Customer Reviews

One Note Symphonies

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

From the minute I picked this piece of trash up, I wished my hands would have fallen off! What a waste of time! I tried to contact the "author" of this drek to demand my money back, to no avail! Sean, stick to coloring books and leave the printed page to the true professionals like Chi-Chi!

...on many levels this book is weird, yet fulfilling describing loneliness, love, hidden passions, flaunting emotions, creating a mirage at times and then again leaving the reader baffled asking for more...

the stories in this debut are simply amazing! starting with "diary of a composor" to the very last "the etymology of the swedish quen" the stories travel back and forth sometimes in time and at others on a higher evolved self-level. while reading this book, way too many thoughts crossed my mind...some happy and some sad...but they were so connecting to what I was reading...

reading this book was like painting a plain canvas with so many varied colours - sometimes of a heartbroken lover, some of a failed marriage, others of napolean's achievements, then forwarding to brushings with elephant pieces...

one last thing: Do not under any circumstances fail to read this book!!

I read a lot of books, not all of them good. One-Note Symphonies is very good. I can't even say that it could be better because in its form, it is perfect. The form is Brijbasi's completely unique creation, which makes it impossible to compare to existing texts. Not that he invented the concept of vignettes; it is the way he strings them together with loosely woven ideas that makes it his.

Leitmotifs of a blue balloon, a bicycle, crayons, and a woman's ass make several appearances but appear to be arbitrary. If you are the type of reader who insists on making connections (as I usually am), there is are several possible correlations. Mylene in an early chapter and Madeline in the end appear to be the same person. Whether the first is completely different from the second or the same woman viewed from different perspectives is up to the reader. The fanciful array of objects making random appearances is accompanied by a few tenets concurrently, the first being that beauty is ephemeral and only briefly available for our viewing pleasure:

"The truth and beauty of things can only be grasped in moments . . .
Let me rephrase: the truth and beauty of things only show themselves
in moments . . . We can never really capture the original moments;
only a kind of mutation of the moments, and it adds a melancholy to
them and perhaps makes them seem more beautiful than they really were."

I could wax philosophical over the genuine nature of beauty and whether or not it exists only in mimesis, but I won't. Ambiguity is one of the most enjoyable aspects of One-Note Symphonies.

Sean Brijbasi can put his beauty where his word-processor is. Not only does he make the assertion but then writes, "At an abandoned intersection, Martin stops the car and gets out. He hops into the air, then down, then up again with a butterfly's innocent disdain for gravity, and floats away into the night. Everything is wet; drops of rain appear to be falling light, each carrying inside its opalescent body, tiny pieces of the moon and the stars." Keeping in ironic character, he also notes, "There is a nightmarish quality to pain. A deep purple vintage. Hellish and beautiful like nightmares are beautiful. Beautiful like hell is beautiful." Examples like this of exquisitely delicate writing are reason alone to read the book.
There is also the observation that ostensibly unrelated acts affect each other in ways we will never know or be able to predict. Since random events have consequences of which we are never aware, certain absurd effects possibly exist of which we are completely oblivious. The random effect birds impose on musical composition is more than amusing.

It is a complex book. It challenges the way we think about daily unevents and wears them on the wrong feet. The wry wit and rueful melancholy of this book make it completely original and unlike anything else available. Live dangerously. Read it.

6/1/2004
elle

A series of seemingly disconnected montages lead the reader through the thoughts and emotions of others. Sean Brijbasi strikes powerfully through his fine use of the language into other peoples' lives, like slicing through melted butter. Yet what appears to be a disconnected series of snippets melds together to form a homogenous picture - a bit like a jigsaw that has no meaning until all the pieces are matched together.

There's more than a hint of the poetic in Brijbasi's writing, and lovers of the language will love this book for what it is - a deep insight into the minds of others, written in a way that will make you laugh, make you cry, and, most of all, make you enjoy the power of the author's pen..

I read 'Griffin and Sabine' and thought what an interesting concept. With 'One Note Symphonies', it's not about a concept, it's a journey that you get to take through someone else's life. Their thoughts, emotions, and actions are what you are given. As if on a train, you follow the track that this writer has lain before you. The book is written in snippets that seem at first unrelated. After some time, they connect together giving a greater connection to the section that you've just read. The snippets allow us to follow the main character through the details of love, life, and relationships through the author's eyes. Truly, it is a mind-opening journey.

It's a great book to read all at once or a piece at a time like a coffee table book. Brijbasi has authored a piece that suspends your disbelief and removes you from the room in which you are reading. When you put it down, you will have to deal with the shock of being back in your own life. This book is something that you must try and I would reccomend it as a gift for someone who likes to read and likes to try something new.

The prose is hauntingly precise, but I could not help wanting to put the book down for all the times its author bled through the page. Brijbasi is a good writer, the problem is that he knows it, and this is evident in nearly every word. It's not quite pretentious but it does border dangerously on a level of superiority that only takes away from what he's trying to say.

This collection of short stories by Sean Brijbasi has a startling quality about them. They are lucid, insightful, and strangely beautiful. Brijbasi's One Note Symphonies is a group of stories somehow connected to each other by some kind of magical sleight of hand by the author. I started reading, and kept reading until I finished the entire book in one sitting. This is a great book! I'm going to read it again. I've already recommended it to some friends, so I would definitely recommend it to whoever is reading this review.

Mr. Brijbasi has offered us a delicious symphony of vignettes in freeze-frame moments. The style and delivery is sheer genius. Martin, Sabina, Mylene, Madeline - characters that dwell inside each one of us. My only complaint is - where have you been all my life?! By the time you're done with this book, you'll be gasping for more. Please, sir. I want some more.

This collection of short stories by Sean Brijbasi has a startling quality about them. They are lucid, insightful, and strangely beautiful. Brijbasi's One Note Symphonies is a group of stories somehow connected to each other by some kind of magical sleight of hand by the author. I started reading, and kept reading until I finished the entire book in one sitting. This is a great book! I'm going to read it again. I've already recommended it to some friends, so I would definitely recommend it to whoever is reading this review.

Interesting, intriguing, profound, and poetic. I enjoyed reading this book and I recommend it to anyone.