Una storia di legami e separazioni composta in modo “cinematografico”, non tanto per l’enfasi sul lato immaginifico quanto per la disciplina con cui segue le buone “regole” del raccontare storie (con tanto di climax) e il profitto con cui costruisce ogni scena. In questo senso ben scritto, piacevole, ma poco più.
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Loved the movie, starring Anthony Hopkins and Charlotte Gainsbourg, so had to read the novel. It didn't disappoint. Featuring sharply realistic dialog and exotic Uruguayan detail, it will tingle your romantic bones while wafting pleasure your way like a mug of hot cocoa. For best effect, you might need to have seen the movie first, but then again perhaps not. ( )

Really enjoyed this book, beautiful style, down to earth and very immediate, not at all pretentious or overly descriptive. Very interesting character study, not an action story. Enjoyed the variety of characters and the dynamic between them. I have read 2 other novels by Peter Cameron. He deserves to be more widely known, at least by readers who like fully rounded, interesting characters and a thought-provoking plot. ( )

non so perchè abbia comprato questo romanzo: non conosco l'autore, non è il mio genere, non ha una copertina così accattivante da attirare, in libreria. Forse avrò letto una recensione superlativa. Forse il fatto che racconti (ma è quasi un pretesto) delle difficoltà di scrivere biografie. Forse.
Stava da un bel po' sullo scaffale e ora l'ho letto.
Non mi è piaciuto granchè ma riconosco che ha qualche pregio: dialoghi, scrittura ambientazione sudamericana non scontata: è semplice ma non banale, quindi non gli dò stelle ma invito a leggerlo. Sono sicura che piacerà a molti.

The City of Your Final Destination is set in Uruguay, although it won’t satisfy the armchair traveler as it is mostly takes place within a big house in Uruguay

“Here I am in Uruguay, but I could be anywhere. I could be in Kansas. Although the air smelled different: there was some sort of warm, dusty scent that seemed vaguely exotic.”

That’s Omar thinking out loud. He’s a scholar trying to get authorisation to write a biography about the writer Jules Gund. Omar’s kind of a strange one, or at least his girlfriend Deirdre makes him out to be a strange one. He doesn’t seem to really push himself to do things, instead she does the pushing – she tells him to go to Uruguay to get the authorisation. And he does.

The story didn’t quite jell with me for a while, until Omar meets Caroline, Jules’ wife (who lives in the same estate as Jules’ mistress and brother – yeah it is complicated):

“She turned away from the window. ‘Of who I would seem to be if a biography were written of Jules. If, let us say, you were to write a biography of Jules. Who would I be? A mad Frenchwoman, who had been married to Jules Gund, painting in an attic.’”

And then I realised what this book was about. This biography of a man who is no longer alive would change them all, perhaps especially Omar:

“Suddenly it seemed exhausting, impossible: How do you write a biography? he wondered, when there is so much, when there is everything, an infinity, to know. It seemed impossible. It was like compiling a telephone book from scratch.” ( )