PaperbackReader reviewed The fifty year sword by Mark Z. Danielewski
Review of 'The fifty year sword' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Before reviewing this book (but after reading it), I read a handful of reviews others have written. Inspired by those reviews, I'll say this:
I'm not usually that interested in having my story spoon-fed to me. I like to work for my stories, and Danielewski delivers. I don't, however, see the need to act as inscrutable and mysterious as Danielewski's writing. More power to you if that's your thing, but it's not mine. So...
The book starts off with an intro that, in summary, says the story will be told by five narrators, each with a certain tonal influence, and depicted in the story by different colored quotation marks. Neat idea, but in practice the different personalities had (to my eye) either too subtle or too few differences to make them stand out. They ended up blending into a single narrator, which wasn't a detractor, but seemed a shame.
The …
Before reviewing this book (but after reading it), I read a handful of reviews others have written. Inspired by those reviews, I'll say this:
I'm not usually that interested in having my story spoon-fed to me. I like to work for my stories, and Danielewski delivers. I don't, however, see the need to act as inscrutable and mysterious as Danielewski's writing. More power to you if that's your thing, but it's not mine. So...
The book starts off with an intro that, in summary, says the story will be told by five narrators, each with a certain tonal influence, and depicted in the story by different colored quotation marks. Neat idea, but in practice the different personalities had (to my eye) either too subtle or too few differences to make them stand out. They ended up blending into a single narrator, which wasn't a detractor, but seemed a shame.
The story itself was as engaging and deep as any of his others, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.