Luminarium a novel

Ever find yourself just not reading a book? Not intentionally, but every time you crack it open your minds goes elsewhere. Or whenever you have free time to sit and read you find something else to do instead. That's what happened to me with Luminarium.

I still think the concept is fascinating - a deadbeat thirty-year-old uses computer technology to accidentally step beyond the veil - but it got bogged down with its less interesting elements. You'd think there would be a point where Fred just threw up his hands and realized he wasn't going to get his old life back, and even if he did it would be meaningless. I suppose that's where the book was heading but it was doing it very slowly. Yet for a book that was so aimless, it managed to be predictable as well. At one point, I said to myself, “Well, I keep reading until he sleeps with this chick, and if nothing interesting is produced from that, I'll stop.” Which is pretty much what went down. The cathartic sexual liaison turned out just to be another way of stripping Fred of the last things he had to hold onto in life. Any spiritual awakening happen then? Does meditating on his parent's roof count?

I think a part of me is still trying to convince myself to try to finish this, because I so rarely DNF books. Which is why I'm writing this review, and trying to get some closure on this. I wish there was a reason to finish other than just habit, but for a book that involves itself with spirituality and faith without ignorance, there is very little to be gained from it.

(Sometime in July) I'm doing everything I can to avoid reading this book. I sort of want to know what happens with George and with the Mira experiment but not enough to keep reading. It's an odd book.

08/11/13 – I ditched it formally added it to my discard list and carried on, but I kept thinking about it and wondering what he was going to do with it all so I picked it up again and finished it.

Mike, a reviewer I follow sum's up much of my frustration with the book when he points out that the narrative is “sometimes (maybe a few too many times) bogged down by the weight of sweeping thematic concerns which put a drag on forward motion and I'd go with “few too many times.” Enough already. But, there is much that is interesting and smart and committed to make it worth the time. And there is a “dinner” scene between Fred and Holly and Vartan near the end of the book that is really quite oddly spectacular. In fact, Holly and Vartan, with the Reiki and the magic tricks, and their crappy apartment were some of the strongest writing in the novel.

If I were going to make up an odd shelf – self, self-immolation and 9/11 – I'd put it there with James Hynes book Next, but Luminarium is a kinder book and Fred although as self-involved as Kevin Quinn has better reasons.