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Loading... Le mode interrogatif : Roman ? (original 2010; edition 2012)by Padgett Powell, Olivia Roussel (Traduction)
Work InformationThe Interrogative Mood: A Novel? by Padgett Powell (2010)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. The concept of weaving a novel out of questions is luminous, full to bursting with possibilities that Powell disappointed soundly in this book. The execution is scattered, each question interesting on its own but rarely staying on topic to a second or third question in a row. The reader is assaulted with these disconnected ideas and given nothing to round them into a plot. A few scattered threads gave me hope for discovery of the narrator, particularly the recurrence of certain questions (e.g. do you remember when I asked you...?) and questions that involved himself in third person (a rarity, e.g. do you think that the birds flitting around the crown of the tree in my yard...?). Without exponential extrapolation, however, nothing could be knitted together of these. The other logical way to construct an interrogative story, to create some sort of plot or theme for the reader through use of second person, was not used at all. For this interrogative style to work, I think the later questions need to answer in some way the older questions, so that information can accumulate. As it was, the conceit of this method could have carried on enjoyably for maybe the length of a ten-page "short story," but it seems I have dragged myself through the rest of it to no narrative purpose. In this book, every sentence was a question. This sounds like it could be gimmicky, but I found it delightful. At first I wanted to only read a page or so a day as some of the questions really made you think. But I quickly decided I had to read them all because I didn't want to put it down. Makes you examine yourself, the author, the world and your beliefs on some level. A book filled with endless conversations and ideas. Thoughtful, hilarious, preposterous and fascinating. Even when/(especially when?) there are repeat questions. Some of the questions were my favorites due to a lyrical turn of phrase rather than merely the question itself. Definitely not a book for everyone, but I LOVED it!!! Didn't Gilbert Sorrentino make a work containing nothing but questions with his novel Gold Fools published in the late 1990s? Didn't Ron Silliman do this too, in Sunset Debris, back in the mid-1980s? Does Sunset Debris count, since it was published as "poetry"? Could there be other writers before Powell who also created a work entirely of questions that I don't know about? If Padgett Powell is better known, in some circles at least, than either of these predecessors, does that make The Interrogative Mood a ground-breaking work? Is The Interrogative Mood a derivative work? A "difficult" work? Can an artist who didn't invent a genre make a "better" work than that style's innovators? Did Shakespeare invent the sonnet? Why did I rate Powell's book lower than Sorrentino's novel or the larger work by Silliman which includes Sunset Debris?
"Sind ihre Gefühle rein?" - Der US-Schriftsteller Padgett Powell hat ein Buch geschrieben, das nur aus Fragen besteht, ohne Handlung, ohne Zusammenhang und ohne Erzähler. Was wie eine Zumutung erscheint, ist ein tolles Leseabenteuer, das offenbar sogar Beziehungen verändern kann. Darüber wiederum ist der Autor selbst ein wenig erschrocken. AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
The acclaimed writer Padgett Powell is fascinated by what it feels like to walk through everyday life, to hear the swing and snap of American talk, to be both electrified and overwhelmed by the mad cacophony -- the "muchness"--of America. "The Interrogative Mood" is Powell's playful and profound response, a bebop solo of a book in which every sentence is a question. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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A novel made only of questions? I didn't like it, it occasionally made me smile, some questions are amusing or interesting, the rest are just random questions.
#IT
Un romanzo fatto solo di domande? Non mi è piaciuto, ogni tanto mi ha strappato un sorriso, alcune domande sono divertenti o interessanti, il resto sono solo domande a caso. ( )