"The novel's literal level almost sports the pacing of a thriller as Yambo pieces his past together, and on a more metaphysical level, it addresses provocative and never outdated or irrelevant questions about the integrity of one's identity and the irresistible attempt to estimate, while still a part of the community of the living, one's lasting imprint on the global slate." (Brad Hopper, Review Booklist)
I just completed 100 years of solitude. I rarely ever finish a book, I mean, really read and savor every word, but the rhetoric flowed like poetry. But, the book itself is so incredibly beautiful. After completion, I wondered how I would ever be able to read a book that beautiful again. I honestly haven't read something that well done since Les Miserables. Sometimes, I wish I could re-read a book and experience it for the first time again, to experience the world, ideas, characters and rhetoric/syntax all over again. To see a beautiful work of art unfold right before my eyes and in my head. Human creativity is so wonderful. And. I wonder if we become less aware of the beauty around us because we become so accustomed to it. We see beautiful things everyday if we can just look for them.
Realizing this, I didn't want to read another book for a while. I wanted to let the words sit and I wanted the ideas to savor, that is, until I picked up The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. I'm fascinated with the ideas of 'the modern' the 'postmodern' and the (arguably) post-postmodern cultural representations of art/literature.This book incorporates fragmented structure, images to words/description and is divided into parts with chapters inside. The whole is completed by small parts in non-sequential order. Oh, postmodern, how I love you!
And, I have to wonder what a book will be in the next 50 years.
I think people forget that humans, on a wide scale, have only have the ability to be literate since the invention of the printing press, a mere 500-600 years. The written word is relatively new on a global scale. Words were spoken, not written. They were sounds people made to convey their thoughts, ideas and feelings. Language wasn't something someone saw, it was something someone heard. Unless you were part of the clergy or arististocracy... So with this shift in the written word in relation to the invention of technology and its exponential growth rate, what will a book become? It is obvious that pages in a novel are changing with the use of the internet and mutlimedia.
Art and literature is a reflection of society, of culture, of values. I often wonder how the structure, form, and ideas in a novel will evolve as technology and our dependence on it increases. And I'm not talking some extremist bull where books are on screens that are files, I just wonder how authors and artists will push to be original given that most things in a book have already been done. And how technology will be an outlet for the avant-garde.
I just completed 100 years of solitude. I rarely ever finish a book, I mean, really read and savor every word, but the rhetoric flowed like poetry. But, the book itself is so incredibly beautiful. After completion, I wondered how I would ever be able to read a book that beautiful again. I honestly haven't read something that well done since Les Miserables. Sometimes, I wish I could re-read a book and experience it for the first time again, to experience the world, ideas, characters and rhetoric/syntax all over again. To see a beautiful work of art unfold right before my eyes and in my head. Human creativity is so wonderful. And. I wonder if we become less aware of the beauty around us because we become so accustomed to it. We see beautiful things everyday if we can just look for them.
Realizing this, I didn't want to read another book for a while. I wanted to let the words sit and I wanted the ideas to savor, that is, until I picked up The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. I'm fascinated with the ideas of 'the modern' the 'postmodern' and the (arguably) post-postmodern cultural representations of art/literature.This book incorporates fragmented structure, images to words/description and is divided into parts with chapters inside. The whole is completed by small parts in non-sequential order. Oh, postmodern, how I love you!
And, I have to wonder what a book will be in the next 50 years.
I think people forget that humans, on a wide scale, have only have the ability to be literate since the invention of the printing press, a mere 500-600 years. The written word is relatively new on a global scale. Words were spoken, not written. They were sounds people made to convey their thoughts, ideas and feelings. Language wasn't something someone saw, it was something someone heard. Unless you were part of the clergy or arististocracy... So with this shift in the written word in relation to the invention of technology and its exponential growth rate, what will a book become? It is obvious that pages in a novel are changing with the use of the internet and mutlimedia.
Art and literature is a reflection of society, of culture, of values. I often wonder how the structure, form, and ideas in a novel will evolve as technology and our dependence on it increases. And I'm not talking some extremist bull where books are on screens that are files, I just wonder how authors and artists will push to be original given that most things in a book have already been done. And how technology will be an outlet for the avant-garde.
No comments:
Post a Comment