Fragmentarisch, stream-of-consciousness stijl, dens geschreven en vol weelderig taalgebruik.
Onvoorspelbaar, grappig, aandoenlijk, eigenwijs, waanzinnig.
Je verdwaalt tussen de verschillende verhalen. Doorheen het boek vervaagt de grens tussen werkelijkheid en fictie en vloeien de laagjes verhaallijnen in elkaar.

A purposefully disjointed “novel”, incorporating two story-lines back-to-back-to-back, which converge by the finale!

As the author/narrator says, "this is a horizontal story, told vertically" and I think I have vertigo. I can tell it was meant to be profound--poetic and layered, but I'm not familiar enough with the poets mentioned or enamored enough of philosophical debates to see all the layers. The result for us uninitiated is sort of like that feeling when you hear someone you have a vague yet definite dislike for is in the hospital--I know what I'm supposed to feel and can perform the motions, but internally I am saying "boy, I do not like you. Why don't I like you?"

CONTENT WARNING: (no actual spoilers, just a list of topics)

Spoiler

infidelity, casual racism, misogyny, infidelity, drugging a drink.

Things that were, I dunno, I guess worth experiencing:

-The atmosphere. It's a trippy fever dream of a story, a sort of ongoing babble of scattered thoughts all centered on but skittering away from some all important concept.

-Some of the prose. Sometimes the prose felt beautiful and alive, and that was enjoyable.

-The otherness. It was a sort of neat, sideways glance at a world very unlike mine, though very close by it.

-The thoughts about language. As a metaphor for the unpredictability of communication and translation, it was at least interesting.

Things that ticked me off:

-Pick what you are, book. If it's poetry, it's unsatisfyingly story-like and banal. If it's a story, it's aggravatingly unfinished and ill-defined. I could feel it was meant to sweep me up and carry me along like that dream it emulates, or like that instant of recognition in a crowd that couldn't contain a friend. Instead it felt more like going to your small hometown on break, seeing how the years have hit it, hoping you don't run into anyone you knew.

-The characters. All of them were unreliable narrators, but the sort whose lies and bravado I neither understood nor empathized with. They were all mediocre people standing in place of some great idea that I couldn't attach to them because I hated their lies and their machisimo and their cowardice.

-The language. Repetitive like poetry but without the significance for me. Seriously, I think I'm the walking proof of the concept of this book because I read and understood all the words and am left with nothing.

-The weaving of stories. Normally I just love multiple POV books that spiral each other. I just don't think this one was structured the way I needed it to be. It could have been eerie and fae, but instead felt abrupt and a bit too self-conscious of itself.

A coworker recommended this to me, and I'd be interested in the author's actual poetry, but as an experiment, especially coming off of a lyrical slice of life book that I adored, I fell and skinned my literary knee on the sharp, bacterial edges of this book. If you love Ezra Pound and are more well-versed in modern poetry or Mexican literature, perhaps this would hold more to capture your imagination and heart.

Delightfully weird, fragmented, fascinating. A young mother remembers her time as a young woman and translator in New York, a young translator wanders Harlem, and Owen dreams of New York and sees a woman in a red coat over and over again. Despite fragmented, the narrators and the narrators come together, become one. Captivating, but also very confusing.

"Then I go back to the novel. A vertical novel told horizontally. A story that has to be seen from below, like Manhatten from the subway" (122)

4.5 stars

Dois narradores, vários tempos, muitos fantasmas... numa grande história circular surpreendente e a fazer pensar.

This is a hard book to rate. The novel describes itself as a horizontal story narrated vertically. It's experimental in that it possesses irregular form. There are brilliant passages; the short book is populated with interesting reflections on death, perception, and truth--in its many forms. I appreciate what Luiselli has tried here.

But though she writes expertly and deserves acknowledgment, I don't think she pulled off this particular experiment.

I am very interested in tracking down her other work. I'd be interested to see what she can do without literary name-dropping every other page and without nesting realities within nested novels.

Luiselli’s writing is imaginative and touching, poetic and simple. Her characters become you. I wouldn’t have expected that I would enjoy this style of flitting between characters and time in a sentence or paragraph, but she uses it convincingly to give her writing the dreamlike quality of memory. Full of ghosts, motherhood, youth and aging, truth and fiction, this is a wonderful book full of resonating quotes. This is one that I could see rereading.

The writing style was trying too hard to be avant garde and the story was boring.

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