Customer Reviews

The Effect of Living Backwards

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

clever, readable, but ultimately a sterile exercise in cleverness with nothing at its core. The reason I found the book so irritating is that, having read through the 350 or so pages, it led to nothing at all. There is no there there in this over-clever, emotionally empty, confusing dog's breakfast of a book. As a story, it doesn't work - the plot defies credibility in so many ways it's an embarrassment. If it's meant as some kind of parable or allegory, it can't be said to work either, as one has no idea at the end what bizarre point the author might be trying to make.
Characters are implausible ciphers, or mouthpieces for specific ideological points of view, and exposition is so murky at times that the reader cannot even figure out what has or hasn't happened.

As co-editor of 'The Believer', Julavits is on record as decrying the 'snarkiness' of many reviewers' response to modern fiction. She makes a plea for a kinder, more understanding, reception to work that takes risks, that is more experimental in nature. While I have some sympathy for her point of view, it does nothing to alter the unfortunate fact that this particular book is a confusing, disorganized mess. It fails to meet two fundamental criteria that a novel should satisfy: a coherent, credible plot and plausible, well-drawn characters. No amount of skill with language can make up for these deficiencies.

A disappointing failure.

This novel is very different. The story premise is unusual, timely and interesting. It is a black comedy describing a pair of sisters involved in an airline hijacking experience. You never know if the hijacking is real, staged or something in between.

I really wanted to love this book. There is so much promise in this writer. Her prose is amazing; she seems to understand and utilize words that sound almost musical in her sentences. I found myself looking to the dictionary on multiple occasions, fascinated with the vocabulary and syntax. Unfortunately, the plot and story development, do not demonstrate the same level of maturity.

Author Heidi Julavits' shows she has extraordinary potential, having a remarkable ability to piece together interesting phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. If the plot of this novel was more substantial, or the two sister's characters were better developed, this would be a very good work. Instead, we are left with an interesting book, that leaves you puzzled about what you read when you reach the finish.

I generously rate this book at 2.75 out of 5.00 stars, rounded up to 3.00, for beautiful use of language, creativity in subject matter and a nice job in approaching the story. However, it rambles on in its linguistic beauty instead of really delivering a strong plot or climax. If this writer learns to finish as well as she starts, I believe we will see many other interesting works to come.

I can definitely understand the 1 or 2 star ratings being given this book by other amazon.com reviewers; I have very mixed feelings about it myself. There were parts I enjoyed: the interplay between the two sisters, the interesting post-Sept.11 theorizing, the fact that the confusing plot did draw me in and didn't want to let go. What I didn't enjoy was that the reader can never distinguish what is real and what is not, who is "good" and who is "bad," whether the whole hijacking was set up as a study on how passengers react to certain aspects of terrorism or whether the whole BOOK was set up to see how readers react to certain aspects of bizarre and overzealous writing.

I liked the terrorist attacks on the US being referred to as "The Big Terrible" (which Julavits credits to Thomas Freidman in her acknowledgements) rather than the ubiqutous "9-11," and I also liked the creative hijacking story of a rugby team overpowering their captors and crashing the plane when it wasn't necessary (resulting in stickers posted in all airplanes saying WHEN TO OVERPOWER YOUR HIJACKERS). However, much of the writing about the terrorism school seemed contrived, as though Julavits was trying a little too hard, and the battle between the two factions there didn't make a lot of sense to me.

_The Effect of Living Backwards_ certainly held my interest, and in all I'd say that it was a good read. At times the writing was just a little hard to wade through... and I'm still trying to decide if the effort was worth it.

An ambitious book that ultimately bites off more then it can chew. Could the author be too much of a brainiac? There are lovely moments of texture and real insight, and then long insufferable passages where the author's strain is evident. A series of vignettes meant to expose the shameful secrets of the main characters fail because the secrets aren't, well, that shameful. The rivalry between the two sisters ends up repeating the same note over and over, squabbling leading to more squabbling. Nonetheless, the cumulative effect of the novel somehow does manage to land. The author does seem to have caught a side ways glace of much of what ails us, and the feeling you are left with at the end (an uneasy and ephemeral melancholy) may or may not be worth the read - it depends on your patience.

While the author shows outstanding writing potential, style, and use of language, this book failed to showcase that in a way that will propel her to future fame. This book is incredibly difficult to follow and does not flow in a way that makes the reader want to try to follow along with where this story is going. I am not one to give up easily on a book, especially from a writer with such potential, but this book was too much even for me; after only 70 pages, I was ready to throw the book in trash. This seems to be an example of a great writer forcing a story about NOTHING. I hope to see her produce some notable pieces of literature in the future.

regularly, exquisitely, i relished the sentences and searing insights in this novel. they're of the sort that mr. nabokov himself would linger, titter, tear up over. it's impossible not to be jolted by the originality and bruising intelligence of this novel's prose. and yet i felt terrible disappointment set in and remain as i comprehended the novel's larger enterprise. everyone of the characters feels like a masked version of the protagonist/writer. they all speak and think in the same withering, arctic, arch tone. these characters and the situations through which the author runs them are at times fantastically surreal, but just as often they smack of the humidity/falseness/look-at-me-ness of a hothouse imagination. this may work well in a short story, but over the course of a 320 page novel? yes, at times the novel is funny as hell and piercingly smart, regardless very very rarely did i believe--outside of the protagonist's rarefied slant on the world--what was unfolding. somehow writers as various as borges, hrabal, delillo are able to suggest the density of reality in and around their pyrotechnics. at the most basic level they allow us to see and participate; here i felt simultaneously embroiled and detached. one can only imagine what julavits might produce were she to level her formidible sights on matters closer to real. it may be intimidating to take on, and yet aren't we complex enough to warrant such attention?

Whereas Gravity's Rainbow is purely postmodern and a grand masterpiece, The effect of Living Backwards is very superfically postmodern, and attempts to be, but has so little depth, and seems so constructed in a vain attempt to be, that the reader comes away with the notion of a book advertising postmodernism rather than a truly postmodern book. Sort of like a giant billboard for postmodernism.

If we extrapolate Heidi Julavits career, it may be one of imitating masters. And to imitate is to fail. Always. She tried a Faulknerian book with The Mineral Palace, and now Pynchon or Rushdie, so don't be suprised if this white blonde jumps to going after Toni Morrison.

The first 50 pages and the last 20 were very slow and/or disappointing, and really, no matter how good the middle is, if the ending sucks, then what's the point? I think the biggest redeeming factor for this novel was the fact that I often forgot that I wasn't reading a story by Chuck Palahniuk - he and Julavits have similar styles and employ the use of short narrations from multiple characters to build a tale with many unexpected twists and shocking surprises. Unfortunately, I was dissatisfied with the way the author chose to end the story and I felt that there were some questions that should have been answered (or at least answered more clearly). I did find some passages difficult to follow and, while Julavits definitely has a way with words, it was at times superfluous and boring. I would like to read this again sometime because I have a feeling I might have missed some things the first time around. I would recommend this book to Chuck Palahniuk fans who are looking for something to tide them over until he releases another novel because it's the first comparable author I've seen in awhile. Other than that, I can't really say that this is going to be all that high on my list of recommendations.

I couldn't decide whether this is meant to be a witty novel or a satirical account of our response to 9/11. Because much of Heidi Julavitis's novel is too ridiculous to be simply a witty story, I eventually plunked with satire. This is problematic: for satire to work it must keep the same tone throughout. Not so here--some of the characters in this book ring true, others are outlandish. I'm sure she'd argue it differs from simple slapstick in that it take on "big" ideas. Fine, but the story can't carry their weight.

what a messy, mess, mess this book is!

there's a/are terrorist(s) on board a plane- but the reader is let in on the beginning that the terrorism isn't real- in fact there's some strange school where people are trained to act out fake terrorist attacks-- for what purpose? who knows.

oh, the narrator hints at this & that- the author lets us into the other passenger's minds briefly in these small interjected chapters- why? once again, who knows?

you really never know what the heck is going on- people die- but do they really? relationships take on a joking manner that only the author seems privvy to. oh my gosh! the only reason i finished the darn thing was due to a (wrong) belief that all of the confused nonsense would work itself out in the end.

do yourself a favor & don't bother with this book.