Customer Reviews

Amnesia

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My tattered copy is no longer serviceable. It will be nice to read this again in a crisp Kindle font. This was quite an ambitious first novel from a very ambitious man. Challenge yourself. I believe you will thank me.

Douglas Anthony Cooper escaped me until last week and for the life of me, I don't know why I downloaded Amnesia for my Kindle. Regardless, this author has impressed me greatly with his way with words, way with creating characters, way with interweaving and juxtaposing tales, and he has given me a novel which I am eager to reread. Because I was able to highlight passages on the Kindle, I am can access incredible statements at my convenience. This is not a novel which is read and forgotten, but rather one which festers and reappears at any time, like memories that are triggered without warning. It is literature which I believe is timeless and I recommend this novel to those who enjoy being immersed in a story without thinking about the weakness of an author's words.

Memory is important, and its loss creates dangerous, violent, even evil conditions. This magnificent novel explores memory and its loss in contexts spanning the extremely personal, interpersonal, familial, metropolitan, architectural, mythic, philosophic, and religious. In a feat unsurpassed in virtuosity, Douglas Anthony Cooper has written a compelling, page-turning fictional memoir/mystery in a truly poetic voice.

I read the print version years ago, and it had a major affect on me, and also on my friends- I passed it around. We all agreed that it was a lovely book, even if we all found it very disturbing. I'm now reading it again on my Kindle and it's just as I remember it.

Unorthodox and fascinating. A kaleidoscope of ideas, intriguing musings, and arresting prose. A book that comes to us seemingly from another dimension, with delicious perspective and convicting principles. Worth more than one read for its complexity. This is not simply a book - it is decidedly an experience. Dark and depressing, but altogether entirely interesting.

Amnesia is aptly named. Reading it, you feel like you yourself have forgotten something integral. It moves at a deadly, feverish pace, twisting itself out of recognition, becoming something more than a novel. Just as Torontois an organic city within the book, the book itself is organic. It grows into and out of itself. It finds its way into your life.

Like a rotted tooth or a troubling sore I return to this book. Scrape aside the scab of human suffering and Cooper finds the sore beneath. Enigmatic and esoteric, he delivers the knock out punch when least expected. As a long time fan of Eco and Borges, I appreciated Cooper's craft and touch upon his work when I get a chance. This is not an exit.

...I'd imagine his novel would read like Amnesia. This is not a light read. It is not the sort of book you would take to the beach on a sunny August afternoon, but the sort you read at 3:00am under the covers. Amnesia may be an intelligent and highly quotable book, but it is also confusing. I will say that everything one really needs to know is within its pages, but the question lies in whether the reader knows for what he or she is looking. Diligent or not, every reader will undeniably learn something from this novel. It is unique, compelling, and most likely unlike anything you've read until now.

Although I have owned the book since it was published lo these many years ago, I decided to download the Kindle version for my wife to read, and was of course compelled to read it again myself for a third time. This novel continues to astonish me. With every re-reading, it seems to have shape-shifted silkie-like into a new conformation with fresh and compelling insights into the human psyche: coming of age, shattering loss, family dynamics, unintended consequences, and so much more. It's beyond me to attempt to say just 'what it's about', but I love the beauty of language and the sharpness of observation, the harsh yet tender disemboweling of the main characters' inner conflicts, and the lovely way that a spectral hidden city is conjured to interpenetrate the familiar city of Toronto. I can't recommend it more highly.

I'm extremely pleased to see that "Amnesia" is finally available in ebook format; its print run was far too brief for a debut novel that's so profoundly intricate and compelling. Reviewing "Amnesia" is extremely difficult, because every plot device in the book, no matter how small, points to how and why Izzy Darlow, the main character, connects with the hapless Katie after she's institutionalized. Reading this book is a lot like trying to open a puzzle box in the sense that it has an almost addictive quality. Cooper's style is stunningly gorgeous -- I can definitely see why he's been compared to Calvino -- and has a distinctly cinematic quality. Splendid read!