I thought, until RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT, looking at your review, that this was a sort of jokey manual, along the lines of "how to survive the zombie apocalypse". And I was very, very, very baffled that I kept seeing people read it on the subway.
...This is what I get for losing track of the book club this year but I was *busy*....!
I think I voted for this one. I was certainly interested, but then I got so wiped out by the holidays (and started a 900 page book) that I forgot all about it.
Now that I've read your review, I won't be reading the book. I still think it sounds interesting, but I also think it sounds too twisty and loopy for my brain to deal with at this point in time. I like your quotes above, but I really don't think I could manage a whole book written that way.
The stuff about the dog for example, read beautifully and cleverly, but I couldn't make some kind of logical sense of it and that makes my brain hurt. Maybe I'm not supposed to, but the way my brain is wired is that it tries, and I think doing that for a whole book really wouldn't work for me.
I think that from what you say, now's definitely not a good time to read it. But if you're in a calmer period, it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot if and only if you're still interested. The dog, for example, I kept visualizing as real, even though I took "he didn't exist" to mean he was a fictional construct rescued by the narrator.
Interesting, and fair enough. It's definitely not a book for everyone, and Hyperion can be mind-boggling for its construction (I had to read its sequel ASAP, but I've still got Endymion and its sequel on my shelf)
I forced myself to read the first 50 pages and just couldn't continue. When it's not hard science fiction about time travel that is way above my head, it's random thoughts about other stuff - the nature of time, his father's handwriting, bits of past memory. There is little to no story. Nothing that holds it together. Not for me.
That's the trick with "genre in the mainstream," as it's not about story, but voice, then character, and then whatever's important to character. That's what's so fascinating. Your traditional genres tend follow conventional story structure (so you get an actual story arc) but literary fiction tends to ignore all that to focus on the trees over the forest. If that makes sense. :) That doesn't mean that all lit-fic is good, or that all traditional genres are bad, as there are good and bad examples of each.
Yeah, and to me, the enjoyment in reading is the story. I can forgive a lot if there is a good story. If there is no story, I'm not going to like the book.
I find it absolutely fascinating that we both walked away from the book with such very different interpretations of it. :)
I remember all the bits you quoted and enjoyed the geeky humor as well. Unfortunately, i just could not get past the whole "Looking for my Lost Father" (sub) plot. Maybe my current state of mind just didn't let me gloss over that stuff, maybe it was the way the audiobook read, I don't know.
But, yeah, if it wasn't for that angsty stuff, I would totally have agreed with your rating. :)
Ah, yes, I got illustrations! That's one drawback to the audiobook, I suppose. :)
The father subplot helped humanize the narrator for me, and it's also what spurned my whole "time travel is a metaphor for fiction which is a metaphor for life" tangent, so yeah, it worked for my crazy little brain. :)
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I thought, until RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT, looking at your review, that this was a sort of jokey manual, along the lines of "how to survive the zombie apocalypse". And I was very, very, very baffled that I kept seeing people read it on the subway.
...This is what I get for losing track of the book club this year but I was *busy*....!
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Now that I've read your review, I won't be reading the book. I still think it sounds interesting, but I also think it sounds too twisty and loopy for my brain to deal with at this point in time. I like your quotes above, but I really don't think I could manage a whole book written that way.
The stuff about the dog for example, read beautifully and cleverly, but I couldn't make some kind of logical sense of it and that makes my brain hurt. Maybe I'm not supposed to, but the way my brain is wired is that it tries, and I think doing that for a whole book really wouldn't work for me.
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I think that from what you say, now's definitely not a good time to read it. But if you're in a calmer period, it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot if and only if you're still interested. The dog, for example, I kept visualizing as real, even though I took "he didn't exist" to mean he was a fictional construct rescued by the narrator.
But maybe that doesn't help you much either. :)
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I remember all the bits you quoted and enjoyed the geeky humor as well. Unfortunately, i just could not get past the whole "Looking for my Lost Father" (sub) plot. Maybe my current state of mind just didn't let me gloss over that stuff, maybe it was the way the audiobook read, I don't know.
But, yeah, if it wasn't for that angsty stuff, I would totally have agreed with your rating. :)
Also, no fair! You got illustrations??!!!
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The father subplot helped humanize the narrator for me, and it's also what spurned my whole "time travel is a metaphor for fiction which is a metaphor for life" tangent, so yeah, it worked for my crazy little brain. :)
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