Customer Reviews

Famine

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

 

 

This book is great. It is not a linear detective story as many who are into the "mystery" genre might hope for, but a wonderful psychological story along the lines of Kundera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or, more recently, Arundhati Roy. Part of the beauty of the book is that it is as maddening and enchanting as living itself can be. Kudos to the author.

I give it three stars because I think there is some beautiful evocative prose in Famine. I must admit, however, that the beauty of the language did not help me understand where the plot was going. Maybe the author wanted us to confuse the two Daniels. Maybe he wanted us to be so unsure of who did what to whom that we needed to fill in all the blanks ourselves. I thought Komarnicki's convention was ingenious, but I would have liked to feel that I had understood his intent when I finished the book. I think he could have fleshed things out a bit more for his readers. It kind of left me wondering if the time I invested in reading Famine could have been better spent reading a book that was both well written and understandable.

Indeed, the first 30 odd pages are a bit self-conciously angsty, but after that--fuggheddaboudit. Komarnicki knows and is able to boil down the most sad dark places--sans po-mo "hip" /"cool" hoohaw--into a few terse sentences that leave you, quite literally, stunned. And looking at your own life, and wondering. What higher praise is there for a book than that?

A serial killer is haunting (contemporary) Manhattan, starving his victims and leaving their emaciated bodies to be found by a puzzled NYPD. The detective assigned to the case launches an investigation that uncovers an epidemic far more serious than one caused at the hands of a single killer. We also follow the story of a gravely depressed young man, Daniel, who falls victim to this physical starvation. With his, beautiful, also disturbed, companion, Emma, Daniel provides the perfect case study for the increasingly perplexed detective. The connection between physical and emotional pain is made clearly evident by this talented writer. A compelingly disturbing read

Mr. Komarnicki is God's gift to the literary world! Read his books with a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a box of girl scout cookies and experience nirvana.

gAg! this book is so horrible i don't even know where to begin! here's the basic plotline: A guy is traumatized by the death of his younger brother, so he decides not to eat. So he goes into a clinic and meets a girl who doesn't eat. They are 15 years old but play under sheets in the clinic? Eventually they have a kid, i'm not sure if they let her eat or not. But anyway, the guy who doesn't eat starts a feeding place for homeless people.....but continues not to eat himself! And every other chapter is written by some boring detective guy, which makes the book further more uninteresting...the detective never uses the word "the" either, it goes,"i am detective. cop sees chair. cop takes coffee from secretary. cop says "i have to pee" To give you the basic jist....i couldn't even get through the whole thing it was so awful.....AVOID THIS BOOK AT ALL COSTS!