Arc d'X

by Steve Erickson

Thomas Jefferson's love for, and enslavement of, his mistress, Sally Hemings, forms the center of an exploration of the American spirit

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Literature, Fantasy, 20th Century, Novels, Historical Fiction

298 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Steve Erickson is the author of ten novels: Days Between Stations, Rubicon Beach, Tours of the Black Clock, Arc d'X, Amnesiascope, The Sea Came in at Midnight, Our Ecstatic Days, Zeroville, These Dreams of You and Shadowbahn. He also has written two books about American politics and popular culture, Leap Year and American Nomad. Numerous editions have been published in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Greek, Russian and Japanese. Over the years he has written for Esquire, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Conjunctions, Salon, the L.A. Weekly, the New York Times Magazine and other publications and journals, and his work has been widely anthologized. For twelve years he was editor and co-founder of the national literary journal Black Clock, and currently he is the film/television critic for Los Angeles magazine and teaches writing at the University of California, Riverside. He has received the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature, a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and twice has been nominated for the National Magazine Award for criticism and commentary.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

fulfilling my 2019 goal to read (at least) one book each month that has been digitally moldering, unread, on my NOOK for years and years and years.

i think i would have liked this more if i had read it a) many years ago (probably when i first bought it as a physical book BEFORE i re-bought it as an e-book) and b) if i had read it under better circumstances with fewer distractions and a calmer brain.

steve erickson is not an author you want to be reading when you are in a distractible headspace. it’s not that he’s difficult to read, but he is very detailed; juggling multiple narratives and timelines and permeable realities featuring parallel lives/worlds/experiences, all of which occur in some zero-gravity chamber where alt-history meets near-future and anything is possible and unless you are an attentive, scrupulous reader, it’ll all fall apart and you’ll be able to follow just enough to discern the outlines of what you know you’re not following.

all of the above “you”s are “me”s, of course. maybe the you that is you could read this on a beach during spring break and follow it perfectly. my brain is more easily undone, and between the professional panic of encroaching deadlines and the social and FOMO panic associated with BEA-planning and the terrible decision to read this during BEA, in lines and on the subway home, exhausted by the highs and lows of convention center sprinting, my immersion was compromised.

you try reading sentences like this:

It had found an ideal host in Sally’s purity, which was as marked by chaos and desire as it was devoid of guile or malice, the pure folly of a will for transcendence that at the same moment never understood the nature of what was to be transcended…

while excitable booknerds chatter all around you and your brain keeps worrying that the crawl of this line is going to complicate getting to the line for the next book on your 6-page BEA plan and what if you miss out on getting a BOOK?

it can be hard to focus.

this is my sixth time reading erickson, and even though i didn’t read this one under the best conditions, i am completely confident that it is a tremendous, genius-level accomplishment: the quality of his writing, his imagination, the winky metafictional flourishes and millennial anxiety <— by which i mean erickson’s preoccupation with the millennial era, before this word referred to a whole batch of people. i have a feeling millennial people would have some opinions about some white dude writing about slavery and sexual politics and the power dynamics between men and women and slaves and masters and his returning to the linguistic well of whiteness and blackness and a woman’s genital vacancy and they would probably express their opinions about these things with great conviction and outrage.

i will only express my opinion that some of the erotic bits were perhaps a bit histrionic:

Just as the white ink of my loins has fired the inspiration that made it, so the same ink is scrawled across the order of its extinction. The signature is my own. I’ve written its name. I’ve called it America.

some of the symbolism is clunky, but it doesn’t really detract from what i love about erickson—that moment when all the loose threads start connecting—that shiver of dawning recognition as isolated images recur, timelines tighten, characters’ motives begin to reveal themselves in a narrative striptease.

as for fleurs d’x, the actual strip club in the novel, it is the perfect lynchean cherry on top—every sequence that takes place here is fraught, suspended, portentous, irreal in the best possible way, and inspires an observation that is a pretty good encapsulation of how it feels to be in erickson's world.

That was the secret of Fleurs d’X, Wade told himself, sipping his third, well maybe it was his fourth, whiskey: that you believe, as you step into doors that are entrances or doors that are pictures of doors, that you’re stepping into the dream of Fleurs d’X until one night, your lucky night, you understand you’ve been stepping in and out of your own dream all along, and that everyone else was stepping in and out of your dream as well.

i loved many things about this book, but between a) and b) i'm trapped in the middle. but don't worry—i have several MORE of his books languishing on my NOOK.

here's to a clearer head next time!

come to my blog!

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, just -- quiet, rain storm: let me think.
Pathetic fallacy is a literary device that suggests a connection between human qualities; emotions, and the weather.

There is no pathetic fallacy in Steve Erickson. Nothing so formal; nothing so easy to interpret.
There are no literary devices. Not here.

There is a black sense of something seething out from between the cracks. There is history, restructured and reviled and revered; characters that social justice fighters would claim have been defiled or valorized, but they are reading wrong. Sally Hemings is realer and stronger and more mythic than she has ever been; Thomas Jefferson more depraved. There is the taste of expensive wine gone sour, gone rotten, pouring into your mouth until it flows out your eyes. There is flame, in every sentence; words so flawlessly joined that a single reading barely grazes them. There is above all else the feeling that Erickson knows a secret, knows something about America (about Berlin, about freedom, about the 20th century) that keeps him awake at night, and we can touch it -- but it will always dance, silently, away from our desperate hands.

There is quiet, and there is rage, and there is too much of both and not enough of either.


As I write this review, minutes after finishing the book, the sky has opened into chasms of lightning and violent rolls of thunder: the first storm of the year.
Oh there is more convenience, there are more literary devices, in real life than in Erickson.
You will find no reality here.
You will find the beat of your own wretched heart.

[Szplug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bringing the whole bag of weird and eerie goodies back into the Eighteenth Century, which means identity slippage and evaporation, heated sexual trysts with hierarchies of dominance and submission that dematerialize under close or extended observation, powerplays and pursuits, ghostly resonances that emerge like flickering fireflies to wreak their time-enchained destinies upon semen-sown reincarnations, and—most excellently of all—working in Mr. Deist himself, Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and a Whole Heaping Pile of All Fucking That, and his tricky dickwork with domestic slave Sally Hemings, a heated racial love affair that casts glistening motes in other's eyes and sets events to glide along the pathways of Erickson's surreal myth-making with deftly enigmatic wordsmithing. One of the strangest of the author's moirescapes, all world-shimmery, time-slippery rippling that spreads its inky tendrils into the stories that abut it in both their composition and their setting.

[nethescurial · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF (after over 200 pages and much thinking it over, so you can't accuse me of not giving this a chance). Been awhile since I've been this conflicted about a novel. There's a lot to like here, but unfortunately for me at least there was a pretty significant amount more to find boring at best and actively repugnant at worst, so the scales sort of tipped over into an overall more negative assessment, albeit not one that isn't at least kept readable by a sort of intrigued ambivalence, if that makes sense, evident by the fact I even read as much of this as I did. Erickson is a fine wordsmith, a great one at times even, and in his best spells is capable of conjuring an atmosphere that successfully works as a counterpoint to many of the famous 20th century postmodernists; just as much of the time however, his prose crosses the line into being genuinely turgid, and you know that's not a criticism I make lightly considering I'm a certified Long Sentence Liker. "Overwritten" I feel like has become one of those words that threatens to veer into meaninglessness given how nowadays it's applied to anything with prose meatier than Hemingway's...but if there had to be one novel I've read over the past year in which the term legitimately applies, it's no doubt this one. Then there's the actual thematic substance of the novel, which at times drives at some really cool things and other times completely falls flat on its face due to dragging weight so unsubtle that a cinderblock to the face would get its point across less boldly.

There's cool stuff being done with language here; Erickson's long winded sentences are, unlike much pomo, in service to character building and psychological portraits of the people within these pages, which is certainly a refreshing avenue to take this down, considering the common conception that the 20th century postmodernists had more interest in characters as symbols or ciphers than fully developed personalities [I'll go to my grave believing that's not true of Pynchon but I digress...]. The problem here, for me, comes down to the [ofc completely subjective, like everything else] way that the complex language actually gets in the way of building strong connections between these characters, either for the reader or between the characters themselves. There are sparks, glimmers of what an interesting character Etcher, for example, could have been if I had actually gotten to know him through action instead of pages and pages of meandering purple prose that ends up inadvertently restating the same things about him over and over. And it's not the elegant sort of restatement, the jazz-like variations on themes that more storied postmodern authors such as Gaddis or Acker are fluently capable of; at its worst, this book just feels like Erickson repeating himself, and it gets reallyyyyy fatiguing after such long stretches of pages where all the most fascinating material is occurring in the background.

But it's not the only subversive aspect of the novel in which the attempt falls flat. Then there's the sexual and racial politics of the book, and there's a lot to unpack here so let's just pour out the whole suitcase. Much of what I enjoyed about the novel came in the first third, a historical narrative honing in on the twisted "relationship" between president Thomas Jefferson and slave Sally Hemings, and while Erickson still fumbles his portrayal of Sally, it's very clear he has a vested interest in her character and how this abusive relationship between one with astronomical power (leader of what would become the most powerful systematic oppressor on earth) and one with no power (a black slave girl in service to that oppressor, both on a personal and hegemonic level) can be used to springboard into wider conversations surrounding power dynamics, sex, the control over narratives and history and how America wields that control, while also never relinquishing either Hemings or Jefferson of their positions as "real" characters, which is important because they were actual living people at one point. Nice! That's the sort of thing that postmodernism, to me, is best at.

If only the book had stayed that way though! Because therein lies the problem that makes this a double edged sword - Sally Hemings was a real, breathing human being, who was also a slave and victim of one of the most historically oppressive incarnations of the capitalist system ever known. So then why, a third through the novel, is her perspective completely shelved in favor of Etcher and Wade, comparatively uninteresting male characters who do not drive at the themes of the novel nearly as well as centering her perspective could have? For a book that's trying so strenuously to drive at feminism via exploring the nature of control in sexual relationships, every single female character here is reduced to an extension of the men, even when Erickson is trying very hard to extend compassion and curiosity. Each sex scene is treated more like erotica, which especially becomes really fucking callous when considering the fact that uh y'know SALLY HEMINGS EXISTED. The initial rape scene between Jefferson to Hemings is initially effective because it's ACTUALLY gut wrenching, it's extremely obvious this is meant to be a horrifying point of no return, a sort of nexus point of evil that effects the life of not only Hemings but everyone who is removed of power beneath this system. But in hindsight of all the objectification and turgid erotica found later on in its pages, many of which include eye-rollingly sexualized descriptions of Sally herself, it just ends up feeling disturbing in the way that was the opposite of intended. I know because this book is postmodern and surreal that talking about this I risk getting someone being like ZOMG IT'S NOT SEXIST YOU JUST DON'T GET IT !!!!!1111 - which, sure, fine, I didn't finish the book, and maybe on a reread Erickson could be driving at something here about power dynamics that I missed - but if it has all these problems 200 pages in, consistently doubling down on these themes and repeating them to oblivion, I think I can make a sound judgment. I know Erickson is trying and just fumbling it like a well-meaning grandpa because he obviously has some measure of compassion for his characters given how character-focused this book is, and I think in large part the dark atmosphere of this book is an attempt at subverting that sexist postmodern irreverence, but unfortunately he just ends up falling into the same camp as what he's trying to untangle. So I'm left with the question - why is this book even about Hemings? Why couldn't he have just made up a completely fictional person, untethered to the baggage of a historical slave who actually lived and suffered? Because as it is this book just feels exploitative.

It is by no means a terrible book, more like a 2.5, on the cusp of greatness but just held back by big transgressions. Like I said, Erickson is a good sentence crafter when he wants to be, and seeing as this was an early work I could see how his complex prose could be refined later into something more languid and properly evocative. And as I said in the previous paragraph, the book has a darker and more ominous atmosphere that uses that "genre-bending zaniness and irreverence" for something more dread-inducing than wacky humor or satire, which is no doubt refreshing, and the guy obviously cares about his characters. But my god there's just a lot working against this being anything near a cohesive and satisfying work. In any case, I don't want to judge him based on a single book he wrote early in his career, and I'm sure he could pull what he tries here to a much better and more thoughtful extent in his later works, which seem far more interesting. As it is, for me, this was just a lot of good pieces that were not put together, but just as many bad ones that push the whole thing over like a narrative Jenga game.

And before you comment, please don't ask me to write more negative reviews. I very much value being a Thing Liker, so writing this was pain. T_T

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book ever. I'm not kidding. It's the book I wish I had the talent to write anyway. It's surreal and chaotic and brilliant. Thomas Jefferson's in it and Thomas Pynchon thinks it's like the Declaration of Independence. It's essentially a surreal tale about the kinds of slavery we engage ourselves in at the then-cusp of the millennium but filtered through a crazy lens that includes Sally Hemings at the core of it. Etcher's pain moved me to bits. It's awesome. I can't praise this book enough.

[Ian Scuffling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you like alternative histories (and futures)? Do you like post-apocalyptic alternate universes? Are you interested in the surreal and its use as an absolute formal structure the shapes an entire novel? Have you ever seen Inland Empire and wondered how a film like that might work as a novel?

Beginning at Thomas Jefferson's first rape of his slave Sally, the novel uses Sally's soul, or spirit, as a kind of time-wanderer through the wastelands of alternative America. The novel then follows a kind of dream logic as it traverses Aeonopolis, a city in the west precariously placed between a volcano and a weird, literal underworld known as the Arboretum.

With harsh, theocratic rule that has erased conventional history, the characters vacillate between doom and self-liberation as they explore sex, murder, and the re-writing of history. Meanwhile, in yet another alternate timeline, an extra day is discovered between December 31, 1999, and January 1, 2000, and a new wall is being built in Berlin.

As time curls back on itself, as it is wont to do in Erickson's novels, we discover that in every familiar moment is the potential for dissolution, and in every dissolution is the potential for liberating upheaval.

[Eraserhead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great premise and opens like a shotgun blast. I was with him for the first first character shifts, but after a while it seemed like he was doing it just for the hell of it. I couldn't care less ebout Etcher, Georgie or Erickson, and the book sort of meanders past the point with clumsy allusions to History Slavery and Sex. The writing is also quite purple at time. You can only call someone's cunt her 'vacancy' for so long before I have to chuckle. I give it a three for the great writing that is there and the story's originality. It's kind of like one of those albums where the concept is perfect, the guitar is fine, but the songs are weak.

Arc D'x I think is still one of those examples where it is not because something's missing, but because there's too-much there, that keeps the book from being a masterpiece. Frankly, the Georgie scenes were so fucking heavy-hand, whispering AMERICA all the time, it brought down the rest of the book. Without these 50 or so pages, the Erickson and Berlin scenes, it would have been a much better book. I mean, the concept is pretty heavy-handed as is, but sometimes Erickson writes like an art-school bumluck, preposterous attempts at figuring his already pretty obvious allegorical idea--history re-written, American as a melange of dark (pun) and light, etc...---that he loses track of the novel's greatest positive: it's narrative thrust.

I'll probably always think of this book like how I view Dark Side of the Moon: A LOT of great things and those three bad songs that drag the album down. Unlike an album, however, I can't skip a tune.

3.5/5.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike the novels of Pynchon and Auster and the films of Lynch, I just wanted this to end as quickly as possible. I love the parallel identities, intricate metaphors, and worlds that Erickson creates, but his prose ultimately becomes too dense, repetitive, and boring to will the reader to do the mental gymnastics required in piecing together a piece of literature of this type.

And as an aside, Erickson is so under-read that there is almost no critical analysis of the novel that posits different interpretations. To me, half of the fun of a novel like this is its analysis afterwards. Whereas Lynch's Twin Peaks: The Return has myriad theories helping a viewer come to an interpretation, this novel has none. This novel's density would be much more forgiving if such a community existed around it and its author.

Nonetheless, I have massive respect for what Erickson set out to create here. I just find that other writers have been more successful.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

About five years ago I read Erickson's first novel, "Days Between Stations," and I loved it. In my Goodreads review I wrote - "Must read more Erickson!" And then I guess I forgot. Fortunately, last month, someone I don't know liked my old review, and I was reminded of my promise and did something about it. Thank heavens, because I liked this book even better (I should have realized I would when I saw on the back cover that it's blurbed by Thomas Pynchon and William Gibson) A fantasia of American history, centering around the figures of Sally Heming and Thomas Jefferson, the book freely mixes in every genre imaginable, but it never gets silly, and it never loses focus on its characters. This is really a book unlike any other you are likely to read.

[Carl · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a reread. Wasn't really working for me this time around, though, so I put it down. I'd still recommend to anyone who hasn't read Erickson. This or any of his other 3 early novels (Rubicon Beach, Days Between Stations, Tours of the Black Clock). Very much takes you into mesmerizing alternate dream-realities, usually somewhat post-apocalyptic. He has a fine hypnotic writing style. He can get pretty heavy-handed and repetitive with the metaphors, but he's much more accessible than, say, the French surrealists, if you've try to read them.

[eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like taking a Pynchon novel and stripping out the coherent bits and the humor to create an extended disturbing hallucination. Multiple storylines, each weird on its own, may or may not intersect (who can really tell?) but not in a coherent way that is apparent to me. What does it mean? I don't know but I like it a lot. I first read this a few years ago and am glad I decided to return.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good writing, cool atmosphere, too much sex (I'm definitely not a prude but it was a bit gratuitous). In the middle it seemed like it was going nowhere but the way he linked all the characters together at the end was fabulous.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pynchon on ARC D'X (1993):

Mind-warping in its vision, absolute in its integrity, Arc d'X is classic Erickson--as daring, crazy, and passionate as any American writing since the Declaration of Independence.

[Brandon Wicke · Rating 4 out of 5]

"there are only three things you die for. Love, freedom, or nothing." - pg 296

[Descending Angel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great opening and I was hooked at the start, but it quickly lost me, it was never even close to being as interesting again.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tough to think of a place to start here. I had come to this because I was kind of fascinated by Erickson's short story (which I guess is now a novel?) Zeroville, and this was the only book of his I ever seemed to find (and it had a glowing blurb from William Gibson, which, that's certainly something).

I finished this book and didn't feel that I enjoyed it. This reviewer: http://quarterlyconversation.com/arc-... and I seem to be mostly on the same page - I almost want to email this person and track them down to talk this out further, because the Lynch connection seems even stronger in light of the Twin Peaks material that's come out between then and now (watch the third season and read this book and tell me they're not on the same wavelength).

Anyhow, that's me digressing. The point in that review I wanted to get to here is this idea of Erickson "breaking the piano", hammering on these metaphors to the point that you kind of lose any sense of what the characters are doing. Twin Peaks is always interesting to me because you have these very human, down-to-earth stories overlapping and bouncing off of the activities of this weird, higher-dimensional battle that the show never really explains all that well. Here, what you do get of that human element (and I'm not saying it's not there, because it certainly is) is wrapped up in layer upon layer of all this other stuff (which, to be clear, is nowhere near as weird as that other stuff is in Twin Peaks, it's just that it feels impenetrable).

Overall, I came away from this feeling like Erickson's a really great writer, but he's just not for me, and that's fine.

[Mikko Saari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olen jo oppinut, ettei Steve Ericksonin kirjoilta kannata odottaa selkeää, kiltisti paikoilleen asettuvaa juonta. Tällä kertaa tarina alkaa virginialaisesta Jacob Pollrootista, joka kirjan ensimmäisessä lauseessa maistaa kuolemansa orjansa myrkyttämänä. Orja luonnollisesti teloitetaan, polttamalla. Rovion savun haistaa viisivuotias poika, nuori Thomas Jefferson.

Tästä kirja alkaa, keskiössään Thomas Jeffersonin ja orja Sally Hemingsin välinen suhde. Jollain tapaa — kirjan lukeneenakaan en osaa aivan tarkkaan sanoa miten — Erickson kuljettaa tarinaa futuristiseen teokratian hallitsemaan kaupunkiin ja vuosituhannen vaihteessa maailmanlopun tunnelmissa elävään Berliiniin. Sally pysyy kirjan kantavana teemana, mutta sivuosissa nähdään mielenkiintoinen joukkio, muun muassa amerikkalainen epäonnistunut kirjailija Erickson.

En voi kuin ihailla Ericksonin tapaa rakentaa tarinoitaan. Jotkut liitokset ja rajakohdat tuntuvat vähän hämäriltä, mutta lopulta kaikki asettuu varsin tyylikkäästi yhteen. Tässäkin kirjassa on useita kohtauksia, jotka nähdään useampaan kertaan eri henkilöiden näkökulmista, jolloin aikaisemmat mysteerit saavat selityksen. Muita Ericksonin kirjoja lukeneet saavat lisäksi nauttia jälleennäkemisistä tuttujen henkilöiden kanssa.

Hämärä kirja Arc d’X joka tapauksessa on, eikä se esimerkiksi taivu helpoiksi avainsanoiksi. Merkitään nyt ilmeisten henkilöiden ja paikkojen lisäksi vapaus, sen verran paljon kirjassa puhutaan orjuudesta, rakkaudesta, omistamisesta ja vapaudesta. Kaikessa vaikeaselkoisuudessaan kirja on tutustumisen arvoinen, kuten Ericksonin muutkin teokset. Kustantajat hoi, tässä olisi laadukasta kirjallisuutta suomennosta vailla! (25.5.2009)

[Brumaire Bodbyl-Mast · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book which fails in its ambition to some extent, oftentimes meandering through its various main plots. Whilst Sally’s character and portrayal can be a bit tasteless, Erickson does not totally delve fully into making some sort of mockery of the actual person, though I do have to question her inclusion behind it serving as a counter to the recurring pursuit of happiness mantra. The theocratic sections of the book, while definitely a fascinating setting, can prove overall lacking and oftentimes become drowned in confusion- though character plot lines are easier to follow, which is ultimately more important in this type of novel, as the setting can lose relevancy to some extent, so long as the characters prove interesting, which they often do. I will admit that my enjoyment of this book is choked somewhat both by some of its amorality in portrayal of Hemings but also because of personal life circumstances at the time of reading making it difficult to fully appreciate some of it. It has been on my reading list for a long while as well, which only adds to some disappointment I feel.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird but good in it's way

I don't even know how to respond to this book. It was confusing and weird. I like weird Nd confusing though. I think that I would have to read it again to grasp all the details i missed along the way which were brought up again near the end. The part in Germany i didn't really understand what was going on,
I think my mind blanked on something that came before that may have made it more clear.

[naomi wallis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the beginning of this book. It was the first novel I've read in a long time which immediately brought me into the story. It's dreamy and surreal. But the jumpy narrative started to get old. I began to lose interest in it after Wade. I was waiting for connections to happen and they didn't. I would have liked to have stayed with Sallys character for longer. The writing became repetitive after a while too. By page 250 I couldn't take any more so I have given up.. oh well!

[Stephen Toman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time I read Erickson (Zeroville) was like a bomb going off in my head and I’ve been working my way through his bibliography ever since. This one is similar to Days Between Stations and Rubicon Beach, sharing some characters. These early novels, with their sudden leaps between characters and places, remind me of the novel Snoopy was working on throughout Peanuts.

[Geoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

I pushed through this novel about a character named Sally Hemming who was raped by a man named Thomas. The novel follows a strange logic from revolutionary France through emptied out Berlin and a hypocritical religious state. At the heart of the novel is an exploration of "the pursuit of happiness." The novel disturbed me as it worked to provided agency for the raped Sally in her relationship with Thomas, and the other men who desire her through out Erickson's structure of history. Her agency depends upon their desire and not hers.

[Randy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm.

I am not at all sure I understand anything about this book.

[Kim Zinkowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Erickson...now I am a big fan. I've read this twice, not sure of the dates. Maybe its time for another read!

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is without a doubt one of the best books I’ve read. The depth, complexity and emotion of it. How this started moved and ended, brilliant.

[Erik Wyse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Further proof of the depth Erickson explores in his fiction, a depth that few novelists even consider.

[Vort Knorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

it slaps

[Lauren Miraglia. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very weird. I appreciated the writing style, lack of time flow consistency and the tie ins.

[Ubik 2.0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Torrenziale e labirintico, questo libro “massimalista” come è giustamente definito nella postfazione rende difficile esprimere un giudizio oggettivo e sereno. Il lettore è afferrato in continuazione da sensazioni contraddittorie ed alternativamente è catturato dal fascino dell’opera (irresistibile in alcuni capitoli) e respinto dall’artificialità di molti passaggi e personaggi che la costituiscono.

C’è una capacità di sorprendere che, unita all’inventiva e alla sovrabbondanza di temi, richiama non di rado il grande Philip Dick (e scusate se è poco!): l’abilità di agganciare il lettore non tanto o non solo con l’imprevedibilità degli eventi e la fantasia nel descrivere luoghi e situazioni, quanto soprattutto nel lasciarlo a bocca aperta in alcuni audacissimi salti di dimensione che obbligano molto spesso a tornare a precedenti pagine che alla prima lettura non erano risultate comprensibili: il tutto collegato da una sceneggiatura al tempo complicatissima ma strettamente concatenata.

Forse un po’ di autodisciplina in più non avrebbe guastato e avrebbe giovato alla coerenza della narrazione, ma è probabile che proprio la sovversione temporo – spaziale degli episodi, dei personaggi e delle situazioni (viste da un pesonaggio e 200 pagine dopo da un altro…) sia una componente insopprimibile del fascino che il testo emana.

Un libro da godere, ma pericolosissimo da consigliare a chicchessia perché non ammette mezze misure e non si potrebbe biasimare chi lo scagliasse dalla finestra dopo 100 pagine (non dico dopo 10 perché l’inizio folgorante è una delle chiavi con cui acchiappa anche il lettore più distratto, poi bisogna tenersi stretti!) Comunque, complimenti Mr.Erickson.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

More than anything else, this book brought into focus the failings of the five start rating system for me. Not because I had a particularly strong opinion one way or the other that five measly categories couldn't possibly manage to summarise, but rather the opposite.

Reading through the other reviews of this book (all twenty two of them), I was struck by how I empathised with them all. From the people who couldn't make it through the first one hundred pages because it was too uncomfortable - if uncomfortable even comes close - to the people who accepted that it was never supposed to be an easy read. From the people who were genuinely stunned by Erickson's construction of sentences to the people who thought it was pretentious and ridiculous. From the people who thought the structure was a mess to the people who thought it was a revelation.

I do think the book suffered from the inclusion of the Erickson (an American novelist in the book?) and Georgie sections. They made me check the clock on my phone every ten pages - the number one sin in literature - and didn't add much to the narrative. However, I'd definitely say to someone that they should read it, if only it meant that there was one more person in the world to discuss it with, but I couldn't recommend it in the same uncomplicated way I can recommend books I've rated 4+.