Oneai itibaren Comuna Limanu
Yeah, I read this book because my boyfriend at the time told me that it was Very Important and blah. Lordy. It sucked. I give Morrie five stars, but the cloying, chicken-soup-for-the-soul-y author 1.
Zoe Heller is sui generis, a gutsy, peerless writer with master control of her narrative. This is a family saga that takes no prisoners. Her sardonic style is crisp, erudite. Her characters are not caricatures--as outrageous as they are, they feel true. Audrey Litvinoff, the matriarch, is a flinty, pained woman with a major character disorder. While her husband lies in a coma, she is told some uncomfortable news about his dirty little secrets. With a kind of acerbic, acid aplomb, she spins into a denial that threatens to unravel her. As it is, she is wound so tight that I felt my own circulation threatening to block off. But she is so exuberant that I was often reeling in her energy. She is staggered by her own wretchedness and projects it onto those around her. She is especially harsh to her own daughters, but overprotects and enables her drug-addicted son. Her daughters, Karla and Rosa, are choked by their mother's dominance and have no sense of their own identity. Karla lives in her husband's shadow and Rosa seeks a self through Orthodox Judaism. Audrey's son, Lenny, could be reductively defined as a spoiled, angry brat. He is certainly a lost soul--a weak, spineless, selfish son of his mother (although he was adopted). Heller's prose is so muscular it punctures the air, it leaves streaks of blood on your fingers as you turn the pages. I had an out and out blast reading this novel. It is lofty, but wet and juicy and wholly entertaining. The pages flowed with as much alacrity as her narrative. It nearly singed my fingers. This is my first Heller novel. Some reviewers complain that her characters are not likable. Well, paradoxically, I don't necessarily like a character that is likable. I like them vivid and buzzing and original. Audrey leaps out of the novel and claws your face--and I still had empathy for her. I was moved by her and the events of this story. This is one author that has made a believer out of me.
A collection of stories spanning 6,000 years in the environs of where the town of Northampton currently stands. A brilliant debut in this medium by someone more familiar with writing comics. Alan Moore adopts the masks of a range of characters with an engaging panache. These different characters lead to a variety of styles and tones across the whole work. Re-readings will be worthwhile to pick out the related strands that run through the millenia. A couple of the tales did pass me by, but the majority are startling works that left exhilirating impressions on my mind. As a reader of John Clare it was wonderful to find that other great man appear towards the end of Voice of the Fire. Alan Moore's writing in that episode mimics Clare's prose style with sensitivity and the tale has some of the work's most poignant moments. I believe Moore's near completion of his second novel, Jerusalem. I suspect it will be an improvement on this one but that is not to say Voice of the Fire is not a fine book, coloured as it is with madness, lust and dream language.