Matthew Rasnake

Reasonably well-written Holmes novel with characterizations just enough off as to result in a somewhat dissonant read. Audiobook was produced well enough, but the narration left a lot to be desired.

A very interesting and entertaining Holmes interpretation.

As much as I enjoy Kerouac, especially his esoteric/unconventional approach to poetics, I have enjoyed other collections of his poetry/haiku a little better than this one, which achieved its intention of being a comprehensive overview of his approach to the haiku form at the expense of a lighter/less selective editorial hand that resulted in a somewhat unbalanced, meandering straight-through read. Depending on what you're looking for, this may be a bad or a good thing.

I can generally recommend both Scripture of the Golden Eternity and Pomes All Sizes as being better representations (to my taste, at any rate) of Kerouac as poet and spiritual aspirant.

However, as a late entrant to the Kerouac canon, I do appreciate this volume for its chronological structure and the depth of its insight into Kerouac's pursuit of form.

The book itself was decently written and enjoyable. Nothing groundbreaking, but offering some bright spots in characterization and setting. Unfortunately, the narration was a little flat and there was a persistent transformer hum during most of it, which was made more apparent because of the bits that were filtered out during the silences. Some of the punch-ins weren't quite matched well enough to the surrounding recording, which had a dissonant effect. Audio issues were slight enough to be forgivable and not really detract from the overall experience.

Think of your most eccentric uncle, or the most socially maladjusted person you've ever known, multiply their idiosyncrasies by a factor of about 15, and you'll end up in the vicinity of literally every character in this book. I nearly stopped reading about 10% of the way in, because there just seemed no end to the weird, awkward characterization, but there was just enough almost interesting sci-fi ideation going on that I toughed it out. "And boy, I'm glad I did!" You might now expect me to say...

But I won't.

I made it through the book, which seemed to essentially be a disjointed shadow play about a collective descent into madness—people living in holes, holes within holes, books with no words, projects with no purpose, an almost clinical focus on the grotesqueries of bodies, secretions, and sex (organs and acts), and an exceptionally large amount of discussions of bat guano—only to finally end with a maybe eclipse and... I'm not even sure what.

The book had a very clear if awkward intention at the beginning that went largely unfulfilled and which it even ended up actively dismissing by the end. I, honestly, am not sure what the point of the book was, other than to display the author's unique and uncommon facility with description of place and character. I suppose that's what kept me hanging on... the artistry was clear and captivating, even if largely incoherent.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and the narrator was quite good, but this is one of those books where I'm left wondering if too much (context, focus, physicality?) was lost in the move from the page to the voice. I don't *think* that's the issue, I think it's just that this book is trying to be or do something specific, and I'm just not here for whatever that is.