Book Review Archives - Page 7 of 11 - Home For Fiction

Book Review

Review of Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami

September 20, 2019

book, fiction, Gothic, Japan, literary fiction, literature, Murakami, review

As I might have mentioned before, I am a fan of Japanese literature. I’m really drawn to the minimalist, abstract, sometimes absurd and sometimes mundane style of many Japanese authors. Haruki Murakami is such an author, but when I began reading his Killing Commendatore I would never expect that a review of Killing Commendatore would include the tag “Gothic”.

As a typical Murakami book, it’s not quite simple to put it into a prefabricated shape. It’s many things, and yet it isn’t. It has a beginning and an ending, and yet it doesn’t. It’s one of those novels that you’ll either love or hate. The good news is, fans of Haruki Murakami will most definitely love it.

Review of Killing Commendatore — The (Gothic) conflict between natural and unnatural, real and unreal, becomes literally true in *Killing Commendatore*

(more…)

Review of Rachel Cusk’s Outline

July 21, 2019

Book Review, Criticism

book, fiction, Greece, literary fiction, literature, Rachel Cusk, review

This post features another book review, and yet it’s so much more than a review. Writing this review of Rachel Cusk’s Outline is a fantastic opportunity for me to talk about literary fiction. What it should be and what it doesn’t care about.

Often on this blog I talk about over-explaining in fiction, or about realistic characters versus insignificant plots. Rachel Cusk’s Outline is one of the best examples of what high-quality (literary) fiction ought to be.

Outline is not perfect (we’ll talk about its flaws in a while), but as an example it’s near-flawless. In other words, it’s great teaching material.

(more…)

Review of Bittersweet

June 24, 2019

Book Review, Criticism

book, fiction, France, literature, review

Today’s post offers a review of Bittersweet, by Lloyd R. Free. This is a novel set in the early 1960s – a time of great political and cultural upheaval. In this context, two young friends decide to leave the United States behind and move to France.

The full title of the novel is Bittersweet: A Coming of Age Historical Romance. I must say it right away, I’m really not a fan of over-explaining in fiction, and that includes book titles. This is particularly the case with (sub)titles denoting the genre of the book.

Ironically enough, the novel was described as literary fiction to me. It isn’t, and the title is the first clue – both because it describes what it really is (a coming-of-age story), and because it (over)describes. Have you ever seen a title such as Mary and John: A Literary-Fiction Story?

(more…)