- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Ecco Press (Jan 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0060933755
- ISBN-13: 978-0060933753
- Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 13.3 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,088,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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First Sentence
Each day Ronny saw the same man waving. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Each day Ronny saw the same man waving. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I felt this story had too many narators which made it fragmented and it took me quite a while to understand what was going on. It was only in the last few of chapters that the characters were linked together and I started to wonder how it would end. Not a book I shall pick up again in a hurry, although full points for originality
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Barker herself once described this as a novel of "cornball perversion," and no one who reads it is likely to dispute that. It is filled with the weirdest group of gonzo characters ever assembled, among them Ronny, a homeless man whose real name is Jim; Jim, a hairless man whose real name is Ronny; Luke, a photographer of pornography who smells like fish; and Lily, a violent and rebellious teenager who suffers from a clotting disorder and worships The Head. If these characters were not already bizarre enough, Barker also opens the Pandora's box of their not-in-the-textbook psyches to the reader--showing them to be even more off-the-wall than we had ever dreamed! Providing fertile ground for all the aberrations to flourish, the author sets the characters in a remote seaside resort/nudist colony during the off-season, with additional forays to a nearby boar farm, the Lost and Found Department of the London Underground, and a bat cave in Sumatra, where a character we know only from her letters is searching for a hairy hominid with no big toes. Obviously, this is not your grandmother's novel.
Wide Open is absolutely original, sometimes wacky, sometimes poignant, sometimes violent, and always fascinating. The fluidity of Barker's prose keeps the reader zipping along, despite the fact that we can't always tell when she's putting us on, aren't always sure what's going on, and often suspect there are deep themes here if only we could catch our breaths long enough to figure them out. This is an exhilarating wild ride for a reader willing to be "wide open."
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As an avid reader and a translator constantly on the lookout for 'it' I didn't think twice before buying an Impac winner - even more so as I found some past winners (Herta Mueller and Michel Houellebecq) really outstanding. I read it with due thoroughness and attention, but ended up bitterly disappointed. I did follow the storyline alright, but felt really vexed when it finally came to nothing. I found characterization rather hermetic in the way incompatible with me (and that is the objective way of saying 'poor'), and motivation (a very important aspect for me as a reader) practically non-existent. So no, I will neither translate nor recommend it.
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