JSental’s Comments (group member since Apr 27, 2012)

JSental’s comments from the L&J group.

The movie was SO different! The Clayton was a more likeable character! I normally don't feel this way... but I liked the movie so much better! The ending felt so abrupt in the book but not so much in the film version.

I really enjoyed this book! I read Safron's other book a few years back and was not as prepared for it mentally as I was for this book at this time in my life. I did see many similarities between the two texts in that the main character was on a search and that two stories, one more bizarre than the next, wove into one by the end. I enjoyed the experience of this book because it was a puzzle. I had to figure out who the characters were and what they were up to; it was not all laid out in a clean exposition. I was intrigued by the author's abandon of standard conventions. I felt that this book was about a need for answers. When horrible things happen to us in life, we expect their to be some reason. Oskar looks for an answer, looks for his father someone in the districts of New York City, and ends up finding instead a collective loss. Everyone he meets touches him, and he touches everyone else he meets. He does not find what he is searching for in one respect, but in another he does.

I will also say that, while the meaning of the book may have been tampered with, the movie was actually more enjoyable for me simply because I felt that the ending created more of a resolution.

This very post-modern text was a departure from the standard reading experience? Was it worth your while or simply to disconcerting?