Customer Reviews

Breakfast in Babylon

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was one strange read. To be honest, as I was first reading through it, I couldn't figure out whether I loved it or hated it. But I sure couldn't put it down, so I suppose that's one point in its favour. I suppose any negative feelings I might've had toward this book may have arose because main character Isolt and I did not click. Though realistic, she is a miserable thing with little or no ambition, a good bit of evidence as to why people don't like punks. Luckily for us, the book is more following her than centred on her, and she serves as a vehicle through which we meet an equally believable, colourful, and far more amiable lot of characters. These folks (such as boyfriend Christopher...I realise Ms Martin meant for us to dislike him and sympathise with Isolt, that's not how it worked out here) combined with a good storyline peppered with vivid descriptions and the occasional foray into Isolt's head are what push this one from the "ambiguous" to the "good" category. This has got to be one of the best first-try novels I've picked up so far, and whether you love it, hate it, or are perplexed by it, I can guarantee you won't be able to close it till you've finished that last page.

I have come back to this book time and time again, the voice is so clear and the range of characters so cleverly drawn and so real as to be breathtaking. I wanted to kill Isolt so many times, each time she stumbles into the trap, I know she is young but she is not blind, I find her one of the most fascinating protaganists of the last decade. Christopher is the dark satan, a wonderfully drawn portrait of abuse, poverty and dellusion. It is he I was sorry for in the end. His life was too cruel and arbitary for happiness to be his destiny. I hope more people read this book. It is an underground classic and will be remembered as one of the great books this century. I've no doubt it is a book I will pick up thoughout my life just to revel in the sheer poetry of entanglement, despair, and wierd salvation.

I enjoyed this book, in spite of the dark themes of filth, abuse and drug addiction it was really good.

Isolt is the main character, an Irish girl who lives in Paris and makes her living begging. Begging is a way to get enough money for the next hit, a few beers at night with other beggars and friends, and sometimes to get money together to move to the next place. But Paris pays the best. She hooks up with Christopher, an American/ Hispanic drug dealer with his own dark past (and present for that matter) who wants to marry her so he can get papers ot stay in Europe.

I enjoyed this book because it is so explicit about a way of life that is completely foreign to mine, it opened my eyes in many ways to how another group of people live. Highly recommended.

I also could not put this book down. It has many laugh out loud moments; some excruciatingly correct observations about people; and a very refreshing, because female, take on the underside of the world. I felt very engaged by the characters. Ms. Martin did not try to make me sympathize with one over the other, as one reviewer suggests. Hilarious, believable and sympathetic characters do nightmarish things. This novel is most of all about men and women, and the ways that they treat each other. It will leave you saying the Lord's prayer beginning, "our mother," and asking yourself, "am I a Christopher at times." This book is so full of ideas that you can't wait to get back into it, like Burroughs or Hunter Thompson; you know that you have a universe of creativity and character and otherworldliness in your pocket. This is from a very talented writer, and I am set to begin More Bread Or I'll Appear. I leave a star off, because I am conservative about the meaning of five star novels. Caveat: not for weak stomachs.

I loved this book from the start. The characters made me laugh and cry at the same time. Emer Martin's dialogue and descriptions are vivid and often beautiful. This book changed the way I looked at people on the street. It gave me understanding. I was moved and entertained. A rare thing these days. Highly recommended.

Where Trainspotting's characters subscribe to the Beckettian phrase, "I can't go on, I'll go on," Martin's characters sound more like "I can't go on, I'll whine about it, then I'll go on." I took this book with me to Paris, and that didn't help. I cared about Trainspotting's characters, they were witty, they were bastards, they were losers, but they were believable. Who didn't cheer when Renton took off with the cash? When BiB's Iseult makes her escape, however, I responded to it more with a sense of relief that the book was finally over. You just don't care about her characters. Their motivations are unclear (why is Iseult living rough to begin with?) Welsh's characters, on the other hand, are immediately believable because Welsh limits their motivations to the basic ones: getting drunk, stoned, laid, paid or revenge. The only thing these books really have in common is the characters' heavy use of drugs. I found the major plot point of Iseult's fascination with Christopher (an unattractive short man) suspect; his subsequent flipping out and victimization of her was even less believable, especially as she was painted as a pretty strong character in the beginning.

This novel by Emer Martin ain't all that and a bag of chips...fish and chips if you will since she's Irish. I read this one aloud with meine frau, and although we kept engaged for the description of European cities the story and characters just don't stand out as one's we cared too much about and were never brought to the point of empathy much less sympathy.

As you know from the reviews, it's about a group of indigents that are indigent not because they have to be, but because they want to be, it's the easy thing for them. When they go to panhandle, it's kind of like showing up for work every now and then, gaining enough money to score another hit. It will make you think twice before doling out money to your next street person, not knowing what the money's going for. Although this is fiction, it no doubt reflects some reality, and cheapens the truly needy. It's a valiant attempt for a first novel and by a twenty-eight year old Irish author no less, but I would steer you away. Try something by James McInerney instead.

I had to finish this book once I started, because I had to see how it would end. I'm not sure it did end.

This is the work of a writer, a person to enter my head and stop my self-preoccupations and give me art. My Grandda is writing this, but these are my opinions in my own words. Solanja

The characters jump out of the page at you. The events really happen. Emer is like a diaryist who in the typicaly Irish way exagerates the believable and tones down the unbelievable. B in B is a real, fast moving kick in the teeth!