Pål Hernes Fiva
Really wanted to love it. Love reading about it more than reading it. Some of it will stay with me, but far too much was just a pointless slog (for me).
Update after a few months: ...but the parts that stay with me, making me return to the text and reframing my own life in a way that is impossible to ignore. I guess I sort of love it?
Surprisingly faithful re-telling of the myths. Not worth your time if you know them from before (but outside of Scandinavia that may not be a problem).
Terribly disappointing end to an entertaining series.
Supposedly smart people acting as insufferable morons, spouting some of the clunkiest dialogue I've ever read. The endless exposition could be forgivable, but to add insult to injury I was bored throughout.
It is so bad that it lessens the series as a whole. I wish I'd never read it.
Boring, shallow and repetitive. Spends too much time using DFW as a sort of straw-man cod-philosopher, and returns to the same examples over, and over again.
Hagiography of limited value and scope. The author writes a lot about feelings, insight and profound experiences, but only rarely manages to actually convey a sliver of why/how those come to be (which is actually a point made throughout the book). Missed opportunity.
Just not interesting enough. Who cares what fiction writers thought about a hypothetical concept hundred years ago? Only worthwhile idea: the concept of time travel is a modern invention.
Extremely verbose, long winded story about cleverest/smuggest man alive(who is also blind! Amazing!) who solves crimes (while blind! Amazing!) in the exciting world of coin fetishists etc, featuring ridiculous stereotypes. Only recommended if you are excited by numismatics.
Mostly inspiring and interesting but some ideas seem half-baked, in particular the idea of so-called “productive meditation” which seems like a recipe for becoming an aloof and/or burnt out professor. The author also seems to cherry pick when to offer research instead of mere anecdotes to back up his points.
Useful, even funny but too short!
I really only contains one expanded example, and the connections to others are highly interesting, but it is really, really short. Too short. But then I've learned to think: “what game is being played here”. I think that game is: “get the reader sufficiently invested to buy the next book”. Which I might.
Interesting but only intermittently useful. Most of the scenarios they set up are not truly real life solutions (or indeed problems).
Perhaps because I do not share this faith, it was impossible for me to access the emotions caused by the core conflict in this book. Indeed, the only effect it had on me was pity for the characters and their pointless prayers, and a strengthening of my view of catholicism as a particularly perverse strain of religion.
Ideas better than the writing
The story is a mess, and while the ideas are interesting, they are also confused and confusing. Only at the end does it lead anywhere, and then it ends...
Fittingly/ironically what the story lacks are proper human characters whose emotions and motivations the reader can latch onto.
A technocrat's pie in the sky. A missed opportunity: Too much technobabble and too little of the truly interesting aspects. Human ingenuity and futurology is cool, but the book is 800+ pages and some of the technology reads like a well-written wikipedia article with no narrative function. That being said, there is enough interesting ideas and characters that make the book worth reading.
Entertaining but the research is far too anecdotal and mixed to be taken seriously. The author frequently confuses the specific with the universal. Sometimes funny, but sometimes unintentionally so: the author spends time dismissing Karate Kid as unrealistic.
There is nothing there: a collection of sort of clever, sort of obvious metaphors, presented in a sort of serious manner. No ideas to latch onto. Post-whatever in the worst kind of way.
Surprisingly compelling and deep book. Thorough, if somewhat uncritical, summary of a wide range of ideas. Low point: Chapter on relationships bordering on self parody. Other than that, loads of stuff to work on/with.
Page upon page of vainglorious whining. Wasn't aware that the author was so young when she wrote it, but it makes the melodrama more understandable. Utter crud.
More of a recap of the most important plot-lines, adding some useful historical references.
