Customer Reviews

The Way Through Doors (Vintage Contemporaries)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you like fiction in which stories are nested within each other, tumbling and turning inside and out like a narrative mobius strip -- well, this is the book for you. But if you're someone who prefers realism, a classic three-act narrative arc, characters with depth, and all the trappings of "normal" fiction -- well, you're probably not going to like this.

The book's almost pointless framing device occurs when a young man in a New York-like metropolis of indefinite period sees a young woman knocked down by a taxi. He takes her to the hospital, where she lies in a coma, and the doctors tell the young man he must keep her mind occupied for 18 hours by talking to her. Thus, he starts spinning a tale, although it rather quickly becomes questionable as to whether he's telling stories, or stories are telling him.

It's all rather clever and tricksy in a McSweenysesque manner: the young man is a "pamphleteer" and the stories introduce the reader to all manner oddities, such as the tallest building in the city (which is actually subterranean and may actually be a foxes den), an inn with a fiddle-playing dog, a mind-reading companion of remarkable acuity, a girl who is born with the ability to draw a line straighter than any device known to man, the world's luckiest gambler, and so on. Just to give a taste, this is the kind of book where a man's job comes with authority that is "unlimited and nonexistent." If you find that kind of phrase compelling, you might well enjoy the book.

It's an interesting world, but one so topsy-turvey that you can't really try and make sense of it, you just need to let the writing wash over you. There are lots of nice turns of phrase, and the author clearly has style to burn. The question is whether or not it adds up to anything by the end. And with a book like this, there are sure to be a set of readers who find the experience magical, and another set who find it rather empty. I'm somewhere in the middle --I enjoyed some of the style, but it didn't end up sparking much of anything in me, despite its evident interest in themes of identity, passage, and vocation. But it's certainly worth trying if you like contemporary experimental fiction (for example, Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves) or the work fabulists like Calvino or Borges.

Not so much a book as a series of little poems seamlessly woven together into a novel. Although the characters are consistent, you will often find that everything else is subject to question. Imagine the strange world of Willy Wonka, and then turn it on it's head, make it 10 times weirder, and give it literary credibility. This book will make your strangest, most incoherent dream seem as rote as 8th grade history class.

If you like a nice solid story with everything wrapped up and packaged then please spare yourself the agony of this book.

If you enjoy stream of consciousness, and don't mind walking dogs, and stories that shift location in mid-paragraph, then you will likely enjoy this book.

Easily one of the most engaging and fascinating reads in a long, long, time.

Jesse Ball's second novel with Vintage may confuse and frustrate some. I daresay this is of no import to Mr. Ball, though I could be mistaken. Indeed, there is a care for both the characters and the reader in this book, accompanied by an understanding that not all may find the book as engaging or enjoyable as others.

I'll spare you a recounting of events and names found within in favor of attempting to convey the experience of reading The Way Through Doors. As with his previous book, this one makes reality seem blurry. In fact, it is handily placed out of reach as if to say, "you need not be concerned with this, dear reader. Please join me for the experiences and playfulness I hope to share with you." In this sense reading any work by Ball requires a sort of trust and submission to the story. Obviously, only through the reader's agency to engage the text in the first place does the book take on life, but one's expectations should be checked upon opening the book; any preconceptions should be vanquished. Why such hyperbole? Because the thread of this book may not even end up being a thread! It may end up a web, and if the reader struggles or resists it may entrap and cause discomfort. If the reader relaxes into it, the web serves nicely as a hammock of sorts, though dozing off is strictly prohibited; one must pay full attention to the swirls of characters and events moving throughout the web. Some of these swirls are more brightly-colored than others, though any number of these will make an imprint on your psyche and linger as pleasant images in the mind's eye.

There is a playful nature to Ball's writing, though you may find it manifesting as glee in one example, and shortly after it may emerge very dire and obfuscated, like reveling in the macabre. Others have noted his work does not follow many conventions of the novel. There have been writers who discarded these conventions in disgust and furrowed their brows to create a sort of reaction to the novel. Not so Jesse Ball: in this regard he comes off as playing with the conventions, folding and re-folding them into forms--whether paper airplane, origami crane or something never before seen--which please him.

This is one of the most amazing books I've ever read. I don't even know how to describe it. It is a series of stories set inside stories, like a Matryoshka doll or the layers of an onion. There are no seams between the stories - one flows into the next, and the protagonist's quest creates not a plot but a sense forward motion. Each section of the novel, before any climax can be reached, branches off into another, new "plot," but these nested stories continue telling the story of the original set of characters, giving the impression of weaving more than writing, where a single thread reappears in the fabric unexpectedly, far from the last place one noticed it. The Way Through Doors is a novel of pure feeling and pure thought that, through the deftness of the author, manages to be engaging at the same time.

I loved Jesse Ball's last book, Samedi the Deafness, bit this is his masterwork, and it will certainly become one of the books against which I judge contemporary literature. I would put it in my top ten favorite books, maybe higher.

I love this book. It's very... interesting and extremely confusing, but it's so worth the bizarreness. While reading this, I found myself turning to whoever I was sitting near and saying "THis book is so strange!" several times.
If you love James Joyce and C.S. Lewis, this would be a great book for you. To me it had the exact same feel as "The Magician's Nephew".

I recommend this to anyone who is willing to work at understanding a novel

This is unlike anything you will ever read. The story is so intriguing that one gets pulled in immediately. Also, the connections the narrator makes both within himself and within the world are incredibly intricate and unique. Ball might be the most inventive author at work today and this book demonstrates his full power.

A passage -- an endless passage -- I did not take a photograph, but as with the most mythic of journeys (like holy psychedelics), I came back changed. This is a book of immense courage, generosity, and magic. I will read it over & over & over again.

Impish and self-congratulatory technique. Perfect for Millennials; others may tire quickly of the lack of substance.

Don't even think about trying to read Jesse Ball's novel, The Way Through Doors, while at the beach or on an airplane. After any distraction, I found I had to go back a few pages to see if I could catch the thread again of where I left off and what exactly was happening. This quirky and meandering quality is either the charm or the defect of Ball's prose. I lost patience and charged ahead to finish the book, mostly to make it stop. Protagonist Selah Morse witnesses a taxi hit a pedestrian, and he decides to go with her to the hospital, where he weaves a complicated and convoluted story to help her recover her memory. The stories within his narrative begin to seem to be going somewhere, and then peter out before any resolution is achieved. Ball creates an alternative reality that may appeal to some readers, but for me, I became more irritated than satisfied as I continued to read. There's a fine quality to Ball's prose that merits my two-star recommendation to those readers who are game to give him your time and attention.

Rating: Two-star (Mildly Recommended)

this is unlike anything I've read and if I'd not have seen some great reviews of the piece I'd never have picked it up... I'm glad I did...

it is no where near a traditional novel in any sense...

the imagery is at the same time frustrating as satisfying; the work completely engrossing...

only a poet could have done with these words what has been done and as I found myself reading pieces of it aloud I was enamored with the structure of the metre and cadence...

I loved it!