Customer Reviews

Deja Vu

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A rare book that combines modernist formal experimentation with excellent post-modernist content and prose; this novel that is as much about form as it is about plot.. Part bildungsroman part travelogue, both funny and serious, a blend of facts fictions and dreams; it consists of 76 (or maybe 77) chronologically and stylistically disconnected chapters that can be read in any order. The author suggests a series of reading trajectories with 5 possible continuations after each chapter. Some will quickly loop you back to where you've already been and others carry you through a large portion of the book.

Innovative but not extremely so, the book risks comparison with novels like Cortázar's Hopscotch and Perec's Life: a User's Manual (I generally don't like to use the word 'risk' in art criticism, but I think it's appropriate here) and I think it stands up very well. Saying that I actually preferred this to either of them would sound pretentious; but I'll go so far as to say that the content of this novel is more to my liking than that of the others. Although I didn't travel in my youth, my life fits more into the introspective speculative mode of this book.

The traditional prose is easy to read and should please a broad range of readers. I'll assume that anyone who primarily reads romances or historical novels hasn't gotten this far in this review so I can safely recommend it. It's definitely worth a look.

Deja Vu is full of lyrical descriptions of far off lands yet hits home with absolute poignance; it presents the world in a prism of adventure and experimentation, so much so that it reminds one of the enduring spirit of American literature. Kendrick revives Melville, Twain, and Kerouac in a voice that openly rejects the conventions of today, even as it demands fresh perspective. The book is essentially a search for truth, its form is unique and inventive, based upon the cyclical nature of time, subjectivity and the concept of fulfillment. I recommend it to everyone tired of the monotony of an everyday performance without avail, to you who lust for travel!