rave reviews may deceive you
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'Ah'thought I when I opened the novel and started reading, secure in the belief that here was a masterpiece since more than 200 people had loved it'this is a book I'm going to enjoy'. Well... 300 pages into it and I went back to Amazon to re check the reviews and discovered what I had missed so far, mainly that more than 40 people had hated it, some going as far as calling it drivel. Well, those reviewers may have been a bit harsh but on the whole I had to agree with them.
It starts very well with the wonderful idea of a cemetery for forgotten books where the visitor on his first visit can choose a book , any book ,that he 'adopts' and becomes responsible for. Young Daniel chooses such a book and discovers a wonderful author into whose world he can lose himself. Determined to find more of the same he is intrigued when he learns that Julian Carax's books have mostly disappeared because a strange figure is roaming the streets of the world offering to buy them and then destroying them. He decides to go on a mission to discover who this Julian is, the life he led , what became of him...
A superb premise, isn't it? Unfortunately, after a few 100 pages we are deep into cheap, hard to credit melodrama, and the book loses nearly all of its appeal. What really did it for me was the manicheism of the characters. They are either angels or demons, hardly any in between and so extreme in their behaviour that they seem to leap out of some rubbish comic strip. What of the horrible inspector Javier Fumero! Why didn't anybody get rid of him? This maniacal police inspector who loves nothing more than to torture, maim and humiliate could easily have been dealt with. So many characters know they are going to die at his hands, so why not kill him first and be executed later if death is what you are going to get anyway? It would have saved many people.And there is too much sex in that novel, I mean too much of the kind that gives you nausea, the husband enjoying his wife while covering her eyes and telling her she is a slut kind of sex. Too much wifebeating as well. I know it's Barcelona in 1945 but why dwell so long on each scene and why assume that Spaniards during Franco's rule beat their wives so much.
As for Fermin, daniel 's great friend, I soon grew tired of his insuferable boasting and bottom pinching. This scrawny carcass of a man pretending to be an expert on things of the heart and pinching the bottoms of all the women he meets.How ridiculous!But the worst for me is still to come. It concerns the scene when poor Don Federico, a harmless cross dresser, is taken by inspector Fumero and jailed with criminals who are going to rape him. The following day, a neighbour, someone who likes Federico and takes pity on him, will inform the neighbourhood of what befell Federico in such vivid details and florid language that you just know that no one who cared for him could tell it this way, as if it were a laughing matter, something that rhetoric could embellish. I was disgusted; And when Fermin is asked to go and enquire after Don Federico's health and offer his support he comes back with news that finish with, quote "...the doctor had diagnosed as having 3 broken ribs....and an uncommonly severe rectal tear" Was this sentence necessary?It made me livid to read such heartless account of the rape of a supposed homosexual.Unless I missed the whole point and should have found it funny? Well I certainly didn't!
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dont believe the hype
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Awful, simply awful. This is easily the most over-hyped book I've ever read. Hackneyed plot, clunking, cliched scenarios in gross over-abundance, one-dimensional characters and the most overblown, ponderous language imaginable. It's a terrible book. Don't waste your money: get it from the library and dare yourself to pass one hundred pages without snorting repeatedly at the absurd clumsinesss of it all. It really is laugh out loud stuff - but it's not supposed to be. Apparently there are two more to follow: wait and see the quality of reviews tail away to nothing. Listen up: the Emperor has no clothes! All the harder to bear if like me you were drawn in by the central premise and the jacket blurb.
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My perfect book
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This novel is magnificent! I have just finnished it and probably wont pick up another book until I've let the brilliance of this one sink in. Many people told me that it was badly translated, well until this comment I wasn't even aware of the translation, I think it's perfect. Although at times I found it a challenging read as it is quite 'wordy', I will never forget the amazing story and can not praise it enough!
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A DREAM OF A BOOK
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This is such a wonderful book. One of the best modern novels we've read in a long time! We're often a bit skeptical about the Richard and Judy shortlist, but this novel rises above the very average books published nowadays - wondefully written, living breathing characters, a gripping plot and a haunting quality that makes you live in the book and makes it stay with you for a long time afterwards. Highly recommended!
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One of the best period novels of recent times
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This book gripped me from the page one. The dark and sinister setting of fascist Spain in 1950's Barcelona, gives rise to some fantastic characters that keep you interested right through to the completetion of the story.
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