rufzerg666 reviewed The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster
Review of 'The Brooklyn Follies' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
The Brooklyn Follies, Paul Auster (finished 8NOV2019)
I finally finished it after a couple of weeks not reading it, but it's a problematic read. I liked the earlier parts when it's just the dropout PhD student and his uncle. Later on, it wasn't as, let's say 'literary'. I liked for the novel to have been more bookish. There's also a strange temporal disorientation I felt reading it. It felt 70s-ish, that is, the novel is set in the early 2000s, but it did not feel like that. It felt decades older. I guess the details provided weren't that convincing for me. Also, there's too much violence and suffering that was heaped upon this one character that I felt at times I could not go on reading the book. Just one depressing episode after another. I felt it was needlessly cruel. Nevertheless, there are little gems scattered throughout. The story about …
The Brooklyn Follies, Paul Auster (finished 8NOV2019)
I finally finished it after a couple of weeks not reading it, but it's a problematic read. I liked the earlier parts when it's just the dropout PhD student and his uncle. Later on, it wasn't as, let's say 'literary'. I liked for the novel to have been more bookish. There's also a strange temporal disorientation I felt reading it. It felt 70s-ish, that is, the novel is set in the early 2000s, but it did not feel like that. It felt decades older. I guess the details provided weren't that convincing for me. Also, there's too much violence and suffering that was heaped upon this one character that I felt at times I could not go on reading the book. Just one depressing episode after another. I felt it was needlessly cruel. Nevertheless, there are little gems scattered throughout. The story about Wittgenstein was something I did not know before. I thought it was very sad and poignant. The uncle's project was also interesting. It had the right amount of literary whimsy in it that I like. /// Overall, not the best Auster I've read, but it has its moments with interesting characters and literary details.