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The Golden Age (2010)

by Michal Ajvaz(Favorite Author)

3.65 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1564785785 (ISBN13: 9781564785787)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Dalkey Archive Press

review 1: Meta fiction like The Golden Age can be a mixed bag and my feelings after finishing it are certainly mixed. On one hand, there are some truly beautiful and transcendent images woven throughout the book. Many places where similarities to Borges and Calvino are clear. Yet the story is a jumbled mess of diversions and chaotic, fractured meaning. Where Borges and Calvino manage to turn these motifs into poignancy, Ajvaz only hits pretense. Though I found myself enjoying it more by the end, writing that engages in this kind of intellectual tomfoolery has always seemed me like an emperor without clothes.
review 2: If this novel is a utopian fantasy, then Michal Ajvaz’s tome is a deification of apathy. He attempts to resurrect Borges’ Tower, but only provides us w... moreith an island and its inhabitants who devote themselves to disappointment and dejection. Instead of shrugging these off, the islanders pursue it as the norm. This convex mirror does not really offer us a different way of interpreting the world, or even a reinterpretation of the familiar. All we end up with are the hallmark symptoms of schizophrenia. So, my question is—if you finish a 329 page novel about apathy, does that make you apathetic? I wouldn’t know. less

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