Reviews

• I have never read anything like this before in my life. It was a balance of realism and supernatural that I wouldn't have thought possible to achieve. The characters, the storyline and the ideas were mostly rare or at least uncommon, especially the combination of all three. This made a refreshing change from most mainstream fiction I usually read, and I think that is what made it such an interesting and captivating read for me.

• well, this is not your everyday book. first of all, it doesn't make "logical" sense, so if that bothers you, don't read this. this is a made up story, pretty clearly, and involves some pretty tall tales. it makes sense within the story, it has its own internal logic. i think this would be classified as "magical realism". the characters within the story reminds me of stories by authors like isabel allende, early barbara kingsolver, and kurt vonnegut- all great writers with fantastic imaginations. not very ordinary characters. maybe they came from the pages of junot diaz and ended up in the world of kurt vonnegut. that is quite a journey. but a journey that makes sense, within the framework of this storyline. some of the story is heartbreaking, some is funny, all of it is strange, but in a good way....the writer is a great writer, that is very clear. i am not sure how to underline in my kindle, but there were certain passages i wanted to underline because they were written so well; some of the thoughts were so profound, and so poetic. if you don't understand this story at first, i'd say: go with it, and you will be rewarded. this is a very special book, and the writer, clearly a very special writer. i'm going to look up his other books. i actually was reading something on a sci-fi book site about a writer who has a book coming out featuring a devil in an insane asylum. the book sounded interesting, and the article mentioned one of the author's earlier books, called "big machine". i remembered i'd bought a book with that name some time ago, in a kindle free or .99 offer, and i found it in my kindle. book #378 of #689. yes, i have accumulated quite a few books, to say the least. and most are of that price range- cheap to free. i started reading "big machine" and found myself captured by the main character, invested in what happens to him..... and then the story got stranger and stranger, but i held on....so glad i did.

• I really wish there had been more of the angels/devils plotline, but then again, mysteries are better that way: unexplained. Maybe it's just that the flashbacks and explanations were coming so slowly. It took me about 223 pages to really get into the story and just plough on because I wanted to know what would happen next. And the plot twist that did it was the biggest reveal, the one about the *most* mind-boggling event in this story (and one reason why the blurb says that this book is about "the monsters we carry within us"). The thing I felt most uncomfortable though (and maybe I'm not alone there) was the semi-shamanic scene with the cats. An again: less of an explanation instead of more. Which is a good thing.

• I finished reading Big Machine by Victor LaValle recently. I was skeptical in the beginning -- the first 100 pages -- but then I started to enjoy reading it. Faith and race are the predominant themes throughout, the characters are well-written. Ricky Rice, the narrator and central character, comes from a shady past -- his childhood was spent in New York City where his family was part of a cult, the Washerwoman. The mass killing that took place as the police were about to storm the building shaped Ricky's adult life; he was a drug addict and general loser. In his 40s, he works as a janitor at bus stations until he receives a mysterious envelope containing a bus ticket to Vermont and a note. He becomes a member of the Washburn Library as an Unlikely Scholar. His job is to scour the pages of newspapers looking for strange news; people hearing voices, seeing ghosts. Not long after he comes to the Washburn Library, he is sent out into the field to help kill an Unlikely Scholar trying to form his own group/cult/religion. Faith can create monsters. Doubt can too.

• This book made a big splash in the States, but I felt it was yet another novel with about three other novels inside it. Hints of Murakami and Pynchon as janitor Ricky Rice gets a cryptic note in the post that refers to a traumatic event in his past. It has a nice, easy-going tone to it. Bu then we're swiftly into secret libraries, paranormal investigations, religio-suicide cults, terrorism, drug addiction, alcoholism, serial killers, evil spirits, civil rights yadda yadda yadda. The whole nine yards and one more in case you hadn't taken your Ritalin. The narrative line gets increasingly tortuous as we lurch from revelation to revelation, from one sensational event to another. I hardly ever watch series like Dr. Who or Lost, but this novel felt like it had imbibed some of that kind of logic-free hyperactivity. Result - tedium. Exuberance, all for it: but like the last American novel I read, 'The Brief History of the Dead', this one is overstuffed.

Purchase links