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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Of all of Erickson's novels Rubicon Beach is the timeless classic. In the disobedience of narrative structure he sculpts language and character into the most evocative series of images possible; he dares the ramparts of existential literature, makes Sartre look too constructed, Nietzsche too cold and Kafka too pessimistic. What is perhaps truly remarkable (and you can see him attempt the same effect in his subsequent works) is how the gestalt of images manages to cohere around the central, yet entirely ephemeral character of Catherine, who appears, disguised (by her own 'presence') to all others as the "woman with the knife in the folds of her skirt".
I read Rubicon Beach and heard the music. I entered the cold river and began to swim, already knowing that a promise of further shores was another of the many conventions I had left behind me on the receding bank.
This is a book for the brave - it cannot be un-read.
"I won't delude myself that integrity can be reborn or that passion can grow young. But the maps I've stolen from the archives navigate more than just the face of a woman . . . she knows it too, and she's waiting for me with the light of her face and her knife . . .If one is a prisoner by nature, it is best to have a prison as a home; it's a hard thing to be a prisoner trapped in the body of a free man. But then I escaped. I escaped the prison of my free body, and became a free man - at which point the free body was no longer a prison but a natural habitat. I would probably never understand how I had made this escape, I would probably never understand how she did it; but I knew she had done it, that she had cut me loose with her knife."
I read Rubicon Beach and heard the music. I entered the cold river and began to swim, already knowing that a promise of further shores was another of the many conventions I had left behind me on the receding bank.
This is a book for the brave - it cannot be un-read.
"I won't delude myself that integrity can be reborn or that passion can grow young. But the maps I've stolen from the archives navigate more than just the face of a woman . . . she knows it too, and she's waiting for me with the light of her face and her knife . . .If one is a prisoner by nature, it is best to have a prison as a home; it's a hard thing to be a prisoner trapped in the body of a free man. But then I escaped. I escaped the prison of my free body, and became a free man - at which point the free body was no longer a prison but a natural habitat. I would probably never understand how I had made this escape, I would probably never understand how she did it; but I knew she had done it, that she had cut me loose with her knife."
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In Rubicon Beach, Steve Erickson wrote a beautiful novel, about hope, and about imagination, and about dreams.
It's partly the story of a man jailed high above a future Los Angeles where the ground is shifting on a nightly basis; it's partly the story of a girl with bright eyes; and it's partly the story of a man counting the lighthouses from the shore.
It's a quite extraordinary book, breathlessly told, with vivid images that will stay with the reader for years, and that all come together in an astonishing and inevitable conclusion.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I had this book in my collection a full 10 years before I read it. I tried previously a couple of times and could not get into it - as though it was the wrong time for me to read it. It is however, a book that wants to be read.
In Rubicon Beach, Ericksson sculpts dreams through skilful use of language. From start to finish there is a dreamlike quality that is evident in all of Erickson's books that I have read - changing characters, changing locations, changing tenses. Descriptions of things the reader will be familiar with but in the wrong order or slightly misaligned. Sub-stories without a definite end, with explanations that are not quite satisfactory.
Finishing this book was exactly like waking up from a dream. I was left with vivid images in my head, and ideas that would play on my conscious mind.
If you like a story to have a traditional structure, your characters to be stable and your mysteries to be solved when you turn the final page, this is possibly not for you.
Personally, I think this book is a work of art.
In Rubicon Beach, Ericksson sculpts dreams through skilful use of language. From start to finish there is a dreamlike quality that is evident in all of Erickson's books that I have read - changing characters, changing locations, changing tenses. Descriptions of things the reader will be familiar with but in the wrong order or slightly misaligned. Sub-stories without a definite end, with explanations that are not quite satisfactory.
Finishing this book was exactly like waking up from a dream. I was left with vivid images in my head, and ideas that would play on my conscious mind.
If you like a story to have a traditional structure, your characters to be stable and your mysteries to be solved when you turn the final page, this is possibly not for you.
Personally, I think this book is a work of art.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An underrated genius...
A very good novel. Dreamlike, surreal and mysterious, as all good novels should be! Some parts of this novel are simply stunning; the imagery, intensely poetic and powerful. Read more
Published 7 months ago by F Drew
A Beautiful Novel that Deserves your Time.
"Cale is released from jail in the icy wasteland of the North and returns to a ravaged, flooded Los Angeles. Read more
Published on 5 Aug 2008 by Alex Martin
Trying too hard
For me this just didn't work. Whole pages go by when you've no idea what he's on about. There's a great story somewhere in there trying to get out, but it's suffocated by... Read more
Published on 10 Feb 2004 by Mr. R. Horberry
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