I'd heard a lot of good things about this book, so I was expecting something really great. The plot is okay, but there's nothing that stands out about it. At least it was a short read. ( )

This book was a beautiful, elegantly written and poetic. The entire story (a short novella) is written into tiny little poetics chapters. Almost like a free style poetry, but written to tell a story. Alessandro Baricco, does a fantastic job at creating a lovely read and a forbidden love story. For the most part, the story isn’t what caused me to be unable to put the book down, it was the beautiful pose, poetic words that vibrated off the pages, which disallowed me to put it down for any period of time.

This isn’t a book that has some sort o exciting love forbidden love story, little information is interaction is seen between characters, it is a lot of metaphors descriptions and small poetic phrases that create the story. Overall, it was a beautiful and poetic novella pulling the reader in and to experience a forbidden story of love. If you’re looking for a good, poetic read and elegant writing, this is defiantly for you.

Would I recommend it to read: Yes I would. It is also one of the books on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. I can see a lot of people not enjoy this book, because it concentrates on a poetic descriptions and metaphors, phrases etc. To tell the story, there is a lot of vivid imagery in it, but don’t except a trawling love story and adventure. Although it is very short, (132 pages) and the pages (because of font size) are only partially filled in. It won’t take long at all. Two – Three hours at most if you’re a slow reader. So give it a try, even if it isn’t your usual style book.

Book Review: http://juliebooks.blogspot.com/2008/1... ( )

Having gorged myself on a diet of weighty Russian and India novels recently I scanned my bookcase for a palate cleanser. With no anticipation I began reading Silk.

Reading the sparse pages in one sitting of almost poetry like prose, the often repetitive narrative captivated me. It drew me in much the same way as Herve Joncour was drawn to the round eyed, child faced concubine of Japan.

The back story of the French – Oriental silk trade held my interest but mostly I was overwhelmed by the light, almost non-existent nature of the tale, silk like, you could say.

I closed the book, sated, having been part of an evocative, sensual world, with a tear on my cheek. ( )

Most readers seem to find this book haunting and poetic, but I'm not so sure. It is certainly clever and elegant in its presentation of the story: the folktale-like structure with short chapters and extensive use of repetition, the delicate use of blank pages (where the publishers really make their profits), the imagery of birds and silk, etc. I haven't seen the film, but the book is clearly drafted in such a way that you could slot in a few headings and have a ready-made filmscript, so I'm sure it works very well on the screen.

On the other hand, it seems to be little more than a shameless recycling of the old cliché of the industrial West and the passive East, dolled up with a few ironic touches to make it respectable. The eroticism struck me as no more convincing than that of a lingerie advertisement - again, cleverly done, building up slowly, and with an ironic get-out clause so that the author can't quite be accused of sexism or orientalism, but it still seems to be exploiting all the ways of representing women (passive, mysterious, sensual, silent,...) that go with the classic orientalist approach. ( )

Excellent. One of my favourite's