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Loading... Subdivision (2021)by J. Robert Lennon
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. A book that wants to be Murakami, but isn't. Characters lack depth, everything feels very blasé. There are also similarities with the fantastic video game Kentucky Route Zero in its surrealist portrayal of a hollowed-out working class community, but ultimately these, as with everything else in the book, are only pale immitations of much better works. The central storyline? metaphor? here is pretty clear, starting early on, and for that reason I needed either more or less. More surrealism, or more integration of the other characters and symbols. More reveals, or just less precious ones. I don't know, I liked the pacing and the tone, but I'm not sold. It's possible in a week I'll still be thinking about it, and it's possible I'll have forgotten it completely. This book is a puzzle. I couldn't tell you what it means to convey, but somehow I liked it. The unnamed narrator (a young woman it seems) has arrived in the subdivision seemingly to start a new life. She takes a room at the guest house run by two older women, Clara and the Judge. However, both women are named Clara and both are retired judges, so our narrator is never sure which woman is Clara and which the Judge. Besides constantly urging the narrator to work on the puzzle (which is constantly changing), Clara and the Judge give her a hand-drawn map of the subdivision as well as leads on how to find permanent housing and a job. The road to the city is blocked off. On her first day exploring, the narrator purchases an Alexa-like device. named Cylvia, which provides advice and assistance and which is constantly mutating. She also comes across the bakemono, a sort of shape-shifting demon who will be a threatening feature through-out. Cylvia helpfully warns her, "You must not fornicate with the bakemono." The NYT described this as an "enigma packed with miniature mysteries." I don't usually like novels that are dream-like and feature seemingly pointless journeys, but I did quite like this one, and I'm still trying to figure out why. 3 1/2 stars This is a really good book. Reminded me of Murakami, also reminded me of a really good young adult book called Measle and the Wrathmonk. Has a little of a Charlie Kaufmann feel - psychological mystery, fun characters, weird unexpected wrinkles in reality. The leaps it takes are just far enough to keep you engaged in following the thread, and makes for a compelling read. I got through it in two days, this was a library thing recommendation and man that algorithm nailed it. no reviews | add a review
"A heady, inventive, fantastical novel about the nature of memory and the difficulty of confronting trauma. An unnamed woman checks into a guesthouse in a mysterious district known only as the Subdivision. The guesthouse's owners, Clara and the Judge, are welcoming and helpful, if oddly preoccupied by the perpetually baffling jigsaw puzzle in the living room. With little more than a hand-drawn map and vague memories of her troubled past, the narrator ventures out in search of a job, an apartment, and a fresh start in life. Accompanied by an unusually assertive digital assistant named Cylvia, the narrator is drawn deeper into an increasingly strange, surreal, and threatening world, which reveals itself to her through a series of darkly comic encounters reminiscent of Gulliver's Travels. A lovelorn truck driver . . . a mysterious child . . . a watchful crow. A cryptic birthday party. A baffling physics experiment in a defunct office tower where some calamity once happened. Through it all, the narrator is tempted and manipulated by the bakemono, a shape-shifting demon who poses a distinctly terrifying danger. Harrowing, meticulous, and deranged, Subdivision is a brilliant maze of a novel. With the narrative intensity and mordant humor familiar to readers of Broken River, J. Robert Lennon continues his exploration of the mysteries of perception and memory."--Provided by publisher. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature American literature in English American fiction in English 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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