oliainchina's reviews
514 reviews

Just as I started getting used to the abundance of information and ideas, the book came to an end. "Tables" is a great inspiration for further reading and discovery, it is an easy read and it's quite objective about all kinds of diets and food fads of the past and present.

The pace of the book is as slow and dreamy as the landscapes of Basilicata, where the author spent his exile. The time flows as the one of a dream and, when the book is finished, there remains this sweetness of regret, the delight that comes after a long but inspiring journey. Being a travelogue and an autobiohraphy, "Cristo" becomes a converstaion with a sharp and talented person, and you wish this conversation to go on.

A good and laconic introduction into the history of spices, drugs and, especially, intoxicants, with a focal point of gain as an impetus of (non) usage. The chapter on drugs includes some speculations as to the legalization of mj in the US and is interesting rather as an artifact. There is not so much text as I would have liked to see in the book, in comparison to a great number if pictures, but, as a whole, it is a good spring board for further studying.

Some authors paint pictures with words, some, like Mark Twain in "Huck Finn", make with them music.

The novel doesn't tell directly and in minuscule detail about a love affair between a Chinese man and a French expatriate girl but flows around it, creating the atmosphere of longing, strangeness and tabu. A very feminine writing. And very French, in a way the facts are conveyed throught abstractions.

I really liked the interplay of fantasy and reality in this book. Some passages and stories as if opened doors into other worlds or at least other world views. Sometimes I was having doubts whether this or that script writer or author borrowed this or that piece or idea - all these word- and video-fiction seemed straight away interconnected, as a hall filled with various doors and passages.
I liked the language though quite often it was too eloquent and the novel seemed running for ever and ever after. So that at the end it was hard to figure out what the hell it had been all about (not a wedding party, was it?!).

The novel was an interesting read, since I'm into Asian and American cultures, so it was a perfect blend.
It was more fascinating to discover the stories of lady-immigrants than the struggles of their daughers, and I think that this is a matter of personal interest but also the effect of a slightly jumbled narrative structure. At the end I was just lost in who's who among the characters.
There are some beautifully constructed sentences but they were not enough to make me reread the book to solve the who's issue.
The superstitions and fairy-tales mentioned by Amy Tan, though, are an amazing part of the Club and she relies in them too heavily to keep the reader interested.u

A novel (at least Book 1) is a crafty documentation of a schizoid mind at work, analyzing itself. It's an easy read and feels like listening to a stranger's story, while waiting for your train at a station.
I was expecting some insights into the everyday existence, which the author describes so well, but besides minuscule details of daily routines in a maturity process nothing breathetaking has turned up so far.
Heading for the Book 2.

Continuing with the Book 2, I caught myself at a sole interest, which I feel towards it's content: purely anthropological and sociological one. I am curious how do they live out there, in Scandinavia; how this schizoid guy manages his life; where his struggle leads and will it all get more vitalist by the end?
The author weaves a catchy story though it gets impossible when he starts to philosophise, especially about Dostoyevsky and Russian nihilism. Sometimes his problems are interesting, sometimes utterly boring. Hemanages to balance all ups and downs so that the reader stertches out his/her hand to buy the Book 3.
I am a big fan of an autobiography as a genre, especially those on the "passion for life" side, like Henry Miller. They are inspiring. This one, on the other hand, shows the other side of the coin: how is it to live and unlike your life? Can it be an inspiration? I see some good concept in the series: it is such a change after all those books, in which a hero struggles with the world, loving this whole process of life's pleasures and pains.

UPD i've just spent the last money i had on my account to buy a sequel by the author i've just critised and whom i've given 3 out of 5...maybe he's not that bad, after all. taking into account all those ideas about the fiction of reality and the reality of fiction.... my mind even suppressed the urgent need for that cash in the next few days so that it could get to that book three, ohmy.