Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier by Mark Frost
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I am a Twin Peaks superfan, so please understand that this was always destined to be an automatic five star. To that, I will add that this book is beautifully designed, extremely fun, and just satisfying enough that I felt I found some answers to what happened after Twin Peaks: The Return, but enough mystery was preserved that it’s still deliciously perplexing. (Also, the Margaret Coulson file made me cry!)
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Category: Experimental Fiction
Book Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is my second read of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I first read it the year that it came out, just a few short years after 9/11. I remember being astounded by Foer’s work, and how it stumbled through the rubble of that tragedy and tried to tell the story of America. Returning to it now, it feels different, but still brilliant. I particularly noticed how deftly Foer layers the generational experiences of loss, of war, of fathers and sons, of wives and husbands–history repeats but never reverses. In this story, we learn along with the remarkable young protagonist that there are always new inventions of love and terror, regrets that frame our identities, and ways to hold what we have while it’s in front of us. It’s one of the most human books I’ve ever read.
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Book Review: Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer
Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Before even thinking about reading this book, ask yourself three questions:
1. Have I read Borne yet?
2. Do I love Jeff VanderMeer from the very depths of my soul?
3. Am I down for a HIGHLY (whatever you’re thinking, add five to it) experimental narrative structure?
If you answered yes to all three questions, like me, you may proceed.
Dead Astronauts is a demanding journey through many perspectives, most of which are not (or not quite) human. There are multiple timelines woven through simultaneously, and the characters that you begin the book with are not the characters that you’ll stay with. I had to smile as I was reading because I do love Jeff VanderMeer from the very depths of my soul and I have never seen him write with such absolute freedom. Jeff has been unleashed here, and in order to enjoy the book, you need to just trust that after carrying you through bout after bout of madness, that he will ultimately carry you back to a place, in the end, where you feel the full essence and meaning of the book. Even for me, it was hard to trust at times, but once I got there, it was incredibly satisfying. This book broke my heart a little and I didn’t even fully know what happened. It’s not really a book. It’s more like a ride.
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Book Review: S. (Ship of Theseus) by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
Ship of Theseus by J.J. Abrams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
S. or Ship of Theseus is an intensely satisfying reading experience for those who enjoy metafiction and experimental literature. It is a time-consuming but deliciously tactile journey that lends the same surge of intrigue as unfolding a handwritten note that falls out of somewhere unexpected. You don’t know what it contains, or who wrote it, but as you read, you see the traces of the writer–an employer, a friend, a lover, a parent, whomever–writing from a specific place in time, to a specific recipient. And you feel that forbidden drive to read… because of the fact that those words that weren’t meant for you. Combine that feeling with an actual entire literary novel-within-a-novel that is, in itself, spooky, stirring, and Hemingway-esque. And, as garnish, you feel the unique pull of an academic obsession that multiplies as commonality and connection reaches two people who find that their obsession is shared.
This is not a normal book. It is an amalgamation of multi-colored annotations, footnotes, letters, postcards, newspapers, cards, and drawings that exist because of the book. It takes patience. All of it is an absolutely staggering invention. Hats off to Doug Dorst (writer) and J.J. Abrams (concept/story) on this unique tribute to the love of literature.
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Book review: Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski
Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I would actually rate Only Revolutions as “impossible to rate.” I’ve had this book on my shelf for a decade and I decided that it was finally time to take on this beast, a dual-perspectived love story written like beat poetry and spanning centuries. It is an incredible feat of experimental literature–you have never read anything like it. I enjoyed analyzing Danielewski’s craft acrobatics. This book doesn’t care what year it is or what you expect from it. It is difficult and bizarre. For me, the heart of the story lay in Sam’s final pages. Much of it I wasn’t sure what to do with. The mood of this novel is America, and it celebrates the fear, unconquerable joy, and surging energy of youth. My favorite part of this reading experience, though, was leaving the book at a Little Free Library deep in the remote Minnesota north woods. Someone is going to find this, read it, and be like “what the hell”? ?