Customer Reviews

Forgetfulness: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
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I didn't expect to love this book, in fact I came to it as if it were going to be a chore. I came away completely in love with it, entranced by the language, drawn in by the ideas.

Mejia's book is a masterpiece. To make a successful book, if you're going to experiment with form, you have to make the prose so beautiful, so rewarding, that the reader is not only willing but happy to do the extra work of deciphering your unfamiliar structure. This book was such a delight, completely without traditional plot or characters, that I couldn't put it down. I don't know when I've had that experience with a book that looked so challenging in form. At the end of the day, I truly felt that Mejia's approach was the only way to present the material in the way he envisioned. It was an absolute success. Made me care about things I didn't really care about, and think about things I'd never considered. A beautiful read.

A beautifully rendered book in which every "note", like Anton Webern's, is heard distinctly, resonating through each change, shift, and tone. Like Beckett, but using more than just language as an experiment - history, music, and the creeping (and creepy) sense of the zeitgeist breathing everywhere.

Although I would recommend having somewhat of a knowledge of Schonberg, Webern, and Berg, as well as the political environment between the World Wars, it is not essential to the enjoyment of this book. Background information helps elucidate the separate elements (this is a very elemental novel), this story is so transfixing as to hold anyone's attention with an interest in new forms of fiction.

I can't wait to read it again.