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Bezig met laden... Horace Afootdoor Frederick Reuss
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 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.  juniperSun | Jul 22, 2013 |  geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
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Fiction "Quietly entertaining, thought-filled. . . . The narrative voice is particularly congenial--cool and unflappable, often humorous." --Washington Post Book World Not since The Moviegoer has a first novel limned the human condition with such originality and subtle insight. A small-town iconoclast who is at once deeply principled and occasionally as absurd as the world he rebels against, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (or Horace) has assumed the name of a Roman poet and has forsworn automobiles, and entertains himself by telephoning strangers to ask them what love is or what they think of St. Bernards. His neighbors in the Midwestern town of Oblivion consider him wacko. This suits Horace just fine, since all he wants in life is "the serenity of not caring." But people are conspiring to make Horace care about them. There's the dying librarian who finds Horace's morbid curiosity oddly bracing. There's the mysterious woman whom Horace rescues, only to become obsessed with her identity. And as Horace finds himself drawn into their affairs, Horace Afoot depicts the unruly dialogue of his mind and heart with sly wit and splendid generosity of feeling. "Delights continuously with its humor, originality and . . . unfolding personalities." --Rocky Mountain News 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: (3.91)
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Horace is so careful with his use of words that his use of "autism" nags at me--could there be a previous definition, preferrably used by ancient Greeks or Romans? Not that I can find. Is this a subtle hint that Horace is a high-functioning autistic? He has a number of idiosyncratic characteristics: he's a loner, with no clue as to human motivations, has a vast store of memorized texts, often in the original Latin, and a hatred of internal combustion engines. But if he's being scripted as someone with Aspberger's, why isn't this used as a marketing ploy, given the current interest in autism? Perhaps because Reuss is not autistic, so the musings are only his imagination of how an autistic person would think...or perhaps because his point eventually is that Horace is as normal as any of us.
All of these ramblings ignore the subplot of a young punk's interest in Horace and the fate of the rape victim Horace aids (p. 30).
The jacket blurb calls the novel "brilliantly comic". The brilliant part is likely true, but the comedy is fairly subtle. For example, when the archaeologists are hampered in their dig because the site is a "grackle nesting ground" (p. 244) I'm not sure if the sheriff is being his usual asinine self or if the author is expecting us to know this is ridiculous. Or when Horace ponders over what to name his crow (234) while the neighbor kid bids it goodbye "Dracula" (p. 241).
There is quite a lot of alcohol consumed, which may explain the obsessive thoughts that go no where. Happily there are jumps of several months at some chapters, so the reader can get to the action without ploughing thru too many internal monologues.
This would be an excellent book for anyone of a philosophical bent, who attempts to find meaning in life and has an appreciation for the ancient philosophers. It would also be a good book for anyone who thinks life is absurd. (