From the archives: Book Club

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Wednesday Book Club: Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony

Wednesday, 9 July 2008 — 12:37am | Book Club, Literature

This week’s selection: Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (2006) by Eoin Colfer.

In brief: The fifth entry in Colfer’s “Die Hard with fairies” series for young adults is an enjoyable and fast-paced romp, but it exhibits ominous signs of a series creaking under the combined weight of its established conventions and already-resolved conflicts. Colfer must either raise the stakes in a substantial fashion—merely boosting the violence and fireworks won’t cut it—or let Artemis Fowl make a graceful exit before he, and all his friends, become serial shadows of their former selves.

(The Wednesday Book Club is an ongoing initiative of mine to write a book review every week. I invite you to peruse the index. For more on Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony, keep reading below.)

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Wednesday Book Club: The Manticore

Wednesday, 2 July 2008 — 6:38am | Book Club, Canadiana, Literature

This week’s selection: The Manticore (1972) by Robertson Davies.

In brief: The second novel in the Deptford Trilogy never quite attains the the ambitious moral order and dramatic unity of its sublime predecessor, but it doesn’t need to, as it is a very different book tailor-made for a very different narrator. The story on the surface (a rationalist lawyer exorcises his personal demons with the aid of Jungian psychiatry) is not by itself earth-shattering. Where Davies’ genius shows its hand is in his depth of vision and talent for expository voice, best displayed when the book interlaces its characters and events with those of the previous volume. The Manticore stands independently, but with diminished elegance; I recommend it as essential reading for anyone who loved Fifth Business, which should or will be all of you.

(The Wednesday Book Club is an ongoing initiative of mine to write a book review every week. I invite you to peruse the index. For more on The Manticore, keep reading below.)

Continued »

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Wednesday Book Club: Plowing the Dark

Wednesday, 25 June 2008 — 6:03am | Book Club, Literature

This week’s selection: Plowing the Dark (2000) by Richard Powers.

In brief: Like a mural of epic ambition, the breadth of the novel’s ingenuity only reveals itself once appreciated in its entirety. The journey, which connects virtual reality research to the global social upheaval of the late 1980s, is a tandem of madness and reward. As a commentary on representational art and how it may shape reality, there is little that can equal the richness of Powers’ composition—but the sensory definition of the prose is so overwhelming, it is easy to drown before ever reaching the conclusion.

(The Wednesday Book Club is an ongoing initiative of mine to write a book review every week. I invite you to peruse the index. For more on Plowing the Dark, keep reading below.)

Continued »

Annotations (2)


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