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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/86655.The_Keep?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Keep" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1171075825m/86655.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/86655.The_Keep?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Keep</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/49625.Jennifer_Egan">Jennifer Egan</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5761280?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>A fun quick read, not half as tricky and Nabokovian as perhaps it would like to think (the solution to the puzzle isn't that much of a revelation, and the metafiction elements--always a hard trick to pull off if you're not the author of Pale Fire--can be a bit tiresome, and I didn't like the crazy German woman living in the tower) but I liked her articulation of modern inter-personal relations and the characterization of Danny as someone who is addicted to "being in contact" (through wireless, texting, phone) and how horrific he finds it to be without it--in comparison to the idea of the keep, the retreat that is also the strongest part of the castle (and the self). Lots of contemporary novelists are crap about writing about new technologies--they seem to have no idea what to say about how people communicate in the mobile age (this goes for TV shows/films too--how many times would a simple misunderstanding be alleviated by a simple quick phone-call?). But the character of Danny really taps into the dependency and neurosis of being connected to so many people without actually being connected at all. So, not great, but kinda interesting, kinda fun. Better than Harry Potter 7 (just throwing that out there to see if Charlotte's listening).
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/77967?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Gavin's review
rating:

A fun quick read, not half as tricky and Nabokovian as perhaps it would like to think (the solution to the puzzle isn't that much of a revelation, and the metafiction elements--always a hard trick to pull off if you're not the author of Pale Fire--can be a bit tiresome, and I didn't like the crazy German woman living in the tower) but I liked her articulation of modern inter-personal relations and the characterization of Danny as someone who is addicted to "being in contact" (through wireless, texting, phone) and how horrific he finds it to be without it--in comparison to the idea of the keep, the retreat that is also the strongest part of the castle (and the self). Lots of contemporary novelists are crap about writing about new technologies--they seem to have no idea what to say about how people communicate in the mobile age (this goes for TV shows/films too--how many times would a simple misunderstanding be alleviated by a simple quick phone-call?). But the character of Dan...more

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message 1: by Charlotte

09/07/2007 06:56AM

pu-leeze. did you weep and laugh out loud while reading this book? I think not. Harry Potter 4-eva!