- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: Picador USA (Jun 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312263570
- ISBN-13: 978-0312263577
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.7 x 2.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,505,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Sylvia Brownrigg: The Metaphysical Touch
I've been reading email novels lately, and I bought this book because I'd read it was written as a collection of emails between two people who grow attracted to each other. It isn't. Well, it is, there are large sections that are just the emails between Pi and JD, the two main characters in the book, but most of the book alternates between conventionally narrated sequences about Pi's attempts to refind her life and JD's "Diery", which is a series of writings that JD has posted to a discussion group on the net about suicide.
Pi is a grad student in philosophy who's dissertation on Kant was burnt in a big fire, along with all her other possessions. Pi is very shaken and the idea of continuing her studies is totally alien to her. She moves to a small village and stays with a friend's newly-separated aunt and her seven year old daughter. A friend gives Pi a computer and a modem, and when exploring the Internet, she finds the discussion group where JD has posted his "Diery". She grows fascinated with his writing, and they start to write.
This is a readable book, though I admit I skimmed some of the Diery, wanting to get to the emails. The emails show how the two writers connect with each other, how they grow to know each other and feel they understand each other through words alone. Interestingly, there is no overt love affair here, though there is definitely a lot of attraction between them. The letters are also a place for JD and Pi to discuss philosophical questions of a relationship like this, that only exists in words, over the Internet. How can someone you've never met, but write with, feel more present than your friends and family? What is presence and absence? Are words, once burnt in a fire or deleted, gone forever? Can you be sure that a person you've only met online really exists? These are discussed amusingly and yet seriously by the characters.
The themes of this book are fascinating, and the writing is often very good. I find it strange that the emails are presented almost out of context, without even the time and date-stamps. But once I'd reconciled myself to the fact that the book is not just made up of emails I found the movements between the Diery, the emails and the story of Pi's life effective and enjoyable.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
24 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
A touching and provocative novel
13 Sep 1999
Format:Hardcover
I've read the reviews posted, and so need not rehash the plot for you yet again. I just finished this book yesterday, and wanted to weigh in on the side of the proponents of it. It's not a philosophy tract, its a novel! A novel that does cause you to stop and consider some of the philospohical questions raised by the protagonists, but it remains true to its literary purpose. The Hamlet theme is especially adroit, and I agree with the reviewer who singled out the 7 year old Martha as an especially engaging character. If you loved the movie "You've Got Mail," you'll probably NOT like this book. If you do enjoy a well-written book with realistic characters, clever dialogue and some substance between the plot lines, then do get this book. This is one of my ten best of the year, to date.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
One of the best books I've ever read!
21 Oct 1999
Format:Hardcover
My best friend and I, who live in separate states and are in touch mostly by email, read this book at the same time. We marvelled at the intelligence of the writing, and the geniune friendship between J.D. and Pi. Many of the late night questions we ponder were addressed in M. Touch. We both felt compelled to write the author a letter of thanks for such a touching (no pun) book. But we never got around to it. Hopefully, Sylvia Brownrigg will read this review! I can't wait for her next book!!!
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Well, yes and no
19 Jan 2000
Format:Hardcover
Another mixed bag. Like most novels not bad enough for me to close within the first 30 pages, there is something to this one. It didn't bore me--exactly--although, well, yes it did in some parts. It also didn't grip me--exactly--although, well, yes there were some surprisingly lyrical passages that did pull me in. Some of the literary and philosophical references were lost on me. I suppose I'm not as erudite as you other readers. On the other hand, you shouldn't have to be erudite to enjoy a novel. Other novels much more jam-packed with important ideas and important and/or obscure references than this one--like Umberto Eco's works, for instance--have indeed gripped me, held me, transported me. The problem here, I think, is more basic. This in fact is not a novel of ideas. It is a novel based on characterization. And I never came to much care about the main characters--okay, maybe about Pi a bit, but never about JD, and once Pi was drawn to him she lost her lustre for me too. Ultimately, the biggest problem was the most important section, the private correspondence between the two, by means of which they connect deeply and Pi falls for JD. This never rang true. It's almost as if Brownrigg wrote, "They connected deeply," instead of writing something to convey this happening. I just didn't see it. Never felt the genuine connection happening organically. And yet. And yet. It wasn't all bad. I did keep reading. There are some nice touches.
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