Michal Ajvaz

Finshing this novel put me into a snit simply because though I wanted to read more of it there was no more of it to read. It's not that Golden Age ia great book or one of my favourites; it's that it was one of the most absorbing ones I'd read for some time.

The first 50 or so pages comprise mostly descriptions and explanations of the ways of the islanders and there were moments I became impatient with near-repetitiveness of the same points and the expanding upon them: yes, yes, I get it, lack show more of boundaries is important to these people, let's move on now. But my impatience faded early on, partly because both Ajvaz and his characters used such creative ways to achieve the islanders' way of life, partly because the author was portraying subtly different facets of these people, partly because I felt sure that this section was laying a sturdy foundation for what was to follow, and most of all because I was becoming transfixed. And as you'll have gathered if you've been looking up the book, the rest of the book is a series of stories written by the islanders, most memorable of which is the tale of a cat burglar, a serif on the Galaries Lafayette sign, and a painting that I'd give my little finger to see, a tale that seemed to me a tribute to Life A User's Manual.

As you usually ought not for translated works, don't take seriously reviews & blurb comparing this to books by Borges/Calvino. show less

After thirty pages I put it down and put it in my "Didn't finish" collection. After half an hour I reconsidered and looked up some reviews. I read another ten pages and thought "Nope". Later the same day I couldn't let go of the nagging feeling that there was more to it than met the eye, so I picked it up again. And ended up by giving it 4.5 stars.

At first, The Other City feels like written by a lazy wannabe surrealist who has discovered that he can ramble and just write sentences by piling show more words randomly, scribbling whatever his associations bring up without a plan or any coherence, and call it "art". But the longer you read, the more you see the structure and what Ajvaz is trying to do, which both makes the book meaningful and quite funny. This is not a book for everyone, but it gave me great pleasure. show less

That was a journey. Shoot, no pun intended.
Well first, I remember Ajvaz from my time in CR, one of several authors I'd hoped to read in translation someday. I might've had more mental space for surrealism at the time. I finally ordered this book this year, realizing none of these books are going to magically appear at the library or on a $1 used book shelf. So it was a little disheartening at the beginning to feel lost in these endless sentences filled with unrelated nonsensical imagery. I show more do still like some surrealism, and I was immediately excited by a treatment of Prague as a threshold, but I could not find a thread to latch onto to lead me through this story. Story? Description. Fortunately just when I was ready to give up, or really a few pages later, a story of sorts emerged. It's still not whatever I guess I'd hoped it would be, but there are some beautiful moments of thought about cities and meaning and journeys and self-knowledge and everything else, hidden within whatever the rest of it is. I think probably every criticism is valid, but I still found parts to enjoy, and I appreciate this addition to the context of a time and place I knew well. show less

The Golden Age is very difficult to describe. The jacket identifies it as "a novel" but it certainly pushes at the edge of that definition. I would identify it as 300 pages of experimental fiction.

One of the major themes is the emergence and submergence of structure from and into nothingness. True to form, The Golden Age demonstrates this principle nicely, as the best approximations of traditional narrative arrive only as temporary digressions from the main thrust of the book. Not show more coincidentally, these are also the most interesting and readable sections.

Most of the 300 pages is spent simply describing, in a rather abstract way, the primary setting of the island and its inhabitants. There are virtually no characters or plot to speak of. (There are people with names, and a few sporadic events, but it would be a dramatic overstatement to call any character a protagonist or to try to link the events together meaningfully.) This leaves the majority of the book as description of a fictitious setting. But alas, the setting itself is as close it is possible to be a non-setting: an island where the only details are transitory and everything is in permanent flux. There is no history and barely any reality! The reader who looks for a central narrative will be disappointed.

There is some relief towards the end of the book, but only some. From the aforementioned non-story emerges a dozen or so genuine stories (with characters, plot, setting and all.) However, most of these simply fade into other stories or end abruptly as the reader is lurched back into the narrator's descriptions and musings. So the author's premise becomes realized: structure emerges from nothing and is then submerged again.

This is not to say the book is bad or unreadable. It is thought-provoking and funny. There are occasional passages of beauty, and the prose is clear without sounding overly-formal (thanks much to the translator Andrew Oakland.) It is apparent that the author is exploring the implications of particular philosophical ideas, and that fiction just happens to be the means he has chosen for such exploration. (Certainly not rare in fiction.)

As long as the reader knows to expect "some fiction" with little more structure than that, and doesn't hope for some coherent story to emerge, this is an engaging read. But it is neither a fun piece of genre fiction nor an important, life-changing work. It's a weird chunk of experimental fiction, so be prepared to take it as such. show less