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The Zigzag Way
 
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The Zigzag Way (Hardcover)

by Anita Desai (Author)
2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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15 new from £0.14 25 used from £0.01 1 collectible from £14.00
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Hardcover 3 used & new from £14.95
Paperback (Reprint) 18 used & new from £1.50

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Chatto & Windus (2 Sep 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0701177438
  • ISBN-13: 978-0701177430
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.2 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 628,030 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #33 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > D > Desai, Anita

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Product Description

Review
"She is one of the best English language novelists of modern times."
--"Daily Telegraph"
"Desai has a gift of opening up a closed world and making it clearly visible."
--"Sunday Times"

"From the Trade Paperback edition."

Daily Telegraph
'She is one of the best English language novelists of modern times' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Zigzag Way
38% buy the item featured on this page:
The Zigzag Way 2.5 out of 5 stars (4)
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The Village by the Sea
18% buy
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14% buy
The Death of Mr.Love 4.8 out of 5 stars (4)
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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
2.5 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A luminous novel set in Mexico, 3 Nov 2006
By Philippe Horak (Zug, Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Eric O'Brien is an uncertain and awkward young man, a would-be writer and a traveller in spite of himself. Happy to follow his more confident girlfriend Em to Mexico, he is overwhelmed with sensory overload and gradually seduced by the strangeness, the colour, the mysteries of an older world and its celebrations of the Dia de los Muertos. He finds himself in a curious quest for his own family in a ghost mining town, now barely inhabited, where almost a hundred years earlier young Cornish miners worked the rich seams in the earth. Until Pancho Villa and revolution came to Mexico.
A recording of this novel is available from BBC Audiobooks and Eleanor Bron's reading is truly breathtaking. Highly recommended.
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2.0 out of 5 stars disappointing really, 31 Dec 2008
By E. Smith (U.K.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Zigzag Way (Paperback)
Having not read any of Desai's books before, but having heard good things about Desai, this book was a major disappointment.

The writing was predictable, the characters one dimensional and 'formulaic', the use of the Mexican setting and 'day of the dead' did nothing for the storyline and did not do the vibrant country and culture justice.

I may give other books of Desai's a go, but this one was not very good sadly.
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2.0 out of 5 stars A skeleton of a book, 7 Nov 2008
By Sonia (Delft, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Zigzag Way (Paperback)
The Zigzag Way is a short novel about a young man who follows his scientist girl friend to Mexico, in order to get inspiration for his writing. When in Mexico, he comes across Dona Vera, a haughty European woman, that runs a anthropological research centre in Mexico and holds a grudge against the past mining companies and workers in the region. This encounter prompts Eric to search for his family's mining past, particularly his paternal grandmother.

After finishing this book I was confused. It seems like the story had only just begun. I was expecting to learn more about Eric and his choices, and particularly why he was reaching out to the past, but the author did not elaborate. Also, no explanation was given for Dona Vera's behaviour, there are only some references to ghosts from the past, but it all goes by so quickly, that it's almost as if the author got fed up with writing the book and decided to cut it short, a point one of my fellow reviewers also made.
I could not identify with any of the characters, because I don't feel I was given the opportunity in so short a novel. Also, I found the prose unnecessarily complex and lyrical.

I think this could have a been a great novel if the author had put more life into it. Unfortunately, it reads like a skeleton of a book, a framework that needs to be reworked and expanded.
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1.0 out of 5 stars disappointing
im happy i didnt buy this book and only got it from the libary because what i waste of money it would have been. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Karen

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