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The story of a man who wakes with no personal memory, no emotional memory, only able to recollect everything he has ever read. His excitement and happiness at relearning many things belies his sometime habit of misreading a situation and running with the misconception as though it were concrete truth, and his family and friends seem somewhat content that they have the upper hand on him, in regards to his life and his history.
I'm approximately a third of the way in, and quite entranced. The constant collaging of allusions and quotes is lovely and potent; a snippet of Sandburg's poetry stitched into the narrative caused a small explosion of all of Carl Sandburg's work somewhere in my mind. The jump in begats from the Bible to the Man of La Mancha sent me spinning about as Jacob became entirely quixotic, indeed. It's also the rare novel that makes a simple shit a beautiful and meaningful thing. With illustrations from The Phantom to Fantomas, and prose and poetic allusions, quotes, and references from Simenon to Shakespeare to Sherlock Holmes, from Nabokov to Dumas to Eco's other books. And all quite smoothly, sensibly, and in interesting and pretty ways.
There are more meaningful elements, I'm sure, and eventually I'll be able to put them to words, but for the most it is the childish delight in fantastical things, in absurdities and presentiments, anxieties and romances of moments, that has be enthralled and reading. Deeper elements are secondary, at best. And a bit heartbreaking already. |
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