Ocean Sea

Rating:
Summary: good dream
Review: unusual, dreamlike piece of writing. the author isn't particularly concerned with characterisation, and his characters are of interest only in so far as they represent a particular activity or condition; the aristocratic girl has her peculiar illness, the painter his wish to paint the beginning of the sea, the professor, neatly enough, his wish to measure the end of it. Baricco's characters drift around the narrative like disembodied ghosts, but perhaps this just serves to add to the hallucinatory quality of the novel, where several of the characters actually are ghosts and the action takes place in a point outside time. the second half of the book's chapters on cannibalism give excellent demonstration of the author's artistic boldness and poetic skills. and poetic is perhaps the important word here. lovers of poetry will enjoy this book, those looking for more conventional 'plot and characterisation based' prose may struggle with it.