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Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
Self-indulgent and drab - it hasn't stood the test of time Originally published in 1972 and set mostly in the early 1900s, this book now qualifies as nostalgia in two different ways. The story is not particularly new, the tale of a rich Don Juan/Casanova-style character drifting and seducing directionlessly through Europe supported by and yet eventually condemned by the liberal company he finds himself in. The writing style is of a kind when in 1972 would still have been seen as revolutionary. It has broken narrative, unconventional mixing of first- and... more info
Incomprehensiible I have in my life read most of the Booker Prize offerings, so like to think that I have a reasonable understanding of popular literature. But what was this book about?, I didn't know when I started it and I still didn't know when I was 3/4 of the way through, which is where I abandoned it. As another reveiwer said, definately a book for the coffee table, preferabley to prop up the dodgy leg!!!! and gather dust it certainly will!!
A strange choice by the Booker judges This is the kind of book that only through the title was I able to remember the hero's name. Its concentration on the priviliged lives of the European genteel and descriptions of vastly dull sex scenes left me cold. It seemed that all the action was happening off stage- the few glipses of trench warfare were the only engaging and moving passages in the book. Berger's writing suffers from his insitance on "explaining" things but not enough so they are at all understandable. In this repect G seems very... more info
A Classic It's too easy to write academic essays about the author of this book: such writings can never convey the compassion and lack of sentimentality to the love with which this book was written. If you like Cézanne, Picasso, Saussure, Derrida, Barthes or Foucault, Miles Davis, Satie or John Coltrane, or Behhthoven's climax in The Nineth Symphony, you will appreciate this book. In short, if you don't like this review or don't find it helpful, then you shouldn't buy the book.
