Stephen Gilberg (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
deckardcanine) wrote2025-05-30 02:47 pm
deckardcanine) wrote2025-05-30 02:47 pm
Book Review: 4 3 2 1
Sorry, folks, another incomplete read. I've been doing this a lot lately. Have I lost patience, especially with books that are not sci-fi or fantasy? Am I that eager to clear shelf space? Or have I just had bad luck with my literary choices of late? At least this Paul Auster book, at 970 pages, is one of the longest novels I ever tried, and I read more than 250 pages before giving up.
When I took this off the shelf, I thought it was sci-fi, because it concerns four alternate lives for one person. But there is no explanation of a split timeline, and the rest of the premises are normal. It's almost like a Choose Your Own Adventure entry, except that the paths diverge from a single point near the beginning.
Each chapter has four subchapters, one for each life. Sure wish the author had made that clear at the outset. I didn't pick up on the structure until checking Wikipedia. Obviously, I was none too invested in the plot, or I'd have noticed contradictions sooner. As it stood, I mostly perceived a nonlinear progression.
After some family backstory, we meet the protagonist, Archie Ferguson, a boy or young man of Jewish stock in the '50s and '60s. The parts I read focused on his troubled school days, his budding romances, and his evolving philosophy. We get a lot of cultural references, some new to me.
Setting aside, it's hard to believe that a modern American wrote in this style. For starters, he never uses quotation marks. Not that we get much direct dialogue, but when we do, it's plain or italicized text. I could discern no pattern to which. To my mind, this has the effect of distancing, as if we're watching from too far away to hear. I doubt that's what Auster intended, given how personal the narrative gets otherwise.
Second, the average paragraph is even longer than in oldies I've read. Some paragraphs run more than two pages, and there are plenty of words per page. This is extra annoying to someone like me who likes to finish a paragraph before putting a book down, lest I lose my place. I took to finishing subchapters in one sitting whenever feasible.
Don't get me wrong: Auster can craft good sentences. I dug the opening vignette. Even when I knew I'd lost track of how Archie got where he was, I could take interest in the moment.
Nevertheless, I came to view the tome more and more as a chore, until I decided that I'd absorbed enough of the positives already. No wonder it got mixed reviews. In some ways, it's gratuitously detailed, yet it doesn't tell me enough of what I wanted to know. Not clearly, anyway.
Now to start a birthday present: Greenteeth by Molly O'Neill. This I know to be fantasy.
When I took this off the shelf, I thought it was sci-fi, because it concerns four alternate lives for one person. But there is no explanation of a split timeline, and the rest of the premises are normal. It's almost like a Choose Your Own Adventure entry, except that the paths diverge from a single point near the beginning.
Each chapter has four subchapters, one for each life. Sure wish the author had made that clear at the outset. I didn't pick up on the structure until checking Wikipedia. Obviously, I was none too invested in the plot, or I'd have noticed contradictions sooner. As it stood, I mostly perceived a nonlinear progression.
After some family backstory, we meet the protagonist, Archie Ferguson, a boy or young man of Jewish stock in the '50s and '60s. The parts I read focused on his troubled school days, his budding romances, and his evolving philosophy. We get a lot of cultural references, some new to me.
Setting aside, it's hard to believe that a modern American wrote in this style. For starters, he never uses quotation marks. Not that we get much direct dialogue, but when we do, it's plain or italicized text. I could discern no pattern to which. To my mind, this has the effect of distancing, as if we're watching from too far away to hear. I doubt that's what Auster intended, given how personal the narrative gets otherwise.
Second, the average paragraph is even longer than in oldies I've read. Some paragraphs run more than two pages, and there are plenty of words per page. This is extra annoying to someone like me who likes to finish a paragraph before putting a book down, lest I lose my place. I took to finishing subchapters in one sitting whenever feasible.
Don't get me wrong: Auster can craft good sentences. I dug the opening vignette. Even when I knew I'd lost track of how Archie got where he was, I could take interest in the moment.
Nevertheless, I came to view the tome more and more as a chore, until I decided that I'd absorbed enough of the positives already. No wonder it got mixed reviews. In some ways, it's gratuitously detailed, yet it doesn't tell me enough of what I wanted to know. Not clearly, anyway.
Now to start a birthday present: Greenteeth by Molly O'Neill. This I know to be fantasy.