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Hawthorn & Child (2012)

by Keith Ridgway(Favorite Author)

3.43 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1847085261 (ISBN13: 9781847085269)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Granta

review 1: Meh. I knew I was in for it when I saw that one of the main characters referenced his erection like five times in his first seven pages of stream-of-consciousness. Pretty good indicator that this was not going to be my jam. This was allegedly innovative! And experimental! But really, it was just a collection of short stories that were held together by the same two characters appearing somewhere in each story. Some of the stories were better than others, but if there was a larger point in there somewhere, it never became evident. Short stories that lack any sort of context aren't so much groundbreaking as frustrating. Making your message super esoteric and difficult to ascertain doesn't make you smarter than everyone else, but it does make you kind of an irritating writer. ... moreAlso, including a chapter where a teenage girl monologues about art in a way that makes it super clear that she is actually talking about your awesome experimental novel is both meta and very, very ridiculous. Thanks for telling me how to appreciate your book, dude! Pass.
review 2: I'd like to give this book a 3, but it just didn't quite make it there. It was readable once I got into it. Ridgway's writing style is different, but kind of like reading Shakespeare, once you get into the rhythm of it, it's fine. And I enjoyed reading the book. The problem is that there was no plot or conclusion to the story. It seemed like there was a plot, but as the book comes to a close you realize that there will be no resolution. To anything. The book just ends randomly. It could have ended on any one of the 246 pages prior to the last one and it would not have made any difference. Admittedly, the book is about the characters, not the plot details, but there still needs to be a story of some sort to drive the character development. Anyway, although I mostly enjoyed reading the book once I got used to Ridgway's writing style, it's certainly not a book I would recommend, read again, or one that provides a lot of food for thought afterward. less

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