Comments on: A Brief and Wondrous Book

By: guy

guy — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:38:58 +0000

I requested this book from my library after reading this post, and finally got a copy. It’s great. I loved the footnotes. My favorite line– But you can’t regret the life you didn’t lead (p 31).

By: tamasha

tamasha — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 21:52:28 +0000

Abhi, I just read this too, and loved it. I was surprised, but then not really, by the desi references.

I also just read David Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and kind of got excited that he had a friend named Shalini. How lame am I?

By: Suzzy

Suzzy — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:44:33 +0000

It was when I started to see all the desi references in the book that I began to understand what is happening in literature. A great many diaspora communities get to mix here in the U.S. Weâ€™ve become a unique literary lab where all the good shit from all the people that come here can start to mix and create some truly good shit that seemed unconcoctable.

That's not unique to America --- it's what the UK has become, and the British novel for the last twenty years has been in ferment because of it.

But thanks for the review, sounds great.

By: DesisluvDiaz

DesisluvDiaz — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 06:40:40 +0000

Junot dated an Indian girl. He knows. Plus, desi ladies have a special place in their heart for him–he looks like one of us! Even my mother said so.

By: fsowalla

fsowalla — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:57:15 +0000

how modern capitalism has destroyed the principles of the American founders etc.

Not modern capitalism, but try Charles Sellers' "The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America 1815-1846." Non-fiction.

Neale, yeah the Danticat book was a great memoir.

By: Neale

Neale — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:14:01 +0000

Me again. In case my previous note was indicative…Danticat’s book was brilliant too.

By: Neale

Neale — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:11:52 +0000

If you have to read Diaz, read his short story called "How to date a halfie". Don't know if it isi ncluded in Drown, his debut collection.

I read TBLOOW in India last month soon after reading Danticat's book Brother, I'm Dying. What a contrast. Great books about a part of thr world we know so little about. Reading TBLOOW, i felt a similar sensation to reading Midnight's Chldren; that something had been changed in how books that matter will be written

By: Cali

Cali — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:27:37 +0000

Is there any American author that really looks at America? Looks at the dark side of the American dream, how modern capitalism has destroyed the principles of the American founders etc. This book appears to be an exercise in narcissism like the books of Philip Roth, Bellow and Lahiri.

By: muralimannered

muralimannered — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:19:18 +0000

His style (in the new short story at least) is pungent and explosive, more evocative than disciplined. I don't think you're ready / For this jelly...

Perhaps my jelly stands unprepared but I think my reaction to the prose is more a result of being in the B.R. Meyers camp.

By: half-desi

half-desi — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:06:08 +0000

It's an amazing book. I've given away three copies since I read it--including one to a friend whose parents' families were singled out/ruined by Rafael Trujillo--didn't really understand the generational psychological impact that had until reading the book. . . but even without the history, man, it's good ...

first heard of the book while watching the author present on a google video: