And I was okay with the first hundred pages. Then it felt like the events were--well, they weren't random, exactly, but it didn't feel like they were tightly connected to what had come before, either. There was the whole fukú thing running through the story. But the light touch it was given for most of the book wasn't enough to keep this story moving full-speed ahead.
Sigh...
2 comments:
I completely agree with you. I wanted to love it because I thought the stories in _Drown_ the most moving and intelligent I've read in a long time. But BWLOW felt too self-conscious and learned and disjointed. Kind of a good example of hysterical realism, a label that James Wood coined in that essay of his about Zadie Smith, Salman Rushdie, others. The label doesn't completely apply, but kind of.
Thanks, John. Knowing I'm not the only one who felt this way about a much-touted book makes me feel a little better. :)
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