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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
PTSD wrought in fiction makes for a riveting read, May 5, 2009
I'm struggling as to how, exactly, to describe this book. I can give you the basic plot: a man originally from small town, Upstate New York returns to where he grew up, many years after he'd left. Something terrible happened in his family while they lived there, but he's been away so long not many people remember him. He purchases a large tract of land in the country, including an older house that's falling into disrepair. The land is also partially forested with a strange, bowl-shaped forest, in the middle of which is a large rock.
The man is, how do I put this, antisocial. Perhaps pathologically so, as he's unrepentant. He considers himself superior to everyone he meets, and doesn't have a firm grasp on his temper or his tendency toward righteous indignation, even when no offense was intended. He fixes up the house on his own and moves in. When he starts exploring the forest he has strange memories that seem part flashback, part imagination. And the reader doesn't know which until much later in the book.
Telling more would be spilling the beans. And there will be no bean spilling here.
So, how did I feel about the experience of reading this book? I felt riveted. I had to know the secrets, why the main character felt such a visceral reaction to the forest, who or what was responsible for the strange things that started happening to him. What happened in his early life to make him the way he was.
There's a twist at the 3/4 point. It ties in where he'd been for many years of his absence, and how his childhood lead him to be the man he is. The switch is so sudden I didn't expect it. In fact, Lennon turns on the proverbial dime.
To those who may end up reading it, don't let it throw you too much. Keep reading. It'll all make sense by the end. A lot of readers won't like this technique. It's disruptive to the flow of what's a very exciting scene. I think it's done deftly, but not everyone will. This will be a sticking point with many, because from this point on things change rapidly and dramatically.
This is a strange novel. It reminds me of Jennifer Egan's The Keep, which is one of those love it or hate it books. I personally loved it. It won't satisfy people who like their loose ends all conveniently tied up, but those who love the dark, gothic writing of Ian McEwan may appreciate this book. It's different, but in many ways similar to his writing. It also has a Barbara Vine quality because it delves into the main character's extremely complex, partly amnesiac, perhaps psychotic mind.
It's an impressive read, but it won't be to everyone's taste. But for me? It was worth giving up sleep.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A big disappointment . . ., January 10, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The writing style is fine, and for the first half of the book, I was pretty intrigued. Lennon set up "Castle" in such a fashion that it would have to have a pretty enthralling ending to work, and having read a few pieces by him in such places as Granta, I didn't doubt he'd pull it off. Sadly, though, he didn't.
The protagonist (so to speak) of the book, Eric Loesch, is a loner with some sort of mysterious chip on his shoulder and exceedingly poor social skills. He buys an old house surrounded by hundreds of acres of land in his old hometown and sets about remodeling the house in his odd misanthropic way, and exploring the woods surrounding it. Not much emerges for quite a while, but Lennon artfully builds a high level of tension around the scant happenings.
Then, rapidly, the book falls apart. As another review pointed out, the ending weaves in two additional plot lines into the existing narrative. Without spoiling it, one of them makes almost no logical sense without a very ardent belief in the capability of deeply-buried memories suddenly springing forth into a full consciousness which supersedes empirical reality. Here, even with the artful suspension of plausibility one might grant a writer, it makes no sense. It's unbelievable to a nearly comic extent.
Weave in an additional plot line with greater believability but even less of a connection to the pre-existing narrative and . . . well, you've lost me as a reader. I reread the last fifty pages three times trying to find some cohesion or point to the book. And I failed each time. I'd consider this book the product of someone who just cannot write, were it not for the fact that Lennon's style is impressive and that I've read fine things by him before. Even as a curiosity, this would be a tough book to recommend.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well, it started out promising..., January 12, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I really wanted to like this book. In fact, I wanted to love it. The premise was enchanting, and despite the highly unlikable main character, the story started out intriguing. I actually did love it, at least for the first half of the book.
Erik Loesch is a terrible "protagonist." That word is in quotes because frankly, the guy is a real jerk. He's unfriendly and presumptive. He not only brushes off a hardware store clerk's attempts to make conversation, but basically challenges the poor guy for no reason at all. He's brusque and unpleasant. In a tale where we should at least start out rooting for the guy as we get to know him, I ended up not liking him any further than I could throw him (and I can't throw a grown man very far at all). He likes to talk about how highly skilled he is at certain things, how very disciplined, how very this, how very that. Reading that much boasting just gave me a headache.
The first half of this story is not only interesting, but it is absolutely addicting. I could not put the book down until I reached the halfway point. Once the plot begins to come together a bit more, it becomes apparent that this just isn't working. It's not. Almost nothing in the second half of the book makes any sense, and a good number of the questions that the first half raised go unanswered. The author should have picked a storyline and stayed with it, because by the time we get to the last chapter or two, there isn't a single thing between those pages that makes a lick of sense anymore. And that is a sad thing, because it had such a good start.
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