Extraordinary and surreal comedy about a shell shocked British World War 1 veteran who finds himself living in a crumbling hotel in Ireland with a roster of bizarre caretakers and elderly guests in the midst of an escalating guerrilla war. Stunning, hilarious, and unforgettable. Ten stars.
Surprisingly engaging and funny for something written almost two hundred and fifty years ago. It’s nice to know that human beings laughed and cried over love, death, poverty, injustice and cruelty even then. The novel’s narrator keeps interrupting and drawing attention to all the cliches and conventions of the story, and this meta-narration then overshadows the melodramatic contretemps of the aforementioned pointless story. Do people choose anything? Who knows. Hard to say. What’s the point of life? Not sure. It’s a good time, though. Pretty good. Ten stars.
One of the most complex, deliberately difficult and elaborately patterned novels I’ve ever read. A love story, an adventure, a mystery, and a philosophical foray into the spiritual realm told from twelve different points of view in a non linear mosaic of voices. Extremely engaging and confusing at the same time. The whole truth as opposed to “nothing but the truth.” This book fried my brain. Ten stars.
If I were afraid of Hell I would hate this book, because I would have to talk to this character for eternity once I arrived there. Foundational incel literature. Reads like a Platonic dialogue about aesthetics and the nature of truth and beauty, but all the lines are delivered by boys who’re more terrified of talking to a woman than anything on earth.
There’s a hall of mirrors aspect to this novel of intertwined families and generational rivalries that I’d always found off-putting. It’s a modern classic of magical realism I was assigned to read in 1999 but never actually finished until today. I’d resisted it for twenty seven years because its non linear narrative structure has a bewildering, disorienting effect from the beginning. I had to go back and start over when I was two thirds through just to keep all the characters and timelines straight. On the second try I was able to more fully appreciate the exquisite language and powerful imagery without worrying about what the hell was going on or who anybody was. Well worth the effort. Utterly beautiful. Lovely. Ten Stars.
A moving, beautifully composed novel about faith and Jesus questions. If good people don’t believe in the Lord, will they burn in Hell anyway? As a nonbeliever, I worry about this: am I doomed? What are we doing here? Why does anything happen? What does anyone even know? Why is man? Ten stars.
