Belinda Wood Wood itibaren 5000-471 Cabril, Portugal
The best of the three is the center novella, 'Rare and Endangered Species', which explores the corrosive effect that a mother's sudden suicide has on her friends and family - familiar waters, but Bausch's remarkable patience and subtlety wring poignancy out of the semi-rote material. At times I had to flip back a bit to remember how certain characters related to one another, but that's more a remark about my memory than about Bausch's prose. The serial killer/rapist stuff in the final novella was a little....odd. Recommended. Bausch's command of the family dynamic is on full display here; the cumulative effect of his collection of shorts had more of an effect on me than these three short novels had, but they're still quite good.
This book starts out pretty slow. It takes a true interest to get through the first 60 pages, but once you're through.. man, you're through. Opening with a whole bunch of convoluted details about this dystopian society is initially interesting, but becomes a little bit like reading a chemistry or biology text book. I don't know about you, but my late night study sessions never seemed to work when they were for science classes because the text always put me to sleep. After a few naps, I broke into the real narration which is compelling, interesting, and incredibly frightening, as I think a novel of this genre should be. I find Brave New World is truly Orwellian, except it veers off from Orwell's style in that the story is nowhere near as dark as Orwell's, until the end. Where I believe the ultimate moral to be that it is impossible for one to consciously veer from the direction in which society is moving without being destroyed or destroying himself. I think BNW is most accurately described as a mix of 1984 and Handmaid's Tale, with a little more happiness among the people who are living in the society, and a hint of Fahrenheit 451 (in that they are hoarding "old books," which is really just comparable to 1984's rewritten history). What I enjoyed most about this book (which I also enjoyed about Fahrenheit 451) is that I can see the world moving in the direction of this society. Although both 1984 and Handmaid's Tale have chilling aspects to their societies, it is most alarming when you see the baby steps towards the extremist actions being made around you as you read. In F451 it was the earbuds and the ever-expanding TVs. In BNW it's the ration of drugs, the want of technology that appeals to all 5 senses, and the promiscuity that is considered "normal." Overall, it's a very good book. I think an 8/10, however, is more than fair as the beginning is so prone to lose the interest of some readers and it still was not able to top other books I've read. Took me around 5 hours to read (not including the naps). Not too difficult and a bit of a page turner once the story unfolds around page 70.
It's a very unusual book. It's made up of a lot of loosely connected short stories with tragic endings that are a lot of fun to read. But then they end abruptly and I'm pissed... until I get into the next story. The process is emotionally tiring.