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juushikaTitle: A Case of Curiosities
Author: Allen Kurzweil
Published: New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 358
Total Page Count: 115,468
Text Number: 336
Read Because: personal enjoyment, purchased for $1 from Powell's
Review: A cabinet filled with curious objects recounts the life of one Claude Page, an artist and inventor born poor in rural France and destined for a strange, evolving adolescence. A Case of Curiosities has an expected humor to its narration, a slyness and whimsical satire (and a dogged, adolescent obsession with sex) which threatens to grow excessive over 350 pages ("He was sorry that her presence in his life was so limited, like some minor character in a historical narrative who pops up and leaves without displaying the depth that is clearly there" (316)—I mean, really.) but just manages to stay on the safe side, instead making the book a swift and light read. And a good thing, too, as it has a lingering pace and little sense of forward motion, with the protagonist seeming only to stumble into the next chapter of his life. It's a strange historical novel: too detailed and grungy to be escapism, too light in tone to carry much weight. I have a narrow sense of humor, and so the same thing that makes this book fall flat for me may be more successful for another reader; as I see it, it has its moments and never fails to be readable, but A Case of Curiosities fails to coalesce into a successful novel, and I don't recommend it.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Author: Allen Kurzweil
Published: New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 358
Total Page Count: 115,468
Text Number: 336
Read Because: personal enjoyment, purchased for $1 from Powell's
Review: A cabinet filled with curious objects recounts the life of one Claude Page, an artist and inventor born poor in rural France and destined for a strange, evolving adolescence. A Case of Curiosities has an expected humor to its narration, a slyness and whimsical satire (and a dogged, adolescent obsession with sex) which threatens to grow excessive over 350 pages ("He was sorry that her presence in his life was so limited, like some minor character in a historical narrative who pops up and leaves without displaying the depth that is clearly there" (316)—I mean, really.) but just manages to stay on the safe side, instead making the book a swift and light read. And a good thing, too, as it has a lingering pace and little sense of forward motion, with the protagonist seeming only to stumble into the next chapter of his life. It's a strange historical novel: too detailed and grungy to be escapism, too light in tone to carry much weight. I have a narrow sense of humor, and so the same thing that makes this book fall flat for me may be more successful for another reader; as I see it, it has its moments and never fails to be readable, but A Case of Curiosities fails to coalesce into a successful novel, and I don't recommend it.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
