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The Art and Practice of Explosion: A Novel
A rich, powerful novel of betrayal and desire follow three people--American Frank Duggan, Hungarian Eva Koszegfalvi, and Ludovic Rohan, a French marine archaeologist--back to Paris eleven years after the tragic event that brought them together for the first time. (General Fiction)
320 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
March 5, 2022
Three people are reunited on a train ride in France having met some years ago when they had been trapped as hostages in a hotel during a Central American civil war conflict.
I've never written any reviews. I don't know that my writing is that compelling to do so. But since there are no reviews of this book I'll offer some thoughts. I had given myself permission not long ago to quit on a book if I didn't like it for some reason. I almost did with this one. I dropped it about a quarter of the way in and read another novel, then went back to it. It wasn't that I didn't like what was happening in the story, it was more that I had a hard time understanding and following it.
First thing is that this writer, who I understand writes under a pseudonym, has such a massive vocabulary. So there are numerous words, technical terms, place names, etc. that makes it difficult. I do however find this expansive vocabulary to be really impressive. There is another writer that comes to mind- Patrick Leigh Fermor. I've read a couple of his travel books, A Time For Gifts and Between The Woods And The Water. And while Fermor is a fountain of unfamiliar words it never prevented me from being engrossed in his beautiful prose.
A second thing is the structure of the story, short chapters mostly, make use of continuous memories and flashbacks from the lives of the three characters, Frank, Eva, and Rohan and how their lives have intertwined. With any novel like that it can be hard to keep straight the flow of their individual back stories. These two factors together make this novel a little laborious.
But the thing is- it's really good, richly crafted sentences, so creative and unique. I have been reading a lot more novels in the last couple years and some of them were duds. It seemed from the first part of The Art And Practice of Explosion that it was not and it was certainly worth getting back into it. I don't often re-read novels but I could see doing that with this one.
I've never written any reviews. I don't know that my writing is that compelling to do so. But since there are no reviews of this book I'll offer some thoughts. I had given myself permission not long ago to quit on a book if I didn't like it for some reason. I almost did with this one. I dropped it about a quarter of the way in and read another novel, then went back to it. It wasn't that I didn't like what was happening in the story, it was more that I had a hard time understanding and following it.
First thing is that this writer, who I understand writes under a pseudonym, has such a massive vocabulary. So there are numerous words, technical terms, place names, etc. that makes it difficult. I do however find this expansive vocabulary to be really impressive. There is another writer that comes to mind- Patrick Leigh Fermor. I've read a couple of his travel books, A Time For Gifts and Between The Woods And The Water. And while Fermor is a fountain of unfamiliar words it never prevented me from being engrossed in his beautiful prose.
A second thing is the structure of the story, short chapters mostly, make use of continuous memories and flashbacks from the lives of the three characters, Frank, Eva, and Rohan and how their lives have intertwined. With any novel like that it can be hard to keep straight the flow of their individual back stories. These two factors together make this novel a little laborious.
But the thing is- it's really good, richly crafted sentences, so creative and unique. I have been reading a lot more novels in the last couple years and some of them were duds. It seemed from the first part of The Art And Practice of Explosion that it was not and it was certainly worth getting back into it. I don't often re-read novels but I could see doing that with this one.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review