Lost City Radio in Constant Reader

Jun 02, 2008 Yulia marked it as left-unfinished

I've gotten 56 pages into it so far and have nothing to complain about, which is unusual for me. I don't think of it as having a sci-fi atmosphere, as some readers suggest. Though it does have the dystopian bearings of books like 1984 and We, those worlds are all too recognizable and easy to identify with. No flying cars or talking robots here. What the book does have is clean, evocative language that creates a vivid and foreign landscape. And no, Alarcon doesn't sprinkle in Spanish words to rem I've gotten 56 pages into it so far and have nothing to complain about, which is unusual for me. I don't think of it as having a sci-fi atmosphere, as some readers suggest. Though it does have the dystopian bearings of books like 1984 and We, those worlds are all too recognizable and easy to identify with. No flying cars or talking robots here. What the book does have is clean, evocative language that creates a vivid and foreign landscape. And no, Alarcon doesn't sprinkle in Spanish words to remind us we're in South America or to give his characters a cultural flavor. (Junot Diaz, pay attention.)

So what's wrong with me? Why aren't I racing through this? I've yet to figure that out. I do want to know what happens, but . . . but . . . Does it lack momentum? Am I lying to myself about caring about the characters?

No, I figured out what's bugging me. I'll admit first I never cared for the writing of 1984 or Brave New World, found many passages in both embarrassing even. But those books I read in high school, where there was no choice (for me) not to finish them, and even in college, when assigned We in a class, I finished it, though not caring for it and finding the ending very problematic. So now we have Alarcon, who is actually much more readable and delivers a fluid prose, sympathetic characters, and a puzzle that makes you want to know what happens.

So what's the problem? Beneath my approval of the writing and my interest in the story, I feel Alarcon hasn't created a concrete framework for his unnamed country. It isn't enough to know people always try to take over the government or that wars are always started or imagined by the government. Perhaps Alarcon doesn't want to get bogged down in the specifics of a particular corruption or scandal; he wants to make his country's problems and his message against war universal, which is commendable in theory, but these generalities don't make for a convincing book. His world feels like an experiment, but an incomplete one with not all the instructions identified. Maybe such problems are inevitable when an author creates and speaks for a society rather than a finite group of individuals. Is that what the book jacket reviews are hinting at when they call this book "ambitious"?

I watched "In the Valley of Elah" a few nights ago. It portrayed the human costs of war on our soldiers: on their psyche, their moral boundaries, their diminishing value of human life. This book, by contrast, seems too abstract to pierce my consciousness. Make me care!

I think I would tolerate it more if it were read to me. Frank read me The Trial, whose coquettish vagueness would otherwise bring me to a halt. That's the way to finish this. ...more

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Oct 10, 2007 Barbara rated it it was amazing

Daniel Alarcon does a remarkable job of putting the reader in the environment of a country that has been at war with itself for so long that the people have lost touch with themselves. What happens to a man when a teenaged prank is mistaken as revolutionary action and alters his life forever? What happens to a newsperson who goes on the air each week but can't report the news? How are people changed psychologically when they never know where the next blow will come from, when there is no logic t ...more

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Oct 15, 2007 Jim rated it liked it

Technically very interesting with unannounced flashbacks and flashforwards keeping things lively. The characters seemed a little one dimensional, but the conception of what life would be like in a post-revolutionary country was compelling. In a way, the book reminded me of a lot of science fiction where the point is the imagined world and not the characters in it.

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Oct 18, 2007 Kim rated it liked it

I enjoyed Alarcon’s crisp, descriptive writing and the way the narrative is woven between the past and the present.

In the first chapter, I thought there was an Orwell/Huxley Sci-Fi feel but quickly abandoned that notion. Sci-fi seems more tangible, easier to identify with because trying to understand the devastating effects of war is too hard.

Even though I was enjoying reading the book, I was disappointed with the characters. I wanted Norma to be more. She was suppose to be a journalist – why ...more

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Feb 22, 2009 William rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2009

Very well done. Captures well the feelings of loss and futility of people caught up in the civil war of an unnamed Latin American country.
Norma is a brodcaster on whose radio show people call in with the names of those with show they've lost contact in the hopes that they will be listening and reunited. Norma herself has lost her husband without knowing how or even whether he is alive. One day, a young boy arrives at the station and his story fills in a large gap in her life.
Only one character i ...more

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Aug 30, 2007 Clifford rated it really liked it

This is an interesting read set in an unnamed country at an unnamed time, about people trying to connect. For more, see my review at: Perpetual Folly ...more

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Oct 12, 2007 Dottie rated it liked it

Shelves: ocitylibrary, reading-list, 2007

Disturbing and rather hopeless -- and a bit depressing. The characters were sweet and sad and locked within the horrors which enveloped them -- is there a ray of hope? I'm not sure. But what a powerful story. ...more

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