Sunday, June 27, 2010

The worst book of the decade?



This morning I finished this book. While I can't remember much of Life of Pi other than I enjoyed it, and it was weird, this book, THIS BOOK is wonderful.

I cried in the final pages, then got out of bed, remembering that I'd read some negative stuff about it. I googled, I found some reviews, and these comments in a review by a blogger called Edward Champion:

It contains a moral vision less sophisticated than the dribbing one might encounter from a human vegetable.

That the reviewer wrote the way he did because nobody was willing to call a clear turd out for what it was.

And my favourite:

Inarguably, I think, nearly anyone with any literary sensibility would recognize this as something truly vile...

Oh my god.

And this from another reviewer: disappointing and often perverse (The New York Times.)

There was a bad review in The Washington Post as well.

I loved this book, adored it. It was fresh, clever, so so so imaginative, concise, weird, moving, chilling. And did I mention imaginative?

Perverse? How so?

Vile? How so?

I wonder is it me? Or them?

Just goes to show books and what you like and don't like is such a personal thing.

I was stunned by how much I loved this book.

5 comments:

Cath said...

Books are such a personal thing. Frankly I think just about anything written by Bryce Courtenay worth nothing more than toilet paper, but still he continues one of Australia's "favourite" authors. Go figure. Then again, two of my all time favourite books are "Jane Eyre" and "American Psycho". Eclectic much?

suze2000 said...

I haven't read it, but Life of Pi does seem to be a bit controversial. Still, it's listed here:

http://www.abebooks.com/books/cant-put-down-great-reads-novels/more-two-sitting.shtml?cm_mmc=nl-_-nl-_-r00-ar1004-_-two-sitting

So I think the majority has it as good. :)

Anonymous said...

It's them. Taste Culture, and all that stuff. I *loved* Life of Pi. In a fatuous and all-consuming way. I am tripping off to find this book now. And I am sure that I, like you, will love it just as much.

squib said...

I didn't get past the first dozen pages of Pi. It was a long time ago and I can't remember why

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