The novel tells the story of a 15 year-old runaway that very much like Oedipus realises his fate while running away from it (some sort of modern Oedipus that I guesstimate is not new). The author does pretty well with the characters and with some sort of pretty interesting magic realism the Japanese way. There are actually two stories carefully intertwined, each of them told in odd and even chapters more or less. This structure really gets the reader eager for more as the story progresses.
Although sometimes the play turns a little bit too transcendental for my personal taste, there is indeed some nice philosophy inside. Vivid descriptions do well taking the reader to some weird place I am yet to know, where 15 year old people can actually be smart and young at the same time. Wished all teenagers could do that nowadays, it'd be a nicer world for sure.
Here's the amazon link.
Posts
this sure sounds like a condensation of all things pretentious. There must be something really special about this book, cos I sort of trust yer taste in books, but I just can't imagine how a story about a 15-year-old (unless it's a 15-year-old DOG), who goes on a self-discovery trip and throws scrubs of teenage philosophy around (i.e. existentialism), could be any good.
shoegazer
November 22, 2006 at 3:45 AMps. It's really odd to see the term "magical realism" used non-mockingly nowadays.
shoegazer
November 22, 2006 at 3:46 AMdon't be too skeptical...although let's say I inertially focused more on the narrative than on the philosophy (and the philosophy is not that bad after all).
Although there's no dog, there are indeed many cats that can talk....
Do you know a 15 year old that likes Truffaut? there you go....
Here's the author's official website.
Julián García
November 22, 2006 at 8:17 AM