Rating: 
Summary: Weak Start So I Ditched It
Review: The first page of this novel contains the following phrase: "The events recorded here concerned only a handful of people and, quite probably, are of interest only to those people. Especially since 'story' is almost certainly the wrong word. Whatever makes events into a story is entirely missing from what follows." After reading the first fifth of the book, I'd have to agree. A slackerish Englishman moves to Paris to write a novel and instead falls in with a fellow Brit, falls in love, and bums around the city. It wasn't that interesting and didn't seem to be going anywhere, so I moved on.
Rating: 
Summary: The Sun Also Sets
Review: To paraphrase Jake Barnes, I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together. It was with this line that the character of Jake Barnes begins to coalesce into something definite. What cinches our sympathy with Jake is his tragic flaw, played out with lady Ashley and assorted other dames. In reading Dyer' book, you can't help but remember the Sun Also Rises, Hemingway's smashing novel about post war dissolution and dissipation in gay paree in the twenties. Indeed I was not surprised when Dyers reveals that he has been dropping bits of Sun into his own novel. There are many reasons that Dyers ambitious,and I think potentially important book is deeply flawed and fails to convey the poignancy and pathos that Sun conveyed. The most obvious is that he needed some real editing here. I picked up PT after reading and being deeply moved by the brilliant pseudo-memoirs of But Beautiful. The book was a marvel of pacing. I read it fairly soon after the masterful "Coming Through Slaughter" by Ondaatje, a paragon of the jazz pseudo-memoir. It held up against anything I have read by Ondaatje, and even Delillo. The pace was impeccable, and as good as any perfect short book-even Maxwell's "So Long, See you Tommorrow" which I think is perfectly paced. This sense of pacing and narrative was missing from PT. It gave a sense that the final edit was rushed. There is a gem in that book possibly several, and it deserved a better edit. Reading the book became trying to skip the poor, stilted dialogue, and the lack of narrative force to find small gems of wit and insight. I was startled at a descrisption of a Portugese landlord that seemed so like a former landlord of mine. I'll allow the clearly self indulgent sex scenes with the Nicole character-but the rest needed a good going over. The biggest flaw was the utter lack of any resonance between the characters and the reader. The narrator is poorly defined in relation to the protagonist. Unlike his influences, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, he fails to capture the complex fascination that narrators often have for the people whose lives they are recounting. The beauty of Nick and Jay is that Nick both reviles and is curiously seduced by Jay's image and style. The same can be said of Jake and Brett. In short, the book feels like a poor recreation or recounting of a far superior book which the author reveres. After reading But Beautiful, and being spellbound, PT is a strange dissapointment. On the whole, it is the best book I have ever not enjoyed.
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