Burning City

by Ariel Dorfman, Joaquin Dorfman

It is the simmering summer of 2001 in New York City. Heller is the youngest employee of Soft Tidings, a messenger service whose motto is “news with a personal touch.” At Soft Tidings, a message is not handed over but told to the recipient. And the messages, as a rule, are not especially good news. Heller prefers his bike to the mandatory Rollerblades, and he gets away with his maniacal bike riding because he is, hands down, the best deliverer of bad news. This summer will be memorable for Heller as he finds himself drawn into the lives of a wildly diverse cast of characters, accidentally falling in love, and relating to people in a whole new way.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, New York

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman is an Argentine-Chilean novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been a professor of literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina since 1985.

Reviews

[Stephanie (Stepping Out Of The Page) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm torn between giving The Burning City three or four stars, the reason is simply because I am still not entirely sure of what it was all about. I'd consider it to be a coming of age novel, but I'm not sure how else I could classify this.
The story centers around the protagonist, bicycle-obsessed Heller, a sixteen year old boy who works for a company called Soft Tidings where his job is to disclose significant events, or bad news, to people - whether it is news of an abortion, a missed birthday or a forced marriage. The idea of the Soft Tidings company is an interesting one and it has great potential for an interesting story - all of the characters that he met served their own purpose and contributed something to the book. Heller and Salim (an immigrant who is told that the woman he loves has been married in an arranged marriage) have a strong relationship and it definitely adds something more profound to the book. I also liked the comparison of Heller to Eshu, deity of crossroads, by the Jamaican man that he befriended. Culture is a strong focus in this book and may actually be the main focus. The romance with Silvia just felt a bit unecessary.
Heller is a character that I could really connect with - not because of any similarities, but just because he felt real. The writing was good. The bicycle scenes in particular were very well detailed and I really felt as though I was with Heller, racing through the city.
All in all, the book was well written and it had some good points - my only issue is that I felt as though it was trying to be too many things at once. Everything felt vague and tangled and because of that, I don't think it was as good asit could've been. However, I certainly don't regret reading it.

[Ocean · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm only halfway through, but i feel compelled to laud this book as a sweet wacky valentine to pre-9/11 new york city, and also an ode to the time-honored tradition of riding yr bike down the street really fast. super!

***okay, i finished it. man, what a good fucking book! why doesn't it get more credit?

[Cristina Costea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had a really interesting plot, which was a pleasure to read. While the overall purpose still seems a little hazy, the strong connection between Heller and his bike, his effortless charm with delivering bad news and his friendship with Salic are deeply intriguing.

[Leyester · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the book very interesting but I couldn't find a clear storyline and didn't feel like I got to know the characters well enough:
-what happened to his parents?
-why did he live with his grandparents?
-did he have any friends, if not why?
-what was the connotations of the story?
-why didn't he travel with his parents?

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very inspirational, those one-out-of-a-million kinds of books. I LOVE it.

[Sonja · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very different story of love, immigration, and self-discovery centered on Heller who is the youngest employee (16) of Soft Tidings, a messenger service in NYC that delivers "news with a personal touch." Heller is assigned the difficult, sad messages because he has compassion and empathy. And yet, he cannot bring himself to speak to the girl he loves. He is drawn into a variety of lives, wildly diverse characters, among whom is Salim Adasi, an undocumented immigrant half Turkish, half Kurd who teaches him how to "show" himself to Sylvia, the girl he loves. Salim illegally peddles books on the streets and is always trying to stay one step ahead of the police. He was a librarian back in Istanbul (my favorite) and speaks 8 languages. When Heller delivers the message to Salim that the woman he has loved for "a thousand years" is marrying someone else, he responds by saying it is good news. Salim then takes Heller to a bar where he knows everyone and tells a much recounted story of Helen of Troy and Paris, "the man who pulled it off." When the Greeks burned the city, Paris and Helen fled and spent the next 10 years making love. "To Paris and Nizima," Heller toasts after listening to Salim.
The theme of the burning city is picked up later when Salim is in the hospital and Heller visits him. "My father was from Troy....First, I escaped the burning city....I crossed the sea. My fatherhad told me to build another city....The queen of Carthage tried to stop me, she wanted...me. Dido wanted me. Dido wanted to keep me, they all wanted to stop me, but the gods said...no. You were waiting for me...."
"Now the city is burning again. The city is always burning....If I cannot escape...If I cannot escape the burning city this time...it will be your turn...This time, you must stay. One of us must stay...."

[C Wolfe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my third time reading this. First time was high school. Second time was probably college.
While the premise and moments stood the test of time, it's no longer a favorite.

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

endearing characters most of them, and the ones who are not are a good object lesson

[Conan Tigard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a cyclist myself, I quite enjoyed the descriptions of Heller racing through New York City. I really liked Heller as a main character, except for when he was on his bike. I found him to be both a little mean and vindictive, making a bad name for cyclist everywhere, not caring what he did, where he rode, or who he might hurt. That is probably why Bruno the Bruiser didn't like him and was always after him.

Burning City is a well-written book about one boy's struggle to reach for his goals, no matter them be near or far. The story moves fast, just like Heller on his bike, and the dialog is quick and witty. All of the characters are very well-written and highly believable. The reason I mentioned above that the book is really intended for kids 15 and older is because of the language, underage drinking, and the overall tone of the book. It is not for someone 12 years old.

I do have to mention that I shook my head at one point, disbelieving what was written. Heller flew off of the second story of a construction area on his bike. Any road bike would have crumpled falling 10 feet not matter how fast the rider was going. They just are not designed for that type of punishment, like a downhill mountain bike.

Overall, I quite enjoyed Burning City by Ariel & Joaquin Dorfman. Those perilous rides through the city at unsafe speeds really got me heart pounding.

I rated this book an 8 out of 10.

[Alessandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the summer of 2001 in New York City. Sixteen-year-old Heller works for Soft Tidings, a messenger service whose employees visit the recipient of each message and tell them the news in person, rather than just delivering a note. Soft Tiding's motto is "news with a personal touch". Heller drives his bycicle recklessly aroud the city instead of using rollerblades like his colleagues, and gets away with it because he is the best at delivering bad news.

One day, Heller delivers a Turkish man the news that his beloved got married to another man. He later discovers this man is an irregular immigrant who sells books on a stand. This is the start of their friendship, as well as the beginning of a memorable summer in which Heller will learn to relate to people in a new way.

There were very good parts in this book. There were also some thing which felt overused, or barely believable but put there to keep the plot going. For example, wouldn't Sylvia recognize a boy to whom she has served coffee every day for some weeks? The whole result is good, but not the most original story ever.

I basically liked this book. It included excerpts of poems by Nazim Hikmet, who was a pleasant discovery and whom I will be checking out later.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sixteen-year-old Heller works at "Soft Tidings" a New York company that delivers news with a personal touch. He rides around the city on his bike; in preperation for the Tour de France; delivering bad news to good people. When Heller gets some bad news of his own he reconsiders his life and the people around him.

The flashy cycling in this book is sure to catch a teens eye and the unusal characters and plot draw the reader in as they experience a New York summer on the back of a speeding bike.

[Lori]

This was a weird book. It is about a kid who works for a messenger service that delivers telegrams personally. The main kid has a soft touch that delivers news of deaths, divorces, and all unfortunate news with ease. All of the people he delivers messages to weave a web in his daily happens. It is pretty interesting. I wouldn't say fantastic, but it is worth reading.

[Darielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Burning City was a very weird and unusual book. When reading the book I would often become confused, only to understand the confusion later on in the story. I guess that was what kept me reading because the main character, Heller, was a very mysterious teen and it took me a while to fully understand him. Overall, the book was great.

[Jeff Kirby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book, and one of my longtime favorites. The vivid setting can take you to summer in New York even if it's winter in Cleveland. The characters are well written and personable; and as a native New Yorker, it's a bonus to know all the streets and neighborhoods - down to the book vendors! - in the book.

[Libby · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange little book. I loved that it was written by father and son though I did find it confusing in parts. I had too many questions about Heller and his family. It was also a very apocalyptic, I kept waiting for the end of the world scene...a very different little book indeed.

[Justine Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book but a little short. got it cheap though so I can't complain. The main character Heller was very likeable but I felt that there was a generic bad guy and he could have more of a backstory and history rather then just being bad for the sake of being bad.

[Cole Reece · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book.

[Allyn]

I picked this up because of a short story I read by Ariel Dorfman in a fiction edition of Atlantic Monthly. So far so good...

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting. Has a lot of deep meanings.

[Nineveh · Rating 2 out of 5]

eh its pretty boring to me, the idea of it is interesting but the way everything is described was strange

[Alli · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was alright, good enough that I finished it. Very different from most novels. I wouldn't read it again to be honest.

[Kelly Cehelnik · Rating 2 out of 5]

The setting in this book was very detailed and well written but the characters were so incredibly flat and nothing really happened until around page 200 then it was just over.

[Goldie Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it except Silvia gets on my nerves.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I had to pick a word to describe this book I would say comfortable. In every sense of the word.

[Monique]

Here's some quotes that kept me reading.

"Airplane lights traveled past, left and right, fireflies of the twentieth century."
"...he was already sweating; the sun wasn't planning on saying uncle."
"Heller let out a deafening scream and pedaled directly into oncoming traffic."
"'COME ON!' Heller yelled at the driver. 'You can do better'n this!'"(He's riding his bike holding onto a car)
"You writers are all the same! Nobody understands you until you put pen to paper!"
"The city remembering it was summer, heat blasting through the air, up from the subways and sewers."

But about 3/4 of the way through, it just wasn't worth it to continue, to be exposed to some pretty immoral things that randomly popped up.
Reading this book was like listening to a really weird awesome indie rock album.