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Review
'The most extraordinary novelist you've never heard of ... dazzling and heartbreaking, Adrian is a forceful potent writer' --Guardian
'This magical and fearless work is a near-blueprint of what a novel ought to be' --Observer
'A profoundly humane and moving work' --Sunday Telegraph
`A beguiling, troubling and undeniably potent brand of fiction ... Adrian gets under your skin and stays there' --Independent on Sunday
'A wonderful novel'
--Financial Times
'This magical and fearless work is a near-blueprint of what a novel ought to be' --Observer
'A profoundly humane and moving work' --Sunday Telegraph
`A beguiling, troubling and undeniably potent brand of fiction ... Adrian gets under your skin and stays there' --Independent on Sunday
'A wonderful novel'
--Financial Times
Product Description
On Midsummer's Eve, 2008, three people, each on the run from a failed relationship, are trapped in San Francisco's Buena Vista Park on their way to a party. And on this night, something unusual and awful is happening in the faerie kingdom. In a fit of sadness over the end of her marriage, which broke up over the death of her adopted son, Titania has set loose an ancient menace, and the chaos and mischief that ensue upends and threatens the lives of mortals as well as the immortals. The three heartbroken lovers will become lost in the park, and under the park, and within the memories of the people they lost or drove away, and each will remember through the course of the night that this is not the first time their lives have been touched by magic. Suffering an all-too human despair, and in thrall to her old enemy, Titania puts all the resources of her kingdom at the disposal of a homeless man who thinks he can bring down the mayor of San Francisco by staging a musical production of Soylent Green. Before the night ends the mortals are caught, the show is staged, and Titania discovers, at great cost, a way to undo the menace she's set free, if not to undo her grief. Selected by the New Yorker as one of the best young writers in America, Adrian has created a singularly playful, moving, and humorous novel-a story that effortlessly crosses the borders between reality and dreams, suffering and magic, and mortality and immortality.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this book on the strength of two ecstatic reviews - one in The Guardian and one in The Observer. Unusually for me I'm struggling to finish it. Not because it's a difficult read, or too long, or with characters who aren't sufficiently differentiated from each other, or whatever . . . . just, well, it's dull. And, it seems to me, it's grasp is less than its reach. Clearly the two reviewers didn't agree - the guy in The Guardian said "Chris Adrian is the most extraordinary novelist you've never heard of", and The Observer reviewer wrote ". . . Chris Adrian's audacious, bewitching third novel." So it came highly recommended, apparently. But maybe it's the American setting, maybe it's the not-very-sympathetic characters, but I stopped halfway through and read two other books before returning. And I'm still not quite at the end. As I say, that's unusual for me.
But - please be assured - it's not the whimsicality I object to, it's not homophobia or homophilia, it's not even the disjointed narrative - multi-viewpoint, multi- timetable - that stopped me. And it's not the use of my favourite Shakespeare play as a skeleton to hang this on - indeed, one of the best light novels of recent years is, in my humble opinion, Amanda Craig's "Love In Idleness" which more or less replicates the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream, minus the Immortals - no, none of these. It's simply that I found it dull. The extraordinary events, characters, and places described need a less pedestrian style. You can imagine Neil Gaiman doing this better! So I can't recommend this book. And I won't believe newspaper reviews so readily again.
(And if you want a riff on AMSNDream, try the Amanda Craig!)
But - please be assured - it's not the whimsicality I object to, it's not homophobia or homophilia, it's not even the disjointed narrative - multi-viewpoint, multi- timetable - that stopped me. And it's not the use of my favourite Shakespeare play as a skeleton to hang this on - indeed, one of the best light novels of recent years is, in my humble opinion, Amanda Craig's "Love In Idleness" which more or less replicates the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream, minus the Immortals - no, none of these. It's simply that I found it dull. The extraordinary events, characters, and places described need a less pedestrian style. You can imagine Neil Gaiman doing this better! So I can't recommend this book. And I won't believe newspaper reviews so readily again.
(And if you want a riff on AMSNDream, try the Amanda Craig!)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I have never read any of this author's other books. But the idea of Oberon and Tatiana living in what "Central Park" was what attracted me.
Pleased I bought the book - a magical, happy, sad, terrible tale. I praised this book so much to my friends everyone has had to borrow it. And Hannah - can I have it back now|!
Pleased I bought the book - a magical, happy, sad, terrible tale. I praised this book so much to my friends everyone has had to borrow it. And Hannah - can I have it back now|!
Format:Hardcover
This was a brilliant book!I had read a good review in the Guardian but couldn't find it in any of the Waterstones I tried. It arrived in mint condition promptly.Although it took a little time to 'get into it'- remembering who was who and how they were connected - I ended up being completely absorbed in the world it creates.It offered a very interesting (and well-written)perspective on life, death, grief and loss whilst being totally life-affirming in the end.
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