Reviews and Comments

The entire point of a dual language version is to compare the text. I realize you can't do facing pages on a Kindle but maybe alternating paragraphs would be good. What did this publisher do? The ENTIRE German version of each story, then the ENTIRE English version. The only reason I give it 2 stars is that it's still Kafka. Whoever thought this would be a good adaptation to the Kindle platform should be fired, and I regret spending my money on it. Dover is a really good print version publisher, and I have many of their books including a dual-language edition of some French poems - I expected more and am quite peeved. Save your money and dig up a used copy in the print version.

Only as high as a 3 because it's Celine, and because the historical context is interesting. I would not recommend this book to any but fairly serious fans of Celine's work, it's a bit of a slog.

I am beginning to suspect that Oscar was basically Harold Lauder, but written as a fully developed character, sympathetically. And of course with the multigenerational Latino style à la Isabelle Allende or Gabriel Garcia Marquez... like basically Stephen King rewritten by an author with talent, remixed through Los Bros, Marvel and DC comics. It's pretty meta.

Stephen King is an utter hack. His characters lack depth, his descriptions are sometimes so jarring that you lose your sense of place while reading, his dialogue is forced, and his stylistic devices are so heavy-handed it almost feels like he might be kidding around. But plot? Yeah, he can write a plot. This is yet another classic King potboiler. To be honest I read it more for the post-apocalyptic setting and was a bit disappointed when it turned into yet another Stephen King book with the mystical what-have-yous but whatever, it was a page-turner, I read it, and there were some good images in there and it was fun to read.

This is one of those books that seems so perfect it feels like I already read it before. All the promise of Samuel Beckett with none of the boredom; all the art of James Joyce with none of the formal pretentiousness. this is the real deal.