Stunning writing, but wandering plot
344045
The writing is simply gorgeous, but I eventually grew tired of the obtuseness of the main character to who and what he was. I felt the plot was arbitrary and meandering.
714349
A wonderfully rich tapestry memoir story filled with Magical Realism, family feud, and wonder. The characters are interesting, and the scenes are gorgeous. Only, one thing prevents this work from reaching legendary status. The author simply doesn't give you time to breathe. David B. serves up such wonderful imagery. Course after course of incredible moments, and intriguing anecdotes. But it feels like more of an onslaught than a feast. Beautiful? Sure. Would I read it again? Doubtful.
3157803
I enjoyed "Saturday" more than I did "Atonement," and, as expected, delighted in many of the passages. But, as with "Atonement," I found myself liking the parts more than the whole.  McEwan's unquestionably a terrific writer, but not, I'm afraid, a particularly good story-teller.  If there's any truth to E. M. Forster's famous dictum that a story can have only one fault--that of making the audience not want to know what happens next--then I'd say that's McEwan's one fault.

I mean, texture is one thing, but do we really need to know that "He takes his keys and phone and garage remote control from a silver dish by the recipe books.  His wallet is in an overcoat hanging in a room behind the kitchen, outside the wine vaults.  His squash racket is upstairs on the ground floor, in a cupboard in the laundry"?  I thought only poets engaged in this kind of narcissistic assumption of interest on the audience's part.  And I found myself simply skipping over a 3-page flashback to Perowne meeting the prime minister and, later, to a neurosurgery symposium in Rome.  I cut my literary teeth on Victorian novels--Dickens, George Eliot, and company--so have no problem with leisurely pacing or digressions, but perhaps I'm just getting impatient in my dotage.

On the other hand, there are so many exquisite, nearly impossible, things going on here that I feel a bit petty dwelling the obvious flaws.  For example, there's the touching description of Perowne's visit to his mother in a nursing home and her incredibly accurate dialogue (my father also had Alzheimer's), or the description of Perowne listening to his son Theo's band transcend the blues on stage, writing so wonderful it should be preserved in amber instead of on paper.  For that matter, the one-sentence description of his mother--"She was a woman who gave her life to housework, to the kind of daily routine of polishing, dusting, vacuuming and tidying that were once common, and these days are only undertaken by patients with obsessive-compulsive disorders"--is priceless (put me in mind of  the description of the mother in "A River Runs Through It," who "wipes her hands on her apron even though her hands aren't wet.")

Given all that, I'm willing to forgive McEwan a lot--not that he needs my forgiveness--and would recommend the book to anyone who appreciates great writing and isn't in a big hurry to get on with the story.
683342
There is a lot going on here. Overall, The Luster Of Lost Things is an eloquently written, touching fable about seeing "beyond the skin" of the world. However, the author gets bogged down by her writing in places and the plot meanders and loses momentum near the end.

Walter Lavender Jr. lives with his mother above their "magical" bakery. The bakery's success is built on a magical picture book given to his mother by a homeless woman that she took in on a stormy night. When the book goes missing, Walter sets off on a quest to recover it page by page. The story is essentially the people he meets and helps while recovering his magic and finding himself.
4600604
Ms. Leigh's writing has a rich and visual style.  It's almost as though you are walking with the characters in the surreal atmosphere which pervades this novella.

I enjoyed the writing and I kept hoping, and hoping.... that the story would evolve to something more, something beyond the same story line and premise from which the book begins.

Without giving away too much of the plot, a brother and sister find themselves together at their mother's chateau after not having been there together for over a decade.  The sister, referred to as 'the woman' throughout the book is escaping an abusive marriage.  Her brother, Marcus, is dealing with the aftermath of the birth of a stillbotn baby after trying, with his wife, to get pregnant for many years.  He is also dealing with his mistress, a young woman who calls him often on his cell phone but is never given her own character except as a young girl on scholarship.  His wife, Sophie, can not bear to part with her dead infant who she carries with her as though she were still living.  'The woman's' son is conniving to get back to his father who has battered his mother. His sister appears passive and non-reactive.

The language is beautiful. I felt like I was there.  However, the book could and should have been so much more.  I was disappointed as it went on and on and on with no real change.  I love Ms. Leigh's style and await her next book.  I also intend to read her first book, 'Hunger'.
3678642
I can't decide if the writing reflects literary genius or constitutes purple prose, or if both are true. Lovely imagery abounds. At the same time, angst and torment are offered up to the reader repeatedly in beat-your-audience-over-the-head passages, often quite long. Toward the end I started skimming over those passages to return to the plot.

The characters are complex and my opinion that only Sal is more likable than not is not a criticism of the novel. But their motivations and actions aren't always plausible and can feel forced. The hikikomori (a word worth Googling) mother was, oddly, among the more believable ones.
2974101
Not a bad book, but not quite good, either.

I gave it four stars because the writing is really spectacular, the character development is just amazing and it's just a well-written story all around.  Unfortunately, the plot is neither that interesting or exciting.  The suspense is lethargic, and the climax felt almost like an afterthought.
3779863
No doubt Morgentstern is a skilled writer with the ability to transport the reader into her dark, magical world. Her description are lush and evocative, so vivid that I expected a bit more from her characters, but I felt a distance with them that I did not feel with the setting. In fact, the setting seemed more real that the feuding magicians.

It's a great idea, and a wonderful world that Morgenstern creates. I wish she would have flushed out the characters a bit more. I think then it would have gone beyond a good story in a beautiful reality, to an ageless, remarkable book.
4456347
Honestly, this rating comes from the writing itself. It's gorgeous on a sentence level, and the book as a whole was an enjoyable read because of it.

That being said, the plot fell a bit short for me--especially near the end--feeling too rushed yet full of odd interludes. I really wanted to spend more time with some of these characters, which made the narrative voice both wonderful and, at times, frustrating in its distance from them, including the titular character.

Like some of my other recent reads, I felt that I wanted more from the book, wanting it to be so much more than it is--even if I still enjoyed what it is.

If you're like me and a sucker for language and finely spun-sentences, this one is for you--especially if you don't mind distant narration, meandering plots, and a hero that is beat down over and over again.
1150342
Ian R. MacLeod's The Light Ages is fantastically well-written, with believable, flawed characters.  This fantasy-cum-alternate history eschews standard adventure plots and presents a contemplation of a society on the cusp of change.  MacLeod deals with the affects technology has on society, the reactions people have to social change, and the way in which society mutates and evolves.
Unfortunately, MacLeod has very little that's new to say on any of these subjects.  Although he tries to write in the steampunk, science-fantasy tradition, he seems to have forgotten that at the core of these sub-genres there must exist strangeness, newness, and wonder.  The story he tells is remarkably mundane.  Were it not for a few fantastic touches, such as the strange mutations that take place after too much exposure to aether (the novel's magical McGuffin), The Light Ages might just as easily have been a general fiction novel set in the turn of the last century.
The Light Ages describes a tumultuous period - with society on the cusp of ruin, a group of disgruntled have-nots are in the process of orchestrating a people's revolution.  The narrator, Robert Borrows, exists on the fringes of this group, and although their struggle is interesting, it is also off-putting.  Most of us who have read a few history books know that revolutions, no matter in who's name, will inevitably turn bloody and cruel.  We've know that revolutionary leaders who talk about equality, giving power to the people, and an end to ownership will almost certainly end up hoarding rights, power and property.  That MacLeod expects us to be shocked or saddened when these very things happen is almost insulting.
In a possible attempt to humanize this struggle, MacLeod weaves in the story of Robert's life as he struggles to understand a tragic event that has colored his life, the life of his family and his home town, and eventually makes a discovery that alters the course of history.  Both of these plots move slowly, and their revelations are thin and obvious, unlikely to surprise even the most inexperienced reader.  MacLeod attempts to artificially inflate his story by bookending it in a conversation Robert has with a "changeling" - one of the aforementioned mutants.  Her identity is supposed to be a big surprise, but it ends up being meaningless.
I gave The Light Ages three stars for the power of its prose and for being a fine attempt at thinking outside the fantasy box.  Unfortunately, MacLeod was unequal to the task at hand, and I wouldn't recommend this book at all.
4616229
There's much to admire about Carey Wallace's first novel, "The Blind Contessa's New Machine."  Wallace is a supremely talented writer, one whose facility for language is at times breathtaking.  I can absolutely see why another reader found this nineteenth century Italian-set, fact-based romance a reason to rejoice, one that confirmed her belief in the transformative power of literature.  But in some ways, oddly enough, it's Wallace's prodigious gifts that most taxed my patience.

This is a book in which EVERYTHING is described for the reader: people, places, things, rooms etc; and all in extreme detail.  Nothing is left to the reader's imagination in Wallace's insistence that we SEE everything.  Now perhaps, given the nature of the heroine's affliction, this is thematic.  On the other hand, it could be the result of an author who's a little too  in love with her own, albeit superb, voice.  Regardless of the reason, a potentially succinct, profound short story is pulled out, like taffy, to a full, (to me) overwritten novella's length.  Honestly, at a little over 200 pages, the book at times seemed interminable.

Wallace's publisher describes the book as "an enchanting confection...[a] triumph of the imagination, and a literary curiosity of the first order."  And they're right, it's all those things.  It's also like one of the lesser Merchant-Ivory films: impeccably presented, tasteful to a fault, professional and stylish...but somewhat dull and disappointing.  (I have seen it compared to "Girl With a Pearl Earring," but to me it lacks that book's direct, clean simplicity.)

Authors are (supposedly) taught to write what they know.  In "The Blind Contessa's New Machine," native Michigander Wallace seems to have done the opposite, letting her imagination run wild; she's to be commended.  But her bio describes her as someone who's "worked as a waitress, an art studio manager, a private biographer, and a lady's maid to an automotive heiress."  Seems like an interesting life so far, one worth plumbing for material.  If she didn't sign some sort of nondisclosure agreement, I'd particularly love to see her write about that last job someday.  Something tells me it would be a story just as exquisitely written as this, but one more personal and alive.
4311981
I feel very mixed about this book.  It details Patrick Leigh Fermor's travels in a fascinating region of Greece, and after reading it, I am left with a strong wish to go there myself to experience the strange towered vilages and the spectacular rugged coastline. It is also somehow nostalgic in that you know, as you read it, that this is a time past, and the reality now may well be very different. However the writing style is very mixed - there are soaring paragraphs that leave you breathless with wonder, and there is also a lot of convoluted writing, including massive digressions, which, while giving expression to the author's tremendous depth of knowledge, also leave you wondering where on earth you are. Many times I had to go back and reread to find where I was after such digressions. But there is no doubting Fermor's exceptional knowledge of and love for Greece and its history, and what an adventure to walk through such a relatively uncharted and mysterious region.
2263527
Amazing writing, but just not my cup of tea when it comes to the sex, violence, etc.
888730
Khaled Hosseini has set the bar very high with his storytelling ability and I had hoped to be blown away by this novel.  I really felt like it  would have been better as a collection of short stories.  I found myself reading them as short stories, some better than others.  I had trouble reading it as a novel and found myself tempted to skip ahead to the next story to see if those characters were more interesting, etc.  There is still brilliant writing here, definitely worthy of your time to read.
3429354
This epic Booker Prize-winning novel is a compelling page-turner but I think it falls short of greatness in at least one important respect.

"The Luminaries" weaves a spellbinding and convoluted plot around dozens of characters whose lives intersect in the gold-mining region of New Zealand in the 1860's. It has been described as an homage and, alternately, a parody of the kind of complicated tales written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins in the nineteenth century. It involves multiple mysteries and many characters at cross-purposes. It jumps back and forth in time, only slowly revealing parts of its puzzle. Individuals and actions are pegged to changes in the astrological chart of the Southern Hemisphere, a stylistic conceit whose significance I (and apparently many readers) did not entirely grasp.

The book's strength is the cleverness and intricacy of its plot. The story (many stories really) keeps you engaged and turning pages madly to find out what happens next or what led to the current state of affairs. I felt immediately drawn in and, except for a bit of fatigue between about pages 400-500, was hooked until the end. Greed, revenge, exploitation, loyalty, virtue, family dysfunction, the opium trade, innocence, the law, and racism are among the many themes explored. The hustle and hardships of a colonial gold-mining town are dramatically conveyed.

Author Eleanor Catton has an incredible facility with the language; many of her descriptions are beautifully written and evocative. Yet most of her characters are one-dimensional. There are several obvious villains, a few noble-minded characters, and innocent nafs who get caught up in other people's nefarious schemes. There is a noble Maori native, an evildoer with a scarred face, and two major women characters who run the gamut from evil procuress to reluctant whore with a heart of gold. (If this is parody, OK; if not, it's pretty tired stuff.) Although I was eager to find out how the plot strands were resolved, I never grew invested or really cared much about any of the characters. They all seemed to be "types" or symbols used as pieces in the book's machinery. In the end, there was no Pip or Dorothea Brooke whose complex story arc became embedded in my memory.

As entertaining as it is and although I still recommend it, I think "The Luminaries" is a triumph of style over substance. I hope another reading at a later date or a good discussion with others who have read it will bring out more of its value. I certainly plan to follow the promising career of young Eleanor Catton. Despite the flaws in this epic novel, her imagination and ambition shine through.
3158540
If you read The Flame Novel when it came out last year, you have some idea what to expect from Ben Marcus's prose. The stories in this collection, ranging in length from five pages to forty-some, are brilliantly written but also jarringly isolating in their effect on the reader. He's not an author to read if you want to feel good. That's not a criticism, it's an observation because other authors have had and do have the same effect -from Kafka through Dennis Cooper to Gary Lutz. Marcus writes exceptional experimental fiction but it's very dark -you need to know that when you go into it. But if you approach it with an open mind, you will leave knowing you have read a set of exceptional stories.

It's as though he writes nightmares. And like in a nightmare, there's seeming logic but no real sequence to what happens and like being in a nightmare also, there's no getting out of it. You're trapped inside. Marcus's approach varies from piece to piece -that's what it means to be experimental--but his fallback stance is distancing and observational, like a cultural anthropologist or ethologist of human, not animal, behavior, but reporting on odd variants of human behavior that -fortunately for us--don't exist in the real world (but yet echo true like distorted shadows that remind us of their sources).

As a writer, Marcus possesses brilliant language resources and writes stunning images. A man notices the trees around him "looming in his periphery but not surrounding him, clusters of green growth like clouds of algae bursting in the air." A story about love which is like a Hieronymus Bosch painting filtered through Freud contains the statement: "We fantasized about a place where we could be wet and boneless, where no one would dare attribute a feeling to us." Bones constrain and oppress in this surreal piece.

In another story, written as an interview, a child fights against becoming a not-child. It's chilling. Brilliant flights of words capture subterranean fears, which are emotional truths we don't often admit to ourselves, in strange images, strained gestures, obsessional thinking, like this passage, from "The Dark Arts", which is one of the longest and best pieces in the book:

"She hardly spoke. Maybe they hadn't fought and maybe they weren't still, in some quiet, effortlessly Zen way, fighting right now. One day, people would swab each other with animosity sticks, and there'd be no way to hide it. Just as you could be tested for cancer, you could be tested for fury. Your anger would show, or your resentment, your detachment, your ambivalence, your reduced sexual attraction, no matter what you said or did. Your mood would be a chemical fact and if you lied about it then, poor, poor you."

In the midst of these resolutely modernist stories, there is one ("What Have You Done") that is basically realistic narrative. It's about a middle-aged man who's never been able to convince his parents that he isn't still what he was when he was young and angry and still living with them, and the emotional impact of the story is devastating, it is so sad. But it too is about non-communicating, people living in separate, sad pockets, separated from each other.
695700
Terrific writer but what stops him from being great, I think, is his tendency to meander.  Maybe he does this intentionally to tell us something about the character, but the result is an over-long book with some dull passages.  I ended up skimming some bits and didn't feel I'd missed anything.  On the plus side, I loved the characters, even though they're mostly quite prickly, and I was very involved with the story.  I'd definitely recommend this book.