I really, really wanted to like this book. Sadly everything that is lacking in it is precisely what made me LOVE Ferris' first novel: humour, fleshed out characters you care about, a gripping narrative, and genuine warmth for the human race despite its altogether shittiness. I called Ferris a "modern Dickens" then because I thought he was a really good storyteller above everything, even the most insignificant of the characters and situations he described was deliciously vivid and loveable.So I really don't know what happened here. I can't believe I kept at this book for a whole 10 days, dreading having to push myself to get through just 10 more pages of it before bed, so unwilling I was to admit I just plain hated it. An infinitely dull main cast of characters is, I suppose, what passes for "realistic" these days, and the prose is dry at best and unreadable at worst. The whole book is spent trying to get you to believe something is finally going to happen and then, no, that plot line gets dropped too, then there's some nihilistic musings on this and that, on the meaninglessness of it all and the battle between mind and body and, apparently, on God, but I have to confess that by that point I wasn't really paying attention anymore. This is almost like a parody of everything that's terrible about contemporary fiction - the glorification of plain dullness, inexcusably loose plots, exhausting convoluted prose on "edgy" topics that haven't been relevant since the Renaissance period.Don't waste your time trying to make this book salvageable like I did. Joshie I still love you. Just make your next book a life-size naked calendar and I'll most likely forgive you yeah. So the book's protagonist ambles around aimlessly, involuntarily, endlessly, and perhaps it is a metaphor of sorts that the book does exactly the same thing. The story bobs and weaves to avoid meaning. At the end of the day the moral of the story appears to be that nothing matters, that our biology is our destiny, and that we all die alone. It is about as cynical a book as I have ever read, but there is no fire to the cynicism. The whole enterprise seems steeped in exhausted capitulation. This is neither my first nor my last Ferris book. He is a beautiful writer. That said, IMHO this was a pointless read, depressing not because of its depth or honesty, but because the writer just gave up.
What do You think about Non Conosco Il Tuo Nome (2010)?
After a strong start the story sort of sagged in the middle, but I liked the ending a lot.
—Rae
Great story and so well written. I felt like I was walking, walking, walking with Tim.
—iain
awful boring depressing ... scanned the last 100 pages ...
—jsuemars
