Customer Reviews

Magnetic Field(s)

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In a recent interview, Loewinsohn explains that he wrote the novel in basically six weeks(!), but when I think about how I read this amazing, enthralling, mysterious novel in practically one fevered gulp, I'm not surprised. I can't wait to read it again. Divided into three sections, MF begins with a burglar's experiences of being in the homes (spaces) of complete strangers and what he imagines their lives are like. The second section is from the perspective of the owner of the last house the burglar is breaking into. They briefly interact, in a very odd and funny scene. The second character turns out to be a sort of "sound artist" who takes his family to spend the summer on the Hudson in a sublet. There, while working on a sound sculpture called "Magnetic Field," he begins to think about the family that lived in the house he's subletting. In the final section, he finds out that his collaborator on MF has been having an affair, and he's shocked that he'd had no idea, and begins imagining how the affair had developed. All along, there are phrases that repeat though in entirely different contexts. Very unsettling yet hypnotic. This truly felt like more than just a book in my hands, but a wholly successful work of art that in addressing the idea of space, whether physical or personal, and how we experience it, completely altered my own experience of space. It was like taking a drug. Which maybe is why I can't wait to re-read it.

Recently there was a project called "The Big Read" at the library,

and it posed a question inspired by the Ray Bradbury novel "Fahrenheit

451": if you had to save one book from oblivion, what would it be?

I chose Ron Loewinsohn's "Magnetic Field(s)."

This novel is structured like a symphony, in 3 movements. As the

stories unfold, they interweave, just as a theme will reappear throughout

a piece of music. This is just one of the beauties of this novel.

The language is simple and clear, yet poetic and evocative. The

characters are richly developed, and you really get into their heads,

feeling their anxiety as if it was your own. The images that

Loewinsohn creates will stay with you, hauntingly.

I've always had recurring dreams of apartments I've lived in, and

after reading "Magnetic Field(s)" I have an idea why. The spaces we

live in, visit, imagine, all become a part of us, and determine much

about our character.

You will never forget this marvelous novel.

I try not to go into titannic size book stores anymore. but i did a year or so ago...my eyes were flirting with the spines and covers, some with familiar names, some unknown. i usually pick something up that looks interesting...but magnetic fields picked me. it was on the bottom shelf to the left. and i thought to myself "you have to read this book". And i did. Magnetic Fields is the craft at its best. As well as throwing boomerangs around what people think creative writing is.

I have to wonder if all of the reviews were written by the author's friends, because this book was nothing like they made it sound. I have read hundreds of fiction books in my life, and I always have something good to say about them, but with this book, I felt cheated out of five to six hours of my life that I will never get back.

The book starts out interesting enough to keep you reading, albeit at a slow pace, but the book quickly decelerates to mediocrity. At times, I forgot I was reading fiction rather than snippets out of the lives of average boring people whose character development was nonexistent. I kept reading, because I expected some ending that would tie everything together; unfortunately, that was not the case. Occasionally, you see a connection between material items in the characters' lives, which is the essence of the story. There is not a plot: no conflict resolution of any sort exists in this amateurish novella.

I write this today to deter unknowing victims like myself away from boredom. I learned to be leery of books with few reviews that are all overly positive. Do not be fooled -- this book is no one's favorite book of the year or even the week for that matter.

skreetkleener is 100% correct and I couldn't describe this book any better. It's the best I've read in the past year and one of my favorites of all time. Experimental, but not pompously so. It's both enjoyable and intellectual.