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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Some merit but unsatisfying,
This review is from: Dear Future (Hardcover)
Fred D'Aguiar's novel Dear Future might be better understood as set of impressions on four canvasses. Although the first three sections rely on standard story development techniques, the novel fails as a coherent whole. Readers who enjoy a work in which separate threads are tied up by the end of the work may leave this book dissatisfied.Each of novel's sections is distinct in style and voice. In the first section, D'Aguiar attempts to use magical realism to paint visceral intriguing images. The style appears forced and unnatural, with errors in point of view, and heavy reliance on adjectives and a preponderance of jarring metaphors. However, D'Aguiar does occasionally offer poignant and original images, such as the interior view of children playing dolls as they hear the sounds of a massacre approaching their door. Each section also spotlights different characters and locations: a young boy and his oddball family in a small village, the president and advisors of a dysfunctional South American republic, a mother struggling abroad in London. The lack of transition between sections is unsettling and forces the reader to identify common threads. As the novel progresses, the style of writing becomes less forced, more honest. By the 3rd section which focuses on the protagonist's mother, D'Aguiar writes succinctly and without guile. The final section, in which the protagonist writes a set of letters from limbo questioning his present and his future, do work in isolation from the rest of the novel. These letters might make a striking set of prose poems. In context of the novel, however, and the reader's questions around plot and meaning, they offer only empty calories. Tasty but not nutritious. The book is short, and while I only begrudge the time spent reading the clumsy first section, I'd not recommend it. If you're looking for something more satisfying in a similar vein, try Marquez.
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