a style I enjoy. I felt like I read the same poem 10 times over, but I guess that is to be expected in a series of 100 poems all in the same form about the same person. What salvages this collection for me is sonnet 89 which is one of the best things I've ever read.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Almost every single poem made me cry