Customer Reviews

Strange Life of Ivan Osokin

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

 

 

This is a very interesting novel, but I gave it one star because I am rating the edition instead. Lindisfarne Books should be razed by fire and the editors suspended over a slow barbecue. They went to great lengths to provide the book with an arresting cover, interesting typeface for the chapter title, and lively (if uninformed) review notices on the back cover, but were so slipshod in their copy editing that they omitted words from the author's text in the first sentence of the first chapter! I kid you not, this book starts with a phrase, not a sentence! Fortunately it is about living your life over again, so the complete sentence reappears correctly on page 162 at the beginning of chapter 26. But such errors are unacceptable and unforgiveable in an editor, and can lead in time to a loss of the complete text itself, as any classical scholar can tell you, if you can find any these days. Don't buy this edition!

Cannot vouch for this particular version of the book, but get a good copy somewhere, as it is worth it. If you like Kundera, have a fondness for Nietzsche, enjoyed the Bill Murray movie "Groundhog's Day," or sit there mulling over the towering pronouncement from Rilke's "Archaic Torso of Apollo," : 'You must change your life!' then this is the book for you. Even if none of the above apply to you, just take a chance on this slim novel. While I wouldn't recommend the entire mystical theosophist movement that propelled Ouspensky, this work will never quite leave you -- my criterion for a work of great art.

As soon as I read the first page of this book I loved it. I heard it's the book that the movie "Goundhog Day" was inspired by.

I was expecting something great from this book - it came up far short. Consistent with the other reviews, there were quite a few editing errors that I found in this book (which does not say much because I am not very big on grammar). While the last few pages were rewarding, overall the book was quite drab. Do yourself a favor however, read the back cover of the book where the guy who directed Groundhog Day comments on the book - it is an amazing commentary and will sum the entire book up in a paragraph.