Brief, disjointed review:
Mitchell is extremely adept at writing great sentences. Using words you wouldn't expect, avoiding cliches, matching style to content. You may find yourself rereading sentences from time to time.
However with all his books I feel something is lacking - perhaps it's his characters, who I don't feel are as sympathetic as he might want them to be. The standard to which their relationships and their presence - their 'realness' - are crafted often does not match Mitchell's technical ability.
Still, it's a bloody great technical ability. This novel demonstrates that: six interwoven short stories (which incidentally serves as an example of how Mitchell's plots and characters don't quite stick, but I'll leave that) and six writing styles. In fact, these styles are so varied by the end of the novel I thought he was showing off a little: hey, I can write like this. Or like this. Or even like this. Wow, and look at this.
Anyway. This review disproportiona...Brief, disjointed review:
Mitchell is extremely adept at writing great sentences. Using words you wouldn't expect, avoiding cliches, matching style to content. You may find yourself rereading sentences from time to time.
However with all his books I feel something is lacking - perhaps it's his characters, who I don't feel are as sympathetic as he might want them to be. The standard to which their relationships and their presence - their 'realness' - are crafted often does not match Mitchell's technical ability.
Still, it's a bloody great technical ability. This novel demonstrates that: six interwoven short stories (which incidentally serves as an example of how Mitchell's plots and characters don't quite stick, but I'll leave that) and six writing styles. In fact, these styles are so varied by the end of the novel I thought he was showing off a little: hey, I can write like this. Or like this. Or even like this. Wow, and look at this.
Anyway. This review disproportionately concentrates on the negatives - Mitchell is one of my favourite novelists and as such I pay far more attention to his writing than I do most other authors'. I recommend this book.
Black Swan Green, however, is his best novel, in my opinion. It's also the one that sticks with a single character, which by circular argument means that the single character is strong enough to sustain a novel.
Wow. I guess I didn't lie when I said this review'd be disjointed. (more)
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