Customer Reviews

Veronica

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

... and the commonplace unfathomable" ~~ The New Yorker.

Couldn't have said it better. This is one of those books that I could not put down. "gmesa" (another reviewer) commented that it left them "feeling oddly cold despite the wonder". I can easily understand that reaction. Read on ...

Every chapter in this book left me feeling as though I was remembering a dream, (which can leave one feeling oddly detached, as though standing outside of one's self and watching) and left me trying to recall all the details and understand the meaning of what it was I had just seen. I suppose that's what happens when you get a novel by a poet. I like it. Alot.

This is one of those books where you are quite happy to suspend disbelief as you find yourself at the unlikely spot in Manhattan "... where Waverly Place intersects Waverly Place ..." and go along for the ride.

If you're so inclined, there is an extensive bibliography that makes for some very "curious" late night reading, if you can find all of the titles. Under the general heading of "Wayne-san's Trivia", the term Feng Shui entered my vocabulary when I read this book. I don't recall what, if any, Feng Shui title is in the bibliography, but a must-have title is "Feng-Shui: The Ancient Wisdom of Harmonious Living for Modern Times" by Eva Wong. (ISBN: 1570621004). You'll find no author with better credentials in the art (but if you do, e-mail me), and her accounts of apprenticing to her uncle will give you some insight that there is more to Feng Shui then deciding where to put the sofa. Pay attention to "Veronica", and you'll understand why I mention this ...

I've read, re-read, and given this as a gift. That's the best recommendation I can give any book. Enjoy.

This is, without a doubt, one of my very favorite books ever. I have read and reread it several times. You do have to "suspend disbelief" and just go with it. This is an incredibly beautifully-written story with mystery, romance, intrigue, and magic all interwoven into a magnificent tapestry that seems to unfold into infinity. I didn't want this story to end! It made me want to go find where Waverly Place intersects Waverly Place some snowy night and see if something magical happens.

Leo is photographer in the SoHo district of New York City. One day in the middle of winter, he runs into an extraordinary and unusual woman with one green eye, the other blue. Veronica subtly and knowingly draws him into her life. At first, things seem strange, but only in an arty, jaded NYCer kind of way. But gradually, Veronica draws Leo into her complex, and mysterious mission. Leo begins to see the city in a surrealistic way. Hidden passages, strange dreams, odd coincidences abound whenever his new lover Veronica is around. It's only a matter of time before things nosedive into the supernatural. For Veronica is the daughter of a magician who was cast into the past by a rival magican; it is only by an arcane, magical ritual, involving Leo that she can rescue her father. Christopher mixes eclectic strains of arcana -- from the alchemy of John Dee to the Feng Shui arrangements of Chinese customs, plus time travel, and imbues them with the ambiance of a film-noir movie. When the plot takes off, it is relentless. Christopher's writing is lovely, and his characters are quirky and offbeat. Imagine "The Maltese Falcon" co-directed by Terry Gilliam, Jim Jarmusch, and Derek Jarman, with a soundtrack by Charles Mingus, and sets by Salvador Dali, and you have this delightfully strange novel.

As luck, or fate, would have it, I moved to New York in 1996 and lived at the intersection of Waverly and Waverly. Or as close as one could get to it. It was indeed charmed. Magical. This book makes the blood sing and the senses soar. It is not about reality. Reality tells me that the Empire State Building doesn't glow green and white all the time. But when I moved into my apartment, I had an uncanny 270 degree view. I saw those colors and as I read those pages, the experience came alive. This book provided me with the absolute connection to that magical time in my life and provided me with a happy glimpse, albeit with a diaphanous and magical viewpoint, and gave me reason to believe that indeed this Dragon Point existed. Read with open mind, heart and above all, enjoy the phenomenal.

I simply adored this book. What a wonderful blend of mystery, fantasy and fun. While I read this book some time ago - I recommend it often and keep checking to see if the author has written another book (non-poetry that is).

Nicholas Christopher's prose is lyrical and it flows like silk through the readers imagination. Creating unforgettable tableau's upon our imagination - Veronica is one novel that will alter the way you look at New York City.

I highly recommend this book if you are looking to have some fun and don't care about living in reality. Also, this is a great read for a New Yorker like me - it gives you a whole new perspective on NYC.

If you liked Veronica I suggest reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - it is another twist on what lies beneath the face of a city and it's inhabitants. The Harry Potter series also reminds me of Veronica in a way - so you might want to check those out as well.

If you're looking for a wild ride of time/space/dimension travel, this ones hard to beat! Beautifully written, near flawless in conception, this book journeys through Elizabethan England (with Sir Walter Raleigh at his death), Lower Manhattan, the entire Empire State Bulding, Tibetan myth and magic, an unknown South American island, and some of the most bizarre characters you'll ever run into, including the fellow whose life revolves aroung the number "8"! Give this whrlwind adventure through magical and fantastical Gotham (and lots of the universe), and you'll have a thrill-filled ride!

I read this book as there are currently over 25 reviews giving it 4 or 5 stars. However, I'm sorry, I didn't like it at all. I usually enjoy fantasy and mysticism adventures if they are bound by some parameters. But the number of times the word "suddenly" is used gives some indication of the meandering, rambling plot. Characters disappeared, then reappeared, and were telepathic and telekinetic but weren't who they appeared to be but then died, but were invisible...it really became tiresome. There was something in this novel that every other reviewer got that I unfortunately missed, but personally I thought that the last couple of chapters were simple terrible. Everything that I expected to happen happened. It is somewhat ironic that the actual plot and the character development were woefully lacking in imagination.

This was a very wierd book. I feel a bit like Alice, and I think I missed a lot of symbolism. This is probably a very fun book for someone who knows a lot about magic and Eastern mysticism. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it. I just feel as though I didn't get as much out of it as there was in it!

The fourth dimension, as Christopher sees it, seems very much like purgatory. The image of Starwood having been turned into a 3 legged jackal and having his flesh rent by an owl, only to continuously come back and have it happen again, seems very much like something that happened in Greek mythology.

The writing was well suited to the book, I think. The short choppy sentences fit with the constantly jumping around in time and place. It wasn't the most lyrical style, but then the book was certainly not a lyrical story! Even though it seemed somewhat removed -- almost as though the reader was looking at it through a screen -- there were times when I got quite caught up in it! For instance, the scene at the top of the Empire State Building. For all its strangeness, I could really see it happening. Afterwards, I thought maybe it would make a good movie ... but perhaps it's too wierd.

Anyway, I liked the book. It was a good escape into another world!

What an incredibly odd novel! It is very stuble--there are many context clues and symbols. The narrator is a photographer named Leo (you never know his surname). It spans about a year of his life from the time he meets Veronica to the end of the story. The chapters are very short, sometimes only a page and a half, but it adds to the offpace rythem of the novel. It introduces many characters and concepts, but it is not difficult to keep track. Some parts are very bizzare (at one point Leo loses two months of his memory), but instead of making you feel confused and lost, it makes you want to read more. I would recomend this book to anyone looking for an offbeat tale that doesn't leave you in the dust. Very surreal and interesting.

Nicholas Christopher's Veronica will always be linked in my mind to the movie Rough Magic starring Bridgit Fonda and Russell Crowe. There are many obvious similarities, such as magician's assistants and the magic realist feel. But they will mainly be linked in my mind because I experienced them at the same time: I was in the middle of reading Veronica when I decided to take a break and see Rough Magic. This served to enhance the link that was already quite strong. (For what it is worth, I would be interested in reading Rough Magic's source material, James Hadley Chase's short story, "Miss Shumley Waves a Wand"--at least that's what I recall the title being.)

Leo, our hero, stumbles across the eponymous title character in New York City on a winter night. He quickly finds himself involved in an illusion of magicians, with blind Japanese courtesans, identical twins, and secret societies. He, of course, falls in love, but things are not so cut and dried as to be predictable.

Christopher is an accomplished poet, and Veronica is his second novel, the first from a major press. On a sentence by sentence level, I can hardly fault him, but he does not have as sure a hand when it comes to plotting. After a great start, the book bogs in the middle as the coincidences and conspiracies add up, and then it's an all-out sprint to the grand climax. I liked it, but that's because it punched several of my pleasure buttons. I would hesitate to recommend it to strangers without asking them about their literary preferences.