Customer Reviews

The Blond Box

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We were required to read this for my creative writing class because Toby Olson came to visit the class. The book itself is very creative with three parallel times. There are also parts of a draft of a science fiction novel througout the book that correlate with the real events of the story. The language and the writing is excellent. The book does not lose your interest. Be prepared for an almost flippant attitude towards sexuality, it may be inserted graphically at any point. Personally, this did not hamper my enjoyment of the book, I have no problems with sexuality in literature, but some of my classmates were taken aback. The book's inspiration, Marcel Duchamp and his art, is interesting. Olson explained many connections to us and said that he had visited the art museum in Philadelpha that has Duchamp's collections and he started becoming engrossed by the man and his art, visiting multiple times and researching extensively. He has a very scholarly interest in the man. Olson as a person is very funny and witty. You will not forget his book if you pick it up, just be prepared for an entertaining and sometimes strange read.

The story takes place in three different times... 1949, 1969, and a fictional 2069, where characters in a sci-fi book being written in 1969 follow a parallel storyline to the plot unfolding in the "real world." Beyond this interesting and unusual structure, the book introduces us to an odd grouping of characters who are engaging and genuine, wracked as they are with various medical problems.

Ultimately _The Blond Box_ is about the art of Marcel Duchamp, and the best function of this odd narrative is providing a thoughtful, hypothetical context for his strange art. It's like a different way to write about an installation, instead of a scholarly article, instead of a critical review, a novel that positions the art in the center of a system that explicates it in the unusual way it demands.