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Cargando... The Rise & Fall of Great Powers (2014)por Tom Rachman
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. I got 100 pages into this book and for the life of me I can't tell you what this book is about. This book is a perfect example of a critics darling. Sure the writing is well done but there is nothing to the story, I am not sure there is even a plot. It seems to be told at three different times and yet nothing - at least in the first 100 pages seems to be revealed about why it is being told this way. You have a quirky lead character but so what. With so many books out there I can't stand wasting time on pretentious drivel like this. ( ) The story follows protagonist Tooly through three periods of her life. In 1988, she is a nine-year-old child living with her father in Bangkok. In 1999, she is living in New York and dating a law student. In 2011, she owns a failing bookstore in Wales. The plot involves Tooly’s quest for identity. Who are all those odd people that raised her? Who are her parents? Did anyone really care for her? The book is structured in an unusual way. At heart, it is a mystery that jumps forward and backward to the three timelines, doling out pieces and parts that the reader needs in order to figure it out. By the end, the mystery is solved, and the pieces come together. It is slow in developing and bogs down in the middle. In the end I was unsure if the payoff was worth it. I loved Rachman’s The Italian Teacher, so I thought I would try another. I think this is a case where the complex structure got in the way of the story.
Tom Rachman’s ingenious second novel, “The Rise and Fall of Great Powers,” is harder to describe than “The Imperfectionists,” his sensational first. The richness of this book is more apparent once the reading is over. In other words, “The Rise and Fall of Great Powers” is knottier than “The Imperfectionists,” and more deliberately confusing. Mingling these time frames and withholding explanations about characters’ relations to each other, Rachman raises the stakes of this minor mystery somewhat higher than the novel can ultimately afford. Now beyond resentment or blame, she just wants a usable past and someone worthy of her tender heart. Rachman is certainly such a person, and in these pages, you may discover that you are, too. To my taste, at least at the outset, Rachman steers dangerously close to being merely whimsical. There's something slightly cutesy about the wall-to-wall eccentricity, something slightly precious about the fey withholding of information from the reader. I had a little snooze on page 40, but by page 340 I was bolt awake. I'll keep The Rise and Fall of Great Powers on my shelf. Some novels are such good company that you don’t want them to end; Tom Rachman knows this, and has pulled off the feat of writing one. All this amounts to a touching story of fallen idols, with brilliant insight into misplaced loyalties, and the power that adults have over children. Rachman has written a hugely likeable, even loveable book about the people we meet and how they shape us. Pertenece a las series editorialesdtv (14487) PremiosDistincionesListas de sobresalientes
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR The Seattle Times The Globe and Mail Kirkus Reviews Daily Mail The Vancouver Sun From the author of The Italian Teacher and The Imperfectionists comes a brilliant, intricately woven novel about a young woman who travels the world to make sense of her puzzling past. Look in the back of the book for a conversation between Tom Rachman and J. R. Moehringer Following one of the most critically acclaimed fiction debuts in years, New York Times bestselling author Tom Rachman returns with a brilliant, intricately woven novel about a young woman who travels the world to make sense of her puzzling past. Tooly Zylberberg, the American owner of an isolated bookshop in the Welsh countryside, conducts a life full of reading, but with few human beings. Books are safer than people, who might ask awkward questions about her life. She prefers never to mention the strange events of her youth, which mystify and worry her still. Taken from home as a girl, Tooly found herself spirited away by a group of seductive outsiders, implicated in capers from Asia to Europe to the United States. But who were her abductors? Why did they take her? What did they really want? There was Humphrey, the curmudgeonly Russian with a passion for reading; there was the charming but tempestuous Sarah, who sowed chaos in her wake; and there was Venn, the charismatic leader whose worldview transformed Tooly forever. Until, quite suddenly, he disappeared. Years later, Tooly believes she will never understand the true story of her own life. Then startling news arrives from a long-lost boyfriend in New York, raising old mysteries and propelling her on a quest around the world in search of answers. Tom Rachmanan author celebrated for humanity, humor, and wonderful charactershas produced a stunning novel that reveals the tale not just of one woman but of the past quarter-century as well, from the end of the Cold War to the dominance of American empire to the digital revolution of today. Leaping between decades, and from Bangkok to Brooklyn, this is a breathtaking novel about long-buried secrets and how we must choose to make our own place in the world. It will confirm Rachmans reputation as one of the most exciting young writers we have. Praise for The Rise & Fall of Great Powers Ingenious . . . Rachman needs only a few well-drawn characters to fill a large canvas and an impressive swath of history.Janet Maslin, The New York Times A superb follow-up to 2010s The Imperfectionists . . . ambitious and engaging.The Seattle Times Engaging and inventive . . . full of wonderfully quirky, deeply flawed, but lovable characters . . . On the spectrum of interesting literary childhoods, Tooly Zylberbergthe protagonist of Tom Rachmans second novelwould rank somewhere in the vicinity of Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist.San Francisco Chronicle I found it impossible not to fall in love with shape-shifting Tooly. As an adult, she sports an ironical sense of humor and an attraction to dusty old books. As a child, her straight-faced mirth and wordplay are break-your-heart irresistible.Ron Charles, The Washington Post [A] read-it-all-in-one-weekend book.The New Republic A... No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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