From the very beginning of this book I feel like I have been inundated with this tone of despair and gloom. Maybe gloom isn't the right word for it. What I mean is that the novel so far has had only elements of glass-half-empty characters and settings. Take Landsman for example. Alcoholic divorcee scarred by his dead-beat father's love of chess-and winning. Then theres Tenenboym- ex-marine, ex-junkie who kicked his habit and rose to the esteemed position of night hotel manager and steals money and jewelry from. Hooray. We then move on to the setting. A "past its prime" hotel called the Zamenhof reffered to by the manager as "crap-ass."
Pardon my ignorance, but isn't this kind of tone fairly typical in post-modern sf? This is my first sf book, I must admit. Actually my first fiction in a while. I have enjoyed the novel so far despite its tone (It doesn't really match my style).
By the way, not sure if anyone else is aware but one thing Sitka, Alaska is famous for is their spruce tree. Sitka Spruce is used in may instruments especially guitars. The most widely used flat top guitar material is Sitka because of its resonant qualities. Just an irrelevant side note.
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The tone of this book is ridiculously depressing, especially at the start of the book. One thing I was particularly amazed about (which soon turned into an annoyance) was how much excruciating detail the author provided when describing each of the store fronts as Landsman and his partner walked down the street. Towards the end of the book I appreciated this detail as the main characters went to revisit some of these places, but at first I was really bored since nothing was happening at these particular places.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with what both John and Kenny said. I found myself forcing myself to turn each page and continue on because of the exact two things mentioned. First being that every aspect of this book is depressing. And it never misses an opportunity to make things worse and worse and to remind you what was already bad.
ReplyDeleteSecond, the details. They are in my opinion worse than Dickens'. The details are bad because they both add to the depressing feel of everything and are ridiculously superfluous. I feel like they are unnecessary filler that serve no purpose except making it a task to read this book.
I'm with you in a major way Ken. I don't have a problem with dark or depressing stories and in some cases I even prefer it. But it's the wall of details that I have a hard time breaking through. It seems almost completely pointless to me. I've been to multiple large cities before, so I can picture Sitka in my mind's eye without needing much help.
ReplyDeleteI'd greatly prefer it if the author dedicated more of that word space to the actual plot.
I'm kind of torn between agreeing with Ken and disagreeing. The details are too numerous but it could be a way Chabon uses to make the reader feel as depressed or anxious as Landsman does. This guy is a homicide detective so it is his job to pay attention to all the little details. So paying so much attention to death and destruction eventually drives him to the bottle and Chabon wants us to sympathize with him.
ReplyDeleteThis whole dialogue made me think of something, and I'm interested to hear what you guys think.
ReplyDeleteWhen representing the mental state of a character, or of a people, that is steeped in depression and cynicism, to what ends should the author go in representing such emotional states? Conversely, when should they make concessions to their readers, out of a certain respect for their desire to have an enjoyable read?
Just a thought. Personally I thought this novel was more skillfully written than Little Brother, in terms of its prose and just the way that it played with language, although I found Little Brother to be a more enjoyable read.
I am finding the details in the book outrageous. Sometimes I am reading a paragraph and come to a section of details and I automatically skip to the dialogue. Not even on purpose, just reflex. I do not consider myself a literary critic in the slightest. However, my opinion on these details is that they are a lot of fluff and make this book less enjoyable to read. Ken used the word superfluous to describe these detalis and I completely agree.
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