Six weeks later, and I think I know even less about what I thought of this book than I did when I read it. It's a literary novel, with some magical realism thrown in for good measure, centering around an architect who's a bit of a jerk. It reminds me of Martin Amis's Money: A Suicide Note in that it satirizes the 1980s gain-obsessed culture (at least, that's what everyone says the 1980s were like; I was only there for five years and don't really remember), which I suspect was a lot more interesting back then. Now I'm all, You mean self-centeredness is bad? Gee whiz! There are some good lines, a few funny jokes, a lot of unexplained nonsense, and a Middle-Eastern terrorist named Cthulu. A lot of it sort of waffles on indeterminately. And then... okay, whatever that ending meant. Or middle. A fairly promising start, actually, that never really went anywhere.

If you'd asked me right after I turned the last page, I'd have given this book four stars. But it stayed with me, and the other star weasled its way in. Books with gods and fate nudging the characters around usually leave me cold, but this one (like Neil Gaiman's American Gods) builds its premises on such a solid, ingenious foundation, the philosophizing kind of snuck up on me. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2006/10... ( )

It has a convoluted narrative, unsympathetic characters and, apparently, no plot at all. All well and good really, I've never discriminated on that basis. The fact that it has, seemingly, no point at all is what gets me. You know it’s bad when you are wondering when your 205 page book is going to get started on page 100. It really made me think I was wasting my time. ( )

Odd and charming. & he gets you to swallow a whopper in the end. ( )