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...willing to argue the seemingly obvious larger significance of his work very forcefully. Each chapter stands on its own as a coherent and fascinating read, but Menand isn’t heavy-handed about making sure we understand all of the connections between his intricate arguments perfectly. The reader is largely left on his or her own to realize just how amazing and important these philosophical and epistemological assumptions really were (and still are), and just how wonderfully conceived and executed The Metaphysical Club really is. The book is simply beautiful, in its prose and its ambitions. It will...
What Artemis Fowl is doing seems, unfortunately for all the big money and expectations clustered around his debut, pretty much beyond the pale of fictional empathy or the sort of reader involvement that has made Harry Potter so beloved. For Artemis is repellent in almost every regard. This mastermind is the know-it-all scion of a criminal and fabulously rich Irish family, lately fallen on hard times after the mysterious disappearance of Artemis' father. So the son and his burly henchman Butler embark on a quest to buff up his inheritance by stealing gold from the fairies, who live...
Pekar uses a simple but induplicable device to hold the reader's interest - sheer force of personality. Most everything in "American Splendor" revolves around Harvey Pekar. From outright autobiography to essays (or "rants" as he calls them) on subjects he cares about, over the twenty-five years Pekar has created a remarkable hot/cold effect with his self-portrayal...
...this visit, the image of Walter riding in on his buggy and the daughter’s habit of holding onto her father’s gun and staring lovingly at his paintings of birds are repeated over and over again. It is as though Jorge thinks that the reader doesn’t understand that these events all symbolize the daughter’s longing for her father. These types of repetition make the first half of the book drag...
...even this cannot redeem the novel’s slow start. Although the story is interesting, its themes of family conflict and a child’s longing for her absent father are not particularly original. And although the novel should be full of beautiful description, it leaves the reader wishing for a clearer picture of the homestead and the coastline of Portugal on which the story takes place...