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Bezig met laden... City of Saints and Madmen (editie 2006)door Jeff VanderMeer (Auteur)
Informatie over het werkCity of Saints and Madmen door Jeff VanderMeer
Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. This was an odd one! With the China Mieville quotes dripping off the cover, I guess it's framed as some of that "New Weird." It's not a novel; it's a collection of documents, presented as source material, around the central cultural whirlpool of the fictional city of Ambergris. There's an absolutely overflowing and overwrought love story about a priest-for-hire. There's a snarky historical tract, full of references to Ambergris authors and historians, sprinkled with hilarious footnotes. There's a self-published tract on the Freshwater Squid and the festival of destruction that celebrates it. There's a race of mushroom people who live under the city. There is Ambergrisian fiction and art criticism...And more, and more. Some of it fascinates, some of it sort of thuds. But the humor and verbal pyrotechnics hold together the world he has crafted, and you come away believing in the city, its freaky people, its mildew, its many odors. Worth reading! It is not the author's fault the publisher made a comparison to Mieville. Nevertheless, the comparison is there. Crobuzon was an act of world-building; Saints & Madmen is a book about the act of world-building. I have nothing against that as a theme. The problem with this book is that... oh, how do I say this. It's an obsessive, intense, overly self-aware look into the world-building, but I never got to see the world enough to love it as much as the author. There is nothing to carry me through the overlaid narrative, nothing to help me share in the obsession enough to want to keep reading. I did keep reading nonetheless, and there are a few moments, sections, that show an interesting imagination and an ability to compel. Those are the moments that made me want to like this. I just wish there were more of them. This is not so much a story but rather an insight into a world through random snippets of it. From interactions between people to research, there is a lot going on here. I love world building, but I don't know. This wasn't exactly what I expected (to be fair, I didn't know what I was expecting - this wasn't it though.) Some parts were lots of fun but there were other parts I just kind of skimmed through as well. Here's the problem with this book. I really liked it. I appreciate intricate world building, I love the postmodern fantasy stuff, and I'm a sucker for any fiction with footnotes. The problem is, Ambergris still operates in a patriarchy (or at least, there's no reason to assume it doesn't) and this book fails the Bechdel test so hard it's like an F minus. I don't require that books take place in an all-women lesbian feminist utopia (would be nice to live there, but kind of boring to read about) but when so much design and creativity has been put into a book, it's an embarrassing oversight to not address gender as something that could also be rewritten. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Onderdeel van de reeks(en)Ambergris (Expanded edition of 1) Is opgenomen inBevatX's Notes door Jeff VanderMeer The Cage door Jeff VanderMeer Dradin, in love: A tale of elsewhen & otherwhere (Buzzcity first editions) door Jeff VanderMeer (indirect) The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris by Duncan Shriek door Jeff VanderMeer (indirect) The Transformation Of Martin Lake door Jeff VanderMeer (indirect) The Strange Case Of X door Jeff VanderMeer (indirect)
Fantasy.
Fiction.
Short Stories.
HTML: In City of Saints and Madmen, Jeff VanderMeer has reinvented the literature of the fantastic. You hold in your hands an invitation to a place unlike any you've ever visited--an invitation delivered by one of our most audacious and astonishing literary magicians. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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The only other book I've read by Vandermeer is Borne, which I quite liked. This is as different from that as it is possible to be. Very imaginative, fairly original. Reminds me of The Vorhh by B. Catling.
Dradin, In Love: the prose is nice, but I thought the story was kind of predictable. The twist was not a twist, for me, because I have read something similar and thus saw it coming. The setting and prose style were arresting, but the actual story, not so much.
Put it down for a few weeks, picked it up again.
The Goegbotton Guide to the Early History of the City of Ambergris: Different style altogether. An early history of the conquest and renaming of Ambergris, and the genocide of its first inhabitants. And its second inhabitantants. More of a horror vibe couched in a dry and meandering but strangely compelling narrative voice. Not unlike Steven Brust's Khaavren Romances. Read the footnotes.