Amir A. > Recent Status Updates

Halfway thru the book, these are my thoughts:
1. The prose is dry. No figures of speech, no style, dull.
2. The flow is jumbled. What is the underlying structure of the book? It's not chronology, since there's no chronological consistency. It's not geography, it's not characters. It's a mess.
3. The chapters lack thematic coherence. Chapters start with one idea, but rather than develop it they meander erratically.

First page. Immediate themes are perversion (oral sex performed on an infant), rootlessness (abandoned baby), pretense (makeup), negligence (messy carpet), and moral degeneracy (leaving a baby for someone else to find).

It's slow to get going. I'm still waiting for the story to build. There's nothing to hook me in. There are clever moments, it's well written, but there should have been a second main character introduced by now.

The author is crafty at attaching the reader to the characters. The chapters are short, and it happens quickly. For that reason it's an odd experience getting to know the characters so well, only to have happen to them what happens at the end of every chapter and then have to start the cycle over again.

Again, exquisite prose -- every word perfectly selected and situated.

The opening of this book is classic -- one of the best. The prose is so rich, it needs to be read slowly, savored.

Choppy and pretentious

It's not as exciting as it was earlier.

Hilarious!

The conclusion of Part 2 is strong enough to redeem its weaker stretches. Harry is back to his libido making his decisions in life, the vector of his movements determined by the angle of his sexual organ like a compass. He's calm, cool, in control, almost indifferent like things that strike him glide smoothly down a sleek exterior shield. It's an important novel again. It wasn't when it tried to be, but now it is.

It's not so much that the quality of writing has dipped. It's still classic Updike, which is to say it wraps around you and seeps into the skin. But it feels like the story is paying a price for the author's desire to debate politics. Skeeter's character feels contrived, shoehorned into the narrative to service ulterior motives. It's changed Rabbit, too. Characters typically grow,but Rabbit shedding his stubbornness?

It's good in that there's always a danger of some kind lurking, vague. The narrator doesn't give it a name, it's not the kind of thing that forms beads of sweat on the forehead, but it's there. The reader know Harry; he's a constant. But Janice, Jill, Buchanan et-al, even Nelson and Eccles -- they are variables. Harry isn't ever really in conflict because of his passive nature, but at the same time he's in multiple c

Part I done. Maybe it's because having read Rabbit Run I already know Harry so well, or maybe it's because Updike has constructed the narrative better in this novel; either way, there are none of the why-am-I-reading-this doubts that attended the first half of Rabbit Run. It's solid writing, solid story-telling. Nelson is the big variable, as if in his ostensibly secondary importance he might be the key character.

Updike is brilliant. This is easier to get into than Rabbit Run -- the conflict is established right at the start. All the elements of the prose that made me smile and appreciate Updike's incisive insight in the first Rabbit novel are here again. But this is more political, some might say offensively so. And whereas Rabbit Run pretty much only drew us into Harry's mind, it looks like Janice will be a major focus now.

The writing has gotten a little lazy; it's too quote-heavy. But the story remains every bit as compelling.

It's good. The prose is at its best when the author keeps his style direct and doesn't try to sound fancy and clever.

Informative, easy to read. Prose is flawed at times when the author gets too casual and careless with his language.

Shanon has finally begun to abstract away from the phenomenological findings and their classification and is turning now to their implication on consciousness. This should be where things start to really get interesting.

I'm long past the point where I have no desire to keep reading this. The writing is scattered, the observations asinine.

Continuing with the extensive lists. At times it's perfunctory, repetitive, tiring. Hopefully not much more of this before the author gets into his analysis.

Intelligent and compellingly written, even though it's scientific writing it's hard to put down -- and that's just the introduction.

Third Karnazes book I'm reading -- his writing hasn't improved. The clash of styles makes the prose difficult to get into. At one moment he sounds like a librarian, at the next he's cracking childish jokes.

Unrelenting in its intensity. I do wonder if the narrative has been embellished at points, if details were conveniently left out and gaps filled by the author's imagination.

John Brant can write. It's a pure pleasure being wafted on his flawless prose. He knows the elements necessary for an effective story and executes their combination with a master's touch.

Exceptional prose, remarkable story -- looking like a best-of-2017 frontrunner.

The marathon part of the book is over a third of the way through, which led to me wonder what would fill the remaining pages. I'm pleased with where it's going as it mirrors where I am in my running now.

Lighthearted, not always as funny as it tries to be.

What is the point of this book? If its chapters were articles in a magazine or a newspaper it would be understandable. But a book should offer insights on a deeper level, and here all the reader gets are superficial observations. Anyone could have written this. Where is the author's philosophy in these interactions she has with people and places? It seems all that's different from one place to the next is the food.

A nice young woman from Texas travels to different countries and goes running with the people she meets. Halfway into the book and that seems to be all there is to it. The story is so superficial and generic, anyone could have written it. The author doesn't dig into her own personality, certainly not into the personalities of the people she encounters, and it makes for an unfulfilling reading experience.

Just ok, kind of boring at times.