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S'està carregant… Dear Cyborgs: A Novel (2017 original; edició 2017)de Eugene Lim (Autor)
Informació de l'obraDear Cyborgs: A Novel de Eugene Lim (2017)
S'està carregant…
Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. If this short novel (technically novella at 38K words) was any longer, I probably would not have finished it. Two Asian-American boys in rural Ohio bond over being the only Asian boys in their class and comics. A trio of superheroes (one of which is not from Earth) go to a karaoke bar. Art is used both as a means of protest and as a psychiatrist (or almost). A female super-villain tells her story to an immobilized superhero (more than once). Random characters (mostly from the list of people already mentioned above) tell stories and then others try to upstage them with their own story. A chapter from a pulp novel (which reads more like a bad parody of a pulp novel - I am not even sure if the bad part was intentional or if the author really thinks that this is what pulp novels sound like). Political commentary and protest against the corporations, thinly disguised as philosophy and plot points. Each of these on its own may have made a decent story. Instead Lim just put all of them in a blender, sprinkled some action and actual facts (the stories of Richard Aoki and Kiyoshi Kuromiya) and served the result to us well chilled. It is a jagged mess of half-stories and attempts at philosophy (which almost never work and often sound like word salad). The story requires patience - things that do not make sense get clearer as the novel progresses and the last chapter ties everything together and explains what we had been reading (or almost does anyway). I can see what the author was trying to achieve and maybe a different author would have pulled it off. This one did not really succeed - at the end, what remains is the jaggedness and not the cohesiveness of the story. Maybe this will work better for someone who like nontraditional forms more than I do. I usually love structures which employ nested stories and this one makes an attempt at that (or at a broken form of it) but something is missing and just does not fit well to actually close the structure properly - for the most part the novel feels like a puzzle - except that pieces of it had been removed and pieces from 4 other puzzles had been added instead. Another of the ToB shortlist for 2018 and this may have been the biggest disappointment so far. Staccato bursts of geeky interest that reveal onion layers of not terribly much. Parts of this felt like chore, sadly, and there was no great payoff bringing it all together. It was all a bit... er... bitty. Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
"A fractal fable about the possibility and power of protest as told by three superheroes on their lunch break In a small Midwestern town, two Asian American boys bond over their outcast status and a mutual love of comic books. Meanwhile, in an alternative or perhaps future universe, a team of superheroes ponders modern society during their time off. Between black-ops missions and rescuing hostages, they swap stories of artistic malaise and muse on the seemingly inescapable grip of market economics. Gleefully toying with the conventions of the novel, Dear Cyborgs weaves together the story of a friendship's dissolution with a provocative and lively meditation on protest. Through a series of linked monologues, a surprising cast of characters explores narratives of resistance--protest art, eco-terrorists, Occupy squatters, pyromaniacal militants--and the extent to which any of these can truly withstand the pragmatic demands of contemporary capitalism. All the while, a mysterious cybernetic book of clairvoyance beckons, and trusted allies start to disappear. Playfully blending comic-book villains with cultural critiques, Eugene Lim's Dear Cyborgs is a fleet-footed literary exploration of power, friendship, and creativity that recalls authors like Tom McCarthy and Valeria Luiselli. Ambitious and knowing, it braids together hard-boiled detective pulps, subversive philosophy, and Hollywood chase scenes, unfolding like the composites and revelations of a dream. "--"A genre-bending novel told through the witty dialogues of three superheroes in their down time discussing their origin stories and moments of protest against body and state, ultimately weaving an intimate path through notions of art, money, resistance, and friendship"-- No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
Debats actualsCap
Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
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“The core of the novel is pessimistic. How could [it] be otherwise?” - glowing Vulture review
For what it’s worth, I come down on the pro-pessimism reviewer’s side. Maybe that’s partly because this fragmentary and largely plotless novel reminded me of my brief exploration of the alt-lit world. I did not enjoy the alt-lit world. No I did not.
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Addendum: Lim seems to settle the question pretty clearly in an interview with the Chicago Review of Books: “during the years writing it, more and more I found myself increasingly in a state of despair and more and more focused on the horrible situation we seem unable to avoid.”
Sorry, New Yorker, sounds like Lim is pessimistic, alright. And I’m sorry to have not enjoyed a novel by an author of such sympathetic political impulses. ( )