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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
books and sex, August 29, 2008
This review is from: The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri: A Novel (Hardcover)
I read this book after reading the glowing L.A. Times review and found that reading it was like falling in love. At first there's the astonishment, then the infatuation, then the deeper fascination. That may sound silly, but it is a book about love--and a book about the love of books. It's thick with ideas, and yet I found it to be a page turner. I was pulled along by the mysteries, the characters, and even the writing itself. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves books, either as objects or for what's in them--readers, writers, collectors, librarians, book designers and restorers, and so on. It's also about sex. Really about it. David Bajo is one of the few contemporary writers I have come across who is writing about sex directly, provocatively, and intelligently without draining the eroticism. This is a hot book, but never gratuitous or juvenile. I'm going to wait awhile, but I plan to read it again fairly soon--both because it's rich in ideas and because it's a pleasurable read.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Lot of Sex, Confusion, November 12, 2008
This review is from: The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri: A Novel (Hardcover)
I guess I have no one to blame but myself for not really liking this novel because I went into it expecting something totally different. When I saw "351 books" in the title and read that the protagonist was a math genius, I thought this would be something I might enjoy a lot--a story that looks at the world through the dual lenses of (almost) a book a day and the mathematical mindset. Instead, I was drawn into a confusing story that seemed to do both literature and math a disservice.
The novel starts off promising enough: the math whiz, Philip Masryk, is left a collection of 351 beautifully bound books by his soul-mate, yet seeming opposite, the bookbinder, Irma Arcuri. She has, for some reason I'm still not clear on, decided to abandon her lover and disappear somewhere in the world. But she has left him clues in the books she has bound for him and he pursues her. So far, so good.
It soon becomes apparent, however, that there are real problems in this novel. Here are some of my disappointments: first, the books are really secondary here. It's an interesting premise that's wasted. Five of the books are "authored" by Irma and of the "real" novels, the most important pieces are lines inserted into the text by Irma. Only Don Quixote seems to be used with any real impact. The rest are pointless background.
Second, Philip is the only character that is really well-developed and, granted, he is interesting in his way. His running obsessions and focused way of thinking are fun to see. Still, it's hard to believe that so many women want to have sex with this math introvert, especially since he manages to cheat on them all. And I didn't really believe this idea of Philip turning everything into an equation. I've met a lot of high level mathematicians in my career and I've never known one to do this--wish about it, maybe. It reminded me of that stupid thing they do in Time Out New York with their equation of the week.
By the way, there is a lot of sex in this book. Not necessarily a bad thing but, as I said before, I don't really get the appeal of Philip to all the women he beds. And Irma is so distant that she never becomes a fully-formed character. It's hard to see her appeal. And yet, every character in this book seems driven primarily by their sexual desire for Irma, who seems to have had sex with everyone. That includes Philip's ex-wives as well as his step-children. Unnecessarily strange, if you ask me.
The fact of the matter is, I walked away from this novel very confused about what I experienced and what I was supposed to take away from it. The books sort of fizzles out rather than finishes. I don't know if there's more to come but, despite some very readable passages, the overall effect doesn't leave me wishing for more.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thought provoking in the best sense, September 6, 2008
This review is from: The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri: A Novel (Hardcover)
I hesitated to start this book because it came to me through a friend who met the author, and usually books that arrive through those kind of channels aren't my cup of tea. I was also worried about the mathematics in the book, either that it would be a convenient gimmick or that the math would bog down the story. The cover was intriguing, though, and the book had a blurb from a writer I really like, so I gave it a try and I'm really glad I did. First of all, the use of math was very well done. It was complex but not complicated, and it was integral to the story. The main character is something of a math genius who uses formulas and numbers to understand the world, but this approach fails him when he tries to understand people. He can tell you what percentage of time a particular person answers the phone or how many nouns to verbs someone uses, but he can't tell you why people act like they do. At one point his ex-wife is angry at him because he isn't angry at her for something he should be (makes sense in the book, but hard to explain here) and he says, more or less, "at least I know why I'm supposed to be." This is a big improvement for him. It seems that this lack of emotional understanding is part of why Irma Arcuri has disappeared and why she has left Philip her library. He tries to use math to work through the books, but he finds he has to use the language of words. In that way, the book makes a case for literature, and Philip does fall under the spell of stories. But that's just one thread in an elegantly woven tapestry. There are a lot of ideas at work here, but it's also a good story (almost a mystery, full of clues for bibliophiles) about a man searching for a woman he loves, trying to find her physically while seeking to understand who she is and what they have had together. The book is also good on place, especially Seville and Philadelphia. The author really captures these cities, but he also makes them into something more, and I won't ever think about them in quite the same way. In that sense, the book really does create a world of its own, with its own logic and geography. Sometimes people say a book is "thought-provoking" in the same way they say an unattractive blind date is "interesting," but this book is thought-provoking in the very best sense. There is a lush quality to the writing that makes the book beautiful but not at all dumbed-down. The more I think about it, the more profound it is, and Irma Arcuri has become a real presence for me.
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