I started and finished A Sense of Direction in one evening; I couldn't really stop thinking about it, so I couldn't put it down. I found it...
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It would appear that no one checked to see if Ms. Morgenstern is actually able to write before publishing and heavily promoting her book. Likely agents and editors were distracted while salivating over the prospect of the apparently infinitely marketable combination of young love and magic. It hardly seems worth getting into why the writing, plot, and characters are all so truly, woefully awful and the whole effect cursory despite its length �" a rather neat trick I suppose. I'll simply let it all go with a sigh and a mild tsk tsk to Powell's for choosing this for Indiespensible. Of course, I'll be placated if my signed copy becomes worth a great deal, which is about the only good I can see coming from the time spent reading this. Well, in fact, it probably came with something good to eat, though I can't recall right now. So there's that.
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It is appropriate that this novel is set around a non-event, Y2K, as it is itself a non-event. Nothing happens, at least nothing that isn't a well worn cliche of the wide-eyed new arrival in the big city trope. The narrative conceits of the book (Issar's stilted language, the voice recorder, the journal format with appended definitions) all come to naught. The themes and characters are conventional and the story lacks anything that approaches an original insight about New York City or the people who live there. On the whole it falls into a class of novel, not uncommon in my experience, that is either purposefully or unwittingly written with the hope of being optioned for screen adaptation. That isn't to say there's anything cinematic about Kapitoil, but it feels more like a movie treatment, as replete for opportunity for visual cliche as it is lacking in any particular literary substance. On the plus side, if you insist, it won't take you very long to skim through. I'm chalking this one up as a victory for e-books. I don't have to figure out what to do with the paperback now.
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August Melmotte has commented on (2) products.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
August Melmotte, October 26, 2011
It would appear that no one checked to see if Ms. Morgenstern is actually able to write before publishing and heavily promoting her book. Likely agents and editors were distracted while salivating over the prospect of the apparently infinitely marketable combination of young love and magic. It hardly seems worth getting into why the writing, plot, and characters are all so truly, woefully awful and the whole effect cursory despite its length �" a rather neat trick I suppose. I'll simply let it all go with a sigh and a mild tsk tsk to Powell's for choosing this for Indiespensible. Of course, I'll be placated if my signed copy becomes worth a great deal, which is about the only good I can see coming from the time spent reading this. Well, in fact, it probably came with something good to eat, though I can't recall right now. So there's that.(0 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
Kapitoil (P.S.) by Teddy Wayne
August Melmotte, April 29, 2011
It is appropriate that this novel is set around a non-event, Y2K, as it is itself a non-event. Nothing happens, at least nothing that isn't a well worn cliche of the wide-eyed new arrival in the big city trope. The narrative conceits of the book (Issar's stilted language, the voice recorder, the journal format with appended definitions) all come to naught. The themes and characters are conventional and the story lacks anything that approaches an original insight about New York City or the people who live there. On the whole it falls into a class of novel, not uncommon in my experience, that is either purposefully or unwittingly written with the hope of being optioned for screen adaptation. That isn't to say there's anything cinematic about Kapitoil, but it feels more like a movie treatment, as replete for opportunity for visual cliche as it is lacking in any particular literary substance. On the plus side, if you insist, it won't take you very long to skim through. I'm chalking this one up as a victory for e-books. I don't have to figure out what to do with the paperback now.(0 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)