jacobmillerchapin's reviews
42 reviews

I started this book having heard great things, hoping I would like it - but reading it, something felt off. "Maybe", I said, "I just don't understand it, and just need to keep going." When I finally accepted that I didn't like it - unfortunately very deeply - I still kept reading. I felt I owed it to the friend who recommended it to me to find out why. 

On the surface, I had shallow reasons: the flow of its prose is choppy, its chronology is disjointed, and its metaphors struck me as saccharine, and ostentatious - "But maybe," I thought, "that's just a matter of personal taste. Maybe those things are intentional?" I didn't know.

Reading further, though, it slowly dawned on me that what I was feeling wasn't a lack of interest in the subject matter, or inability to understand the language - but that I was being manipulated into being convinced of something, into holding a belief, like I was being told how to feel instead of being given room to figure it out for myself. I went from wondering if I was stupid to thinking, "That's crazy, am I crazy? Nothing is being stated explicitly - where is this coming from?" so I started watching video interviews with the author, Arundhati Roy, to see if by looking into her eyes I could figure out what was going on. 

The first thing I noticed was how ruthless they were. Taken aback, I was reminded of the eyes of Ma Anand Sheela, the spokeswoman of the cult-like figure Osho. It was really subtle, and if I wasn't looking deeply I might not have caught it, but they were eyes full of false compassion, eyes that sat and watched the faces of the interviewers as words were spoken from a place of safe distance, warm, but detached, silently calculating, like they were scanning for an opportunity to be the shepherd of the flock, to say a wise word, and be the one who has an answer. I felt afraid, and then defensive, and then sad. 

Now, all this being said, I don't not recommend this book. The tone of the narration is feverishly zealous, and the characters, while still alive, feel puppeteered, so that my impression of it is that it's really more of a socio-political manifesto masquerading as a novel instead of an honest story - but it isn't uninteresting. Whether or not it's something that I can say with certainty is good for people to read, this book is a masterwork, and I really do have to give the author credit; even though I have no plans to finish it, from what I read, I am deeply impressed. I'm also sure that for a lot of people it speaks to things deeply felt, senses of injustice, invisibility, and helplessness - and that's definitely worth something - I just can't help but get the sense that it's feeding on those things too. I don't know. I could be wrong. Listen to your own gut, and maybe it'll say something different. Thank you for your time.

This is one of the strangest things I've ever read, and it was also hilariously tough to get through. The academic-paper style of narration fits the heavily conceptual and philosophical themes being explored, and makes sense for the protagonist narrator, which deepens the sense of immersion, but it's also incredibly dehydrating. This book was a slog. I made it through, and really enjoyed the questions it inspires, but it was the driest mouth I've ever kissed. 10/10 theological analogy. 4/10 delivery.

A classic mystery story, seeing naive detectives grow into professionals as they face off against a well intrigued but moderately generic and underdeveloped secret communist society. The plot is well written, the twists are suspenseful, and the heroes and relationships between them feel real. This isn't a story that adds anything to any understanding of criminal behaviour, or explains why communism must be stopped, or says anything terribly profound about human nature—but hey! It's a good time :)

Just absolutely vile slimy creature soggy horseradish, just the opposite of happiness, the heavy swinging between madness and despair, perfectly captured by Dostoevsky through the voice of his unnamed protagonist, in a way that makes you want to crawl into a hole, but also in a one that forces you to stare it in the face. 

Definitely read this book, especially if there's a part of you that hates yourself; seeing it on the page so clearly is like an exorcism; it's refreshing.

The immediacy of the moment is killed by over exposition. What seems like it would have been a really wonderful short story has been fluffed up into a novel; a well-bred horse too fat to run.