Jeremy
Today, the day after I finished Americana, it being my first novel by postmodern legend Don DeLillo, I walked past a cardboard box of books left out on my street. Sitting on the top of the pile, free for the taking, was another of his works, a novella called [b:The Body Artist 11767 The Body Artist Don DeLillo https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388287048l/11767.SY75.jpg 1304282]. I snatched it up without a second thought, feeling an incredible sense of luck and synchronicity. Really, that's all you need to know about what I thought of Americana.Unfortunately, that hardly constitutes a review.The difficulty in writing about this book is in finding how to begin. The plot? Yes, I can assure you, in Americana you will find a beginning, middle, and end, and they are even presented in that order (mostly). However, despite the potent-sounding mix of American Psycho and Easy Rider, the plot is not where Americana derives its central momentum. The characters, then? Well, yes, they're there too. Although, in actuality, I would be so bold as to suggest this book really has one character, one who finds himself surrounded by a cast of fables and punchlines. Even him, David Bell, the novel's protagonist, is more a philosophical concept than an entirely fleshed-out person. He's a symptom of the mass existential malaise, or the flickering spirit of the American soul. The only times David feels tangible are the brief insights we get into his life before the novel begins.What Americana really is, is a series of impressions. There are books that you can read somewhat passively, and books where you get what you put in, where a little bit of elbow grease and close reading is necessary to truly enjoy the experience. With Americana, you get what it takes out of you. From the desiccated husk where the heart of Corporate America should be, to the suffocating silence of small town life, this novel will pull pieces of you into its environments. And as it hurtles forward, increasingly fractured and listless, the sense that this is less of a book and more of a mirror grows stronger. Not a mirror to society, or to a moment in time, but to you. Americana is a reflection of its reader, the desperate artist, the office drone, the mind shackled by freedoms. The entire book is an exercise in decay, in stripping away everything in the desperate bid to find a soul somewhere deep down. That hole that exists in David, the gap he is so desperately trying to fill with his cross country escapades, lives in you too. After all, it is that void the book reaches into, filling its pages with the emptiness inside every reader. (Minus one star because the first third of the book is quite dull and cynical, a necessary evil for the rest of it to pack a punch, but one that makes the experience a lot less enjoyable)
Today, the day after I finished Americana, it being my first novel by postmodern legend Don DeLillo, I walked past a cardboard box of books left out on my street. Sitting on the top of the pile, free for the taking, was another of his works, a novella called [b:The Body Artist 11767 The Body Artist Don DeLillo https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388287048l/11767.SY75.jpg 1304282]. I snatched it up without a second thought, feeling an incredible sense of luck and synchronicity. Really, that's all you need to know about what I thought of Americana.Unfortunately, that hardly constitutes a review.The difficulty in writing about this book is in finding how to begin. The plot? Yes, I can assure you, in Americana you will find a beginning, middle, and end, and they are even presented in that order (mostly). However, despite the potent-sounding mix of American Psycho and Easy Rider, the plot is not where Americana derives its central momentum. The characters, then? Well, yes, they're there too. Although, in actuality, I would be so bold as to suggest this book really has one character, one who finds himself surrounded by a cast of fables and punchlines. Even him, David Bell, the novel's protagonist, is more a philosophical concept than an entirely fleshed-out person. He's a symptom of the mass existential malaise, or the flickering spirit of the American soul. The only times David feels tangible are the brief insights we get into his life before the novel begins.What Americana really is, is a series of impressions. There are books that you can read somewhat passively, and books where you get what you put in, where a little bit of elbow grease and close reading is necessary to truly enjoy the experience. With Americana, you get what it takes out of you. From the desiccated husk where the heart of Corporate America should be, to the suffocating silence of small town life, this novel will pull pieces of you into its environments. And as it hurtles forward, increasingly fractured and listless, the sense that this is less of a book and more of a mirror grows stronger. Not a mirror to society, or to a moment in time, but to you. Americana is a reflection of its reader, the desperate artist, the office drone, the mind shackled by freedoms. The entire book is an exercise in decay, in stripping away everything in the desperate bid to find a soul somewhere deep down. That hole that exists in David, the gap he is so desperately trying to fill with his cross country escapades, lives in you too. After all, it is that void the book reaches into, filling its pages with the emptiness inside every reader. (Minus one star because the first third of the book is quite dull and cynical, a necessary evil for the rest of it to pack a punch, but one that makes the experience a lot less enjoyable)
When the pot boils, the scum comes to the surface.
That is my main takeaway from The Winds of War. I've read a few of Herman Wouk's novels now and, like the rest, this one is another incredibly compelling drama detailing the conflicts and relationships between a well-drawn cast of characters. In this case it's a military family, the Henry's, and how they orbit the days of World War II.
While the characters and the situations they found themselves in kept me turning the pages, it was the setting and cultural attitudes which left me thinking about the book long after I closed the cover. Wouk's exploration of the larger social attitudes which allowed Nazism to flourish in Germany, as well as the indifference displayed by many Americans, made this book feel almost vital in this moment.
It is all too easy to draw parallels between the mass unrest which allowed facism to take hold in the early 20th century and the modern shift in the West towards ideaologies of bigotry. When speaking on the duology as a whole, Wouk noted that Winds of War was the prologue, setting the stage for the story he really wanted to tell in War and Remembrance, which covers America's experience upon entering the Second World War. Reading today, this first volume isn't prologue but prophecy, and a damning condemnation of how American exceptionalism has made many blind to the mainstream fascism which has taken root in the West today.
When the pot boils, the scum comes to the surface.
That is my main takeaway from The Winds of War. I've read a few of Herman Wouk's novels now and, like the rest, this one is another incredibly compelling drama detailing the conflicts and relationships between a well-drawn cast of characters. In this case it's a military family, the Henry's, and how they orbit the days of World War II.
While the characters and the situations they found themselves in kept me turning the pages, it was the setting and cultural attitudes which left me thinking about the book long after I closed the cover. Wouk's exploration of the larger social attitudes which allowed Nazism to flourish in Germany, as well as the indifference displayed by many Americans, made this book feel almost vital in this moment.
It is all too easy to draw parallels between the mass unrest which allowed facism to take hold in the early 20th century and the modern shift in the West towards ideaologies of bigotry. When speaking on the duology as a whole, Wouk noted that Winds of War was the prologue, setting the stage for the story he really wanted to tell in War and Remembrance, which covers America's experience upon entering the Second World War. Reading today, this first volume isn't prologue but prophecy, and a damning condemnation of how American exceptionalism has made many blind to the mainstream fascism which has taken root in the West today.
With War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk cements himself as one of my favourite novelists of the 20th century. Despite this, I struggle to explain what makes his writing, and in turn this novel, such a standout for me. His prose is workmanlike, his plotting can meander, and he can get bogged down in superflous detail. However, what Wouk has created in his saga of the Henry Family and their experiences in World War 2 is nothing less than a Homerian epic chronicling the great global and cultural transformations the Second World War wrought.
He breathes life into every player of the drama, from Simon Anderson, who is given less than 30 pages across the duology's combined 2000 to chronicle his involvement in the Manhattan Project, to towering historical figures like FDR and Josef Stalin. At times, with this vast cast weaving in and out of each other's narratives, War and Rememberance begins to feel like a drama crafted in the oral tradition, emerging from some primordial unconcious and shared to it's reader after centuries of refining its episodes.
This is Wouk's greatest feat in constructing this novel, his understanding that the readership encountering it would likely remember the broad strokes of the war, and the clever ways he uses the audience's foreknowledge to mount anticipation for what comes next. War and Remembrance. It's right there on the tin.
With War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk cements himself as one of my favourite novelists of the 20th century. Despite this, I struggle to explain what makes his writing, and in turn this novel, such a standout for me. His prose is workmanlike, his plotting can meander, and he can get bogged down in superflous detail. However, what Wouk has created in his saga of the Henry Family and their experiences in World War 2 is nothing less than a Homerian epic chronicling the great global and cultural transformations the Second World War wrought.
He breathes life into every player of the drama, from Simon Anderson, who is given less than 30 pages across the duology's combined 2000 to chronicle his involvement in the Manhattan Project, to towering historical figures like FDR and Josef Stalin. At times, with this vast cast weaving in and out of each other's narratives, War and Rememberance begins to feel like a drama crafted in the oral tradition, emerging from some primordial unconcious and shared to it's reader after centuries of refining its episodes.
This is Wouk's greatest feat in constructing this novel, his understanding that the readership encountering it would likely remember the broad strokes of the war, and the clever ways he uses the audience's foreknowledge to mount anticipation for what comes next. War and Remembrance. It's right there on the tin.
Mother of Learning is a fun, breezy read with an addictive timeloop narrative structure, but it's ultimately held back from being a great fantasy read due to its clunky exposition and a thin cast of supporting characters. While the central narrative conceit of Mother of Learning makes it easy to keep turning the pages, the process can feel like a slog when Nobody103 gets too caught up in the minutiae of the magic system and world they've created, often delivered in large chunks of dialogue that can't help but feel unnatural.
The real beating heart of Mother of Learning lies in Zorian, a protagonist who starts out as a constantly complaining bore and slowly transforms, loop after loop, into a caring and empathetic hero. How his relationship with his family evolves over the course of this first arc is a heartwarming development that caught me by surprise.
Overall an amusing and light read if you're looking for a fantasy world to escape into. Won't climb onto my favourite series list, but an entertaining ride nonetheless.
Mother of Learning is a fun, breezy read with an addictive timeloop narrative structure, but it's ultimately held back from being a great fantasy read due to its clunky exposition and a thin cast of supporting characters. While the central narrative conceit of Mother of Learning makes it easy to keep turning the pages, the process can feel like a slog when Nobody103 gets too caught up in the minutiae of the magic system and world they've created, often delivered in large chunks of dialogue that can't help but feel unnatural.
The real beating heart of Mother of Learning lies in Zorian, a protagonist who starts out as a constantly complaining bore and slowly transforms, loop after loop, into a caring and empathetic hero. How his relationship with his family evolves over the course of this first arc is a heartwarming development that caught me by surprise.
Overall an amusing and light read if you're looking for a fantasy world to escape into. Won't climb onto my favourite series list, but an entertaining ride nonetheless.
