2.5 stars.
The Long Take is a piece of cross-genre prose poetry (basically an embodiment of identity politics) that is all about belonging and, specifically, not belonging. It’s undoubtedly an accomplishment for Robertson (I particularly loved the depiction of post-war America and all its gritty faults) but the poetics failed to resonate. What clinched this for me was Robertson’s attempt to structure dialogue into a poetic form - it became monotonous, tricky to follow, which was a shame because the language at the start had been so strong. I wanted to love this! But in truth I just couldn’t follow it. I didn’t know what was happening 70% of the time. The ending was more confusing than Atonement.
He managed to retain some absolutely gorgeous glimmers of writing in the diary entries, but all in all, I would much prefer to read Anne Carson or the Beats.
Despite all this,I wouldn’t be surprised if it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and even won the Goldsmiths Prize later this year.