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Loading... The Brief History of the Dead: A novel (edition 2006)by Kevin Brockmeier
Work InformationThe Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
  
Magic Realism (101) Top Five Books of 2014 (909) Winter Books (39) » 15 more Books Read in 2007 (117) Ghosts (188)
 hmonkeyreads | Jan 25, 2024 |    ) sweetimpact | Jan 18, 2024 | BookyMaven | Dec 6, 2023 | . Read 105 pages and had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. I'd didn't care at all about any of the characters in the book. No idea why this book got such a high rating? (  ) BenM2023 | Nov 22, 2023 |  ) JayBostwick | Jul 11, 2023 |
What if those enjoying the afterlife require for their continuing existence being remembered by Earthlings? ... Since the afterlife, as depicted here, is never believable (the denizens show little stress about their temporary status), the stakes of Laura’s sledding aren’t what Brockmeier hopes. ... In this speculative fiction, perhaps the most interesting element to wonder about is how Brockmeier will get away with blaming Coca-Cola for causing the pandemic. After a charming first chapter that imagines highly individual “crossings” to the other side, a novelistic virus called “The Flicks” debilitates the rest. Brockmeier's epigraph and the publisher's blurb spell out, pretty much, the connection between the doomed quest of Laura Byrd in the even-numbered chapters, and the denizens of the anomalous city in the odd-numbered ones. Such is his sensitivity and skill that Brockmeier contrives a mystery that is nonetheless subtle, absorbing, and ultimately satisfying. As befits a writer whose stated influences include Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping alongside JG Ballard and Italo Calvino, The Brief History is both formal and heartfelt, an elegiac fabulation on the fragile, ignorant beauty of human life. Between earth and whatever lies beyond, the inhabitants of a benevolent purgatory known simply as The City have realised that death can be a wonderful restorative. ... Just as they had originally believed that The City owed its existence to the memories of the living, so now the citizens are increasingly convinced that Laura herself sustains it. ...The prose spreads a patina of whimsy over even the most urgent emotions: the characters are sometimes hearts that think rather than people who feel. But for all its foibles, The Brief History of the Dead must be accounted a prodigy of imagination, insight and overwhelming tenderness. Nobody in the novel is remotely interesting, even in their responses to their extraordinary predicaments. And the plot, although rich in dramatic possibility, limps along through various tedious digressions and flashbacks, failing to stimulate any real imaginative or intellectual excitement. The bold premise at the heart of "The Brief History of the Dead" could have offered the best sorts of complex pleasures, narrative and metaphysical, that science fiction has to offer. Instead it merely flounders, a waste of a perfectly good idea. ...the brilliant question fueling the book is: What happens to the land of the dead-but-not-forgotten when the land of the living is destroyed? ... This conceit is also the book's primary weakness. The first half of The Brief History of the Dead is compelling and fascinating, full of interesting characters, lyrically restrained prose, and amusing bits of satire. The structure Brockmeier has created, though, limits him, making the second half of the novel a clever puzzle but not much more ... The weaknesses of the second half cut the wires suspending a logical reader's disbelief and let it drop to the ground and sprout questions about the way this afterlife is configured. Awards
Fantasy.
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML: From Kevin Brockmeier, one of this generation's most inventive young writers, comes a striking new novel about death, life, and the mysterious place in between. The City is inhabited by those who have departed Earth but are still remembered by the living. They will reside in this afterlife until they are completely forgotten. But the City is shrinking, and the residents clearing out. Some of the holdouts, like Luka Sims, who produces the City's only newspaper, are wondering what exactly is going on. Others, like Coleman Kinzler, believe it is the beginning of the end. Meanwhile, Laura Byrd is trapped in an Antarctic research station, her supplies are running low, her radio finds only static, and the power is failing. With little choice, Laura sets out across the ice to look for help, but time is running out. Kevin Brockmeier alternates these two storylines to create a lyrical and haunting story about love, loss and the power of memory. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.62)
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The Brief History of the Dead (SPOILER ALERT)
Wikipedia in English (3)
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I thought the concept was fantastic and I found it to be a page turner even though I can't say a whole lot actually happens in book.
Wasn't thrilled with the ending because it got so muddled but I think that was intentional. (