Well, it is beautiful, in a way that has me begging for something other than descriptions of a fleeing man tumbling through pacific coast creeks and forests - and then obliges me with an immersive portrait of a Halloween party and its intermingling of castes - in which I'm still lost. Like I'm not nearly worthy of this novel. Sure, I admit that. But I read the whole thing anyway, and I'm glad I did.
Navarro supposed he should stand aside, on the alert, but he let himself be drawn into sassy conversations and drank two beers quickly beside the kegs. Waved to Mo, a dancing girl. She lifted her hand and passed along the edges of his own irrelevance like a figure on a carousel.
What is it about this book, that literary types rave about, and that I can appreciate on a baser level? It's the style, or the eye, and the ear, and how they work together to synaesthetically sense an angular momentum in life, roiling currents, the latent energies of something more elemental, yet ethereal. I'm straining to try and have a meaningful take on it, but the story resists that. It's a frustrating read, but also rewarding every few pages or so. And of course, more than the sum of its parts, but seeming less than. Seeming, WTF? What's the point?
I like the character Yvonne. The fact that I like a character, really only her, says something about the author, I guess. I also like that in an afterward, on page 436, the author cops to having "distorted the intent" of the text "A Course in Miracles", on which Yvonne's notions are based, also referring the reader to the original. So, she's not just a straw lady. Although maybe that, as well. All things to all people, maybe? Yeah, make yourself easy.
