Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Horror and Love, Life and Story, January 7, 2009
It seems some people just didn't get this book. I suppose I understand their confusion. Its a very experimental book in how it combines autobiography and story all the while doing this as a collaboration. Its impressive considering how difficult a challenge this must have been.
I liked it. There were some deep insights in this book and they avoided giving easy answers or simple stories. Its not exactly a novel, but I wouldn't go so far to say the label doesn't apply. There are many stories within the book. More importantly, its about the process of making stories out of life experience and making sense of life experience through story.
There is a cleverness to this book, but it didn't seem pretentious to me. What the authors set out to do necessitated cleverness. I enjoyed how smoothly they mixed nonfiction and fiction.
I was satisfied enough with this book that I give it an overall good review. It was worth the money spent. It wasn't perfect, but its hard to imagine any two authors collaborating to create something better. I've never read anything that compares to this book and so reviewing it is difficult. Fortunately, I had no expectations going in and so I was able to judge it on its own merits. However, if someone buys it hoping for a normal novel, then they'd be dissapointed.
There is something specific that I appreciated the most. Horror is too often limited to the perspective of the individual. This book is about how closely related are love and fear.
Its a hard book to get a grasp of, but I think it will grow on me more and more. I immediately read back through the book after finishing it. I'm sure its a book I will return to many times.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Promising premise is destroyed by lack of plot and of storytelling. I couldn't finish this book, and don't recommend it, September 16, 2008
Expanded from their novella of the same name, the Tems combine memoir, magic, and family myth in order to describe their household--in particular, the aftermath of their's son's death. I have not read the original novella, and was unable to finish this book: my review is based on the first 200 pages and the factors that made me close the book for good. This novel is a collection of thoughts and memories both real and imagined, unaided by plot. Without a plot, the writing is slow and unfocused. The novel tells, but does not show, and the absence of stories contradicts the novel's premise and makes for a dry, unconvincing book. I tried to enjoy this novel, but did not, and I have no desire to complete it. I don't recommend it.
The Man on the Ceiling is a rambling slew of thoughts and fragmentary memories without a plot to guide them. It is part factual and part imagined, but the difference between the two is intended to be immaterial because, as the Tems continually repeat, everything in the book is true, regardless of its accuracy. This concept intrigued me, and I enjoy books which break down predictable writing formulae--but I found The Man on the Ceiling unreadable. To be more accurate, the book is readable: the language is straight forward and, though the alternating speakers becomes confusing, the text is easy to follow. However, without anything resembling a plot, the book lacks direction and the reader is never compelled to continue. Worst of all, for all that the Tems talk about telling stories to create the truth, they do remarkably little storytelling. The stories are infrequent, brief, and plainly penned; thoughts and theories and explanations are much more common. More often than not, stories are cut short to explain what they "mean." This is a book of telling, and very little showing.
And that, ultimately, is why I gave up on it. I read 200 pages, pushing through despite the absence of a plot, hoping that something would intrigue me. The reading was slow: I was never eager to get to the next page, and each time I put the book down I had no desire to pick it back up. At the 200 page mark, a brief, largely summarized story concludes "...he was screaming *because* he understood how alone he was..." (202, emphasis mine), and I admitted to myself that the book would continue, undirected by plot, telling but not showing, and that I had no interest in continuing with it. Does the novel make a miraculous improvement in the final 150 pages? I don't know, but even if it does, 200 pages it too long to wait to see it.
I picked up this book on the basis of a reader's glowing review, and so it feels strange to report that I dislike the book too much to complete it. Judging by the Amazon reviews, readers are split between those who love the book and those who hate it. As such, the interested reader may still want to pick up this novel--in case they're one of the first group. Personally, I was entirely disappointed by The Man on the Ceiling. The prose is readable, and the concept is promising, but the execution fails entirely. A full novel's length is too long for a book to continue without some direction or forward movement; above all, a book about stories and truths must contain *stories*, and The Man on the Ceiling does not. I couldn't bring myself to finish this book, and I don't recommend it.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
A novel approach, but definitely not a novel, December 19, 2008
The is more a book of memoirs of dreams and fears and memories. Only these memoirs are really not interconnected in any chronological order. It is well written and some entries are disturbingly emotional, but there is no "overall" story here. I thought this was a novel when I commenced my reading, but was soon to find out this is the farthest you can get from the structure of a novel. And I really hate when the authors repeatedly tell you "that everything we are about to tell you is true". After the 5th or 6th time it loses its ironic charm. So if you are looking for a nice story to read, look elsewhere. But if you are looking for an interesting book of mementos both real and imagined, check it out. Its a quick read, I finished it in a day and a half.....so at least its got that going for it.....
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