Customer Reviews

Bodies Electric

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

 

 

When I first opened this book and began reading it, I knew I was in good hands. The writing is beautiful. I finished it in two sittings, and immediately regretted reading it so fast, but I couldn't help it. It is stunningly captivating and putting it down is very close to impossible. I've read thousands of novels in my time, and I can't at the moment think of one written better than this one. Mr. Harrison's mastery of the English language is unequalled. The characters are fascinating and the storytelling flawless. And the suspense will have you reading at the edge of your seat. Also check out 'Break and Enter' and 'Manhattan Nocturne', both also works of art. But 'Bodies Electric' will always be my favorite. My guess is; if you read this one, you will be desperately hunting for everything else he's written, and you won't be disappointed when you find them.

I had some minor issues toward the end. During a meeting late in the novel, a character is forced to present wearing nothing but swimwear. This seemed a laborious way to make a point, and the silliness of the situation distracted me. The ending ties up messily, with everything resolved but in a manner that stretches the limits of disbelief. People are revealed for what and who they really are, certainly, but there's a lack of motivation behind their actions, and their deeds are not convincing.

I'm being deliberately coy, because all faults aside, this is a very impressive book. Harrison's writing style and the depth and breadth of his characters are beautiful. Reading on, you come to feel as if you know these people, and in most instances you genuinely care about them. Even minor characters are fully limned. Better still is what Harrison doesn't say. Jack Whitman tells us that his mother never liked his late wife, and in the next breath that he doesn't speak to his mother much anymore. Harrison lets us read between the lines in many such places.

A classical sense of tragedy runs through this book: that our lives are not foretold but shaped by us, and that we are often the sources of our own ruin. At the tale's end, you'll want to go back to the beginning, armed with a new knowledge of who these people are and what will become of them.

Harrison's novel is an engrossing and suspenseful story of colliding ambitions and needs in America, with an incisive view of how corporations dehumanize the people who support them. His rich descriptions of life and society are as astute as any critical essay, yet make for irresistible reading. He also is a master of the "gray area": there are no good guys or bad guys in this book -- just people trying to survive and find personal fulfillment in their own ways. This novel has changed both the way I write and the way I view other people trying to make sense of life.

The atmosphere of New York in the early 90'ies; funny how that felt a little distant, like remembering an old friend. This is a very nice book, well written, with a set of engaging characters, and an interesting story. The story is not complicated, but well told, and the author makes you really care about the multi-faceted characters involved. Also, this author is a keen observer of the world around him. The detailed description of things, actions and motives are often a little unexpected, and often illuminating.

I could hardly put this book down. I really enjoyed the theme and the development of the characters. Really a pleasure to have come across it.

Bodies Electric is over all a good novel. The novel is about a man named Jack Whitman. In the beginnig of the novel, Harrison does a nice job introducing Jack, and this continues throughout the rest of the novel as well. By the end of the novel, the reader really feels as if they had personally met Jack, which to me, makes this a well written novel. Jack is a business man who works in a very large and well known media corperation. At first, I was not sure if I would really like this novel because I am not usually interested in things dealing with large businesses. However, I ended up learning a lot about big corporations and it was actually quite interesting. I would more than likely recommend this novel to someone looking for a novel to read. I would definitely suggest to go somewhere where you know you will not be bothered because I was unable to stop reading by the time I got to the last few chapters.

This book is very good, allthough, is pretty perverted at times. If you can go through the first two chapters without being scared off, you are good for the rest of the book.

It is a very good story, which made me think a lot about life and tragedy, and understanding of such. A more advanced read.

Fantastic! That's what I could only say to you guys without any chronicle backpains. I suffered a badback again last week and had to lie down in bed for 4 days. "Bodies Electric" had lightened my painful suffering for two days and enlightened me in the meantime. When I finished it, I could not help but shaking my head awkwardly on my pillows with amazement and appreciation. This review is also my "Thank You!" note to Mr. Harrison for this wonderful and profound painkiller other than Motrin 800 mg and Flexril. The only thing that I did not quite enjoyed is that when I finished reading, the ending seems to be a bit rushed and obscure. Mr. Harrison so far has created two profound, memorable yet lonely characters: Jack Whiteman and Porter Wren. Both are fatally driven to be a "tragic hero" and a living example of "The heart is a lonely hunter." Both have made you, the reader, to look at the faceless lonely crowd out in the street, on the sidewalk, in the concrete jungles, with new way of looking angle, finally realized and visualized that behind every expressionless face and worldly success, some of them might still with passion, love, warmth, sympathy, fantasy, desire, weakness, helplessness, tenderness, hopes and dreams. Harrion's artwork might not be easily appreciated by those under 30 who are still unconciously or subconciously reading books with their own different moral standards, with their bias social values or pre-judgement to approach a book, trying to categorize a book with the superflous commercial brands: "Thriller, Genre," words like "Suspenseful, whodunit...." These pathetic marketing stuff in fact, all got nothing to do with Harrison's works. Because he only told us two thing: "No matter what and why, no matter how and when, with wife and children or not, we human beings still got a darker side and lonely inner self. The spur-of-the-moment or your behavior, no matter how reasonable or logical at the moment, or vise versa, sometimes might just ruin everything you have worked so hard to have achieved or reached." Reading Mr. Harrison's books with any social value or moral standard is a doomed wrong start albeit to appreciate his greatness.

Just couldn't imagine how Harrison would have created so many interesting characters and stories. You should not read his books with your own preferences or likings. All you have to do is "read on and read along with the writer's creative world." Do not treat his books as those commercialized, categorized stupid words, such as "genre,thriller, mystery, whodunit..." These goddamned hateful disgusting words would only narrow your reading mind and taste and would only offer you a tunnel-vision like, prefixed requirement and standard to force you trying very hard but in vain to appreciate Harrison's wholeheartedly given writing enthusiasm. Harrison's only problem to a reader like me with bad eyesight is his longer than usual sentences and paragraphs but nonetheless would stop me to appreciate his abundant feelings forged into those profound sentences.