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Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times writes: “The poems in Mr. Vuong’s new collection, …
Blindsided by this poet. A descendant of Ginsberg.
Vivid, shocking and stark. Playful, ambitious and skilled.
Just my initial impressions on this first read-through. I plan to revisit these poems again, to let them sink deeper.
In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving …
A cafe that serves strong enough coffee to transport one through time.
A quirky premise failed by such stilted writing. Kill your darlings the adage goes, but by that metric this is post-genocidal, hack-like storycraft.
Due to the international attention this book has attracted, I found myself wondering if it was a translation issue. Lo and behold - it was adapted into a novel from a theatrescript, where a significant amount of necessary emotion and artistry is delegated to the acting cast.
My fundamental problem with this book is that in converting "BTCGC" into a novel (for more $$$), not enough of that emotion and artistry has been added into the text. Characters' emotions race from zero to 100 in the space of a paragraph. Descriptions of setting and character appear to have been adapted directly from the writer's notes.
And yet, underneath it all is a charming and easy-to-read …
A cafe that serves strong enough coffee to transport one through time.
A quirky premise failed by such stilted writing. Kill your darlings the adage goes, but by that metric this is post-genocidal, hack-like storycraft.
Due to the international attention this book has attracted, I found myself wondering if it was a translation issue. Lo and behold - it was adapted into a novel from a theatrescript, where a significant amount of necessary emotion and artistry is delegated to the acting cast.
My fundamental problem with this book is that in converting "BTCGC" into a novel (for more $$$), not enough of that emotion and artistry has been added into the text. Characters' emotions race from zero to 100 in the space of a paragraph. Descriptions of setting and character appear to have been adapted directly from the writer's notes.
And yet, underneath it all is a charming and easy-to-read series of short stories. I would not hesistate to see it performed, although I have no appetite to read this book again in it's current form.
Freedom is a 2010 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Freedom received …
Freedom is a 2010 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It was published by Farrar, …
The unknown harm inflicted by people through love.
Franzen's characters make your heart feel heavier the longer you read them. The older they grow, the more psychological damage accumulates, and the more messed up they reveal themselves to be.
7 years on from my first read, and wiser in love than I was then, I now feel the claustrophobia, the futility and the hurt of this story with increased intensity. Sudden death. The pain of long love. Avoidance and anxiety. The futility of trying. The concluding chapters drew occasional tears.