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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elijah spake, 2 Jun 2006
Irving Goldman, who's old enough to know better but too young to resist, falls in love. The lady of his desires is a 1950s Western film actress Justine Trimble. She's also dead. Neither of these impairments stops Goldman, who has talented friends. With a bit of applied science, Goldman feels, Justine can be "resurrected" from her film images. He has a video - in fact, he has several. Carting his collection to his technical friend Istvan Fallok, Goldman panders to Istvan's pride in his technical skills. Urging him to "Reconstitute the woman I love", Goldman leaves the video and awaits results.
Hoban's mastery of innovation and plot twists is fully displayed in this bizarre tale. Nearly every character is at or past retirement age. The scenes play with each character confronted with the reality of the calendar's dictates. Goodman is within a couple of years of Hoban himself, and there are certain to be comments about Hoban trying to fulfill impossible dreams himself. Perhaps so, but if such fantasies keep Hoban writing, and producing works of such quality, let's root for geriatric dreams.
Justine, of course, dutifully appears, and launches Fallok and his circle of friends on an outlandish enterprise. Emerging from the digitised image of a half-century old Western, she lacks colour. A monochrome human, even a lovely one, lacks certain appeal. There's only one means to bring colour to her cheeks - and the rest of her. Fallok makes the first donation, but Justine needs frequent topping up. After an unexpected opening scene, Justine hits the street for needed sustenance. The result brings the attention of the police. Inspector Hunter is a resourceful copper, but the challenges of this case are beyond his ken. There's nothing in the manual nor his experience that provides any insight to solving the case.
One thing about Justine, she's no 1950s wallflower. She knows what she needs and how to get it. However, she's conscious of who she is and realises she's out of place as well as time. Her thoughts on being alive again bring mixed emotions and self-reflection. How long can she last? What should she make of her new "life"? Can it mean anything? Hoban is deft in dealing with this character. The only thing unreal about her is her current situation. It's a difficult task to undertake, but Hoban pulls it off wonderfully. He not only creates excellent characters, but rings in more than one cultural icon. "If we build it, she will come" incorporates the wonderful line from Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe". Hoban's science is effective, and we are even given the recipe for the "primordial soup". Start with twenty gallons of chicken noodle and add some Oxo cubes. The toad is unexplained, but any biologist can fill you in. He further ties in the Biblical Prophet Elijah whose cameo appearance will have you howling. "Some of my best friends are goyim". Mine, too.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth a look, but read the others first, 25 May 2006
This should, I think, be considered an addendum to Hoban's recent series of London novels. It features characters from at least two earlier books (Grace from "Her Name was Lola" and Istvaan Fallok from "The Medusa Frequency" - and I may have missed others) but, as other reviewers point out, the central idea cannot really be taken very far. I can see that this would be disappointing if it was the only Hoban book you had read, or if you picked it up expecting a straightforward horror story - my advice is to read the others in the sequence (starting with "Medusa Frequency" but especially "Amaryllis Night and Day" and "The Bat Tattoo") and then return to this.
Finally (and trivially) it's a shame that the cover is in quite a different style from Hoban's other recent books, whose overall design is, I think, very good. It's going to stick out on my bookshelf! But perhaps that underlines its place slightly outside the main sequence.
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3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A stretched short story, 15 May 2006
Initially I was attracted to this book becasue of the Hammer Horror/Pulp Fiction type cover. I've never read any Russell Hoban books before.
I read it in about two hours (and I'm a slow reader.) I just can't see that this is, or should ever have been, a novel. It's a short story stretched out to the max.
Justine (one and two) was a black and white movie star who has been brought back to life and then vamps her way round modern day Soho.
There were some nice touches. The book includes such great quotes as:
'I'm a Frankenstein monster in cowboy boots.'
'You're trying to turn me into a vampire whore!'
and 'You start reconstituting dead movie stars and this is where you end up.'
Worth a read, but it will only pass a couple of hours...
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