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ingrid7469
, June 21, 2013
(view all comments by ingrid7469)
I am deeply conflicted about this one. It didn't suck me in from the get-go but I stuck with it and then got lost in Gurion's world. I grew to love the way Levin plays with language and style, the intelligence of his writing, the way things come full circle - little details brought out again later in the story and made relevant. It may seem ironic to say the author of a 1000+ page work is concise, but I don't think the author wastes language - it's all there for a purpose, deliberate, every last word of it. You grow to have an affection for these deeply flawed and damaged characters. You root for them, and then...and then? All hell breaks loose. The violence made me physically uncomfortable - although I admittedly have a very low tolerance for that kind of thing - I found myself having to stop reading, look out the window, breath. I had two moments when I was caught totally off guard by plot shifts and it was like the physical sensation of the Earth shifting under me. By the time it ended, I was furious - and confused. This was a great book....right?? What just happened here? Up is down, left is right, good is bad. Or did I misunderstand the whole of what came before? I can relate it to only two other books in my experience - Catcher in the Rye and Things Fall Apart - both of which caused similar, profound seismic shifts in perspective. One I loved (the latter) and one I detested (the former). So conflicted is where I remain.
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