Hi all my cookies, I’d like to wish you a very nice beginning of 2012!
I have made an effort to read the book on time and to post my comments also on time… let’s start the year on time! ;)
I have enjoyed the book in some ways, for example, the way the author guides us through the two stories, one in the past and one in the present, and how they converge into one at the end of the book. I do like how I got hooked reading the book as it was progressing. I also like to have some historic references or other place’s description, it makes me ‘travel’ being at home.
I have not enjoyed the book in some ways, because it has too much sex, too much violence (both too explicit). It is true that that’s related to the homicide police work, but I think that many of the scenes in this book could be avoided or, let’s say it in another way, could be written in a more elegant way. Sometimes I find that the story is a little bit forced in its development and outcome, as some of you have already said.
But I guess this is it, this is the book, with some things we like and some we don’t, and both together come to our final review of it. I find it very entertaining, but sometimes disgusting, I like some of the narrative resources the author has chosen but not others… If I have to say a single word about it I would say entertaining, that’s all. I think it is not a neither bad nor good book, but it is more for mass book consumers, it can be better in many ways, but in some parts I got addicted to it and wanted to know, wanted to see…
Regarding the story, I thought that the mastermind behind all this vengeance was Felsen himself. Has anyone had that in mind too? I thought that was him punishing Manuel, and Oliveira, I even thought that it was him the one that killed Pedro (remember the accident? There was a BMW involved!). My personal opinion is that the book may be better with this end; everything would be solved with the same characters, coming full circle. I think that this author has some potential… I’d give him a second chance! :P
And the title? Why is it Small death in Lisbon? Almost everybody is dead in the end!
Thank you for share your thoughts and for make us choose books that otherwise I'd never read!
Ps: I have to say that, as always, I totally agree with Nayra’s comments ;)
Thanks Jorge for your comments! Always very interesting! As for the title "Small Death..." I have found something on wikipedia. It could be a tricky title playing a word game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_petite_mort as it could refer to "la petite mort" or an orgasm. That would be consistent with the kind of murders we see on the book. Any native speakers have anything to say about this?
ReplyDeleteVery interesting! I would have never guessed it, though like Jorge I wondered why 'small death'.
ReplyDeleteBut now I wonder how you bumped into this meaning... what were you looking up in wikipedia?????????? :-)
But Arantxa, you told me where to look!
ReplyDeleteAlthough what Rocio suggests is certainly more interesting, I thought the title was intended to be an irony of the huge story of crime and murders that are linked to an, apparently, small death. The ironic tone would advance that the crime motive is not what it could look like, and that the dimensions of the story go far beyond the death of a girl and the borders of Lisbon.
ReplyDeleteAs Jorge, as we approached the end, I thought Felsen’s role was going to be stronger, with a Machiavellian revenge full of details that will connect all the characters and circumstances. It turned out that the cause of revenge was closer in time and linked to other people motives and, I would say, madness; and the tragic death of the girl, somehow casual and collateral.
Finally, although Miguel Rodriges is despicable, I found that sodomizing her own daughter was too much. The book finishes without him knowing, but the story line suggests it is something he will eventually find out...
Just finished the book! I've drawn up my conclusions and feelings before reading all posts not to be influenced. Difficult to not to surf on the blog knowing there are some discussions going on…
ReplyDeleteBeing the devil’s advocate, I’d definitively tag it as an entertaining blockbuster. Not a book to be studied by future generations but a rather a very black novel that presents you a murder with an original two story lines that become a single one in more recent times due to the deadly wolfram and its cold blooded trader Felsen. The Lysbon and Berlin setting during WWII and the two narrators in different periods makes the reading more appealing.
For me, the weakness in the plot is that Felsen loses the drive at the end. I've would have expected more of him. The idea of being himself the instigator would make sense but how, arranging Olivieiras’s wife infidelity ? Is it not too much?
Main characters are also well developed and you can easily sympathise or detest them. Together with the two story streams you have two opposite poles Ze vs Felsen, good vs bad, integrity vs decay.
Regarding the use of Portuguese words, you cannot compare it to Juno’s book. Juno is writing as the Dominican or Hispanic American people talk, pure Spanglish. There is no innovation in it, as many contemporary authors are showing this linguistic reality long ago. In Small death, the use of some Portuguese or German words is just a clin d’oeil to some exoticism.
About the violence and sex, I’ve already mentioned in the Oscar Waos’s comments, that it seems that to be a best seller you need to be explicit in a not very healthy way (is it normal for a 14 year old to be a prostitute, a drug user, nymphomaniac and rich ?). But it is not only this book, look at Freedom or The Wondrous Life… This makes some passages not very credible but just sellable…
Finally, I would recommend the book to someone who likes action and crime thillers. And if you want to repeat the author, there is a series of 4 books with inspector Falcón as main character, with a very nice location: Seville! So the Blind man of Seville might be your next reading after Blink!
I agree with Monica about what it seems to be a “must-have to be a best seller”: unhealthy sex and explicit violence, as much mixed as possible, and included in such a natural way that it appears as it is totally normal… It makes me wonder, perhaps it is? Not normal, but maybe common. Anyway, it reminds me the pattern or too much used resource of some Spanish movies.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, thanks for the recommendations. I will keep them in mind next time I go for a thriller :-)