I Am the Brother of XX

After reading a great New Yorker article on this author, I thought I would love this book. Sadly, it left me cold. I think that the flat, unemotional language was part of its point, but alas, I just found nothing to move me to the next sentence. I've tried to re-read some of the stories, but honestly, 10 mintues after I put the book down, I can't recall anything I've read. I'd love to hear from someone who loved this book--perhaps it takes a different approach to best appreciate it.

This was an amazing read. I think the person who called the language unemotional is confusing simplistic for shallow. There are wonderful turns of phrases, thought-provoking scenarios and heartwrenching takes on loneliness, neglect, inheritance, and legacy. Each story is subtly violent. This book is not for everyone, and reading too fast can ruin the experience. Some of the imagery is still with me and will stay with me for a long time.

Interesting imagination and philosophy by a person who experienced neglect as a child, style is not innovative. I won't buy any more of her books.

Like poetry and a movie warped into one. Nothing I had read cams close to it.

Collection of short stories by a Swiss author who writes in Italian. Jaeggy’s writing style is fascinating — concentrated and terse — and the effect is both impressionistic and dreamlike. (One reviewer referred to the style as “gothic minimalism.”) However, with a few exceptions, the characters in the dark, foreboding stories are not particularly interesting or engaging. The best stories — a 13th-century woman who tastes the foreskin of Christ, an orphan who burns alive the aristocrat who cares for her, a woman who follows a blind girl through Auschwitz — are haunting and disturbing, but too many are simply puzzling or too short to develop clarity. **

I could identify with this book as it's about a boarding. Very toughing.

Good book