Loon Lake: A Novel

Doctorow hace uso de su maestría para sacar adelante este libro con cambios en el narrador, en el tiempo y en el espacio. Al principio choca pero realmente es un gran texto.

Might have appealed to me in its daym and bissed it, and now I simply find it tiresome. The book itself was fine, good price etc.

I read this book together with my bookclub. We all hated it and it was the lowest rated book in the history of our bookclub which has been meeting for more than 15 years. It is confusing and really simply boring. The characters have no redeeming qualities and the writing style varies from non-sentences, switching from 1st person to 3rd person narrative without any indication who the character is that is narrating and jumping all over in a non-sequential manner, even in the middle of sections. There are no chapters.. You had to guess who the narrative was about and where it was taking place. I only finished this book so that I could thoroughly discuss it with my group. Everyone in my bookclub had trouble reading it, including an English teacher!!!! If you like esoteric styles, maybe you will like this book, but for most of us, it is a waste of time!!!

I'm not saying Fitzgerald's Gatsby isn't a great book, but it is limited in scope, whereas this is more panoramic, dramatic, darker, and kind of the "adult" version. My first Doctorow, I don't know if he's just like that, but I thought it was written in a pretty inimitable style-- you know all the dirty laundry about the characters without being able to know what they're going to do next... Everything's kind of misty like the Adirondacks. For the sense of alienation it conveys I would place it somewhere between Vonnegut and Eric Miles Williamson. Sometimes I'm not sure whether it's the mark of good or bad writing, but this is one of those books I found myself going back and rereading sections to look for clarification or clues to the narrative. So in a sense you could say it was so good I read it twice! There was no particular passage I could point to as brilliant, it's not a particularly quotable book, but it's still compelling and thrilling and conveys an atmosphere unlike most anything else that comes to mind.

I have read just about every book this man has produced but this one is a tad confusing. It may be that he is too sophisticated for my working man powers of comprehension. Then too, it might be that this book is a slapped together compilation of rambling stream-of -consciousness clippings mingled with the usual fine quality narrative of Doctorow. It does get better if you get past the first half.But by then you don't really care how it turns out....you just want it to be over.!