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Loading... The Whalestoe Lettersby Mark Z. Danielewski
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. The Whalestoe Letters by Mark Z. Danielewski is an extension of his premier novel, House of Leaves. Initially appearing as an appendix to the novel, The Whalestoe Letters (which includes ten additional letters) are those written by Johnny Truant's mother Pelafina H. Lievre during her residence at the insane asylum. Like House of Leaves as a whole, TheWhalestoe Letters is to fiction and literature what thought experiments are to physics; Danielewski seems to write and publish to push boundaries and test waters for no other reasons than curiosity. While I would argue that the experiment of House of Leaves is very interesting, his subsequent publications are less successful. The (limited) success of The Whalestoe Letters is that it makes me want to go back and read House of Leaves once again. (  ) Luxx | Dec 16, 2009 |  Protagonist: Pelafina Lièvre Setting: the Three Attic Whalestoe Institute in Virginia in the 1980s Epistolary fiction First Line: Beside the fact that she was of fierce intelligence and beautiful at that, she was mad. Written as a series of letters from an institution for the mentally disturbed, Pelafina Lièvre reaches out to her son, Johnny, in the only way she can. For the uninitiated, the first half of the book can make you wonder why on earth she's in there. Then the chilling sentence comes about not taking her medication. What follows is a psychotic break that's chilling in what it reveals. This is a little masterpiece. (  ) cathyskye | May 18, 2008 | It's hard to rate this as a stand-alone book, but I gave it a 3.5 anyway. I didn't follow Pelafina's story too much in House of Leaves itself, so it's good to have it in non-brick form. (  ) Sykil | Sep 16, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0375714413, Paperback)Between 1982 and 1989, Pelafina H. Lièvre sent her son, Johnny Truant, a series of letters from The Three Attic Whalestoe Institute, a psychiatric facility in Ohio where she spent the final years of her life. Beautiful, heartfelt, and tragic, this correspondence reveals the powerful and deeply moving relationship between a brilliant though mentally ill mother and the precocious, gifted young son she never ceases to love.Originally contained within the monumental House of Leaves, this collection stands alone as a stunning portrait of mother and child. It is presented here along with a foreword by Walden D. Wyhrta and eleven previously unavailable letters. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:16 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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