Landscape Painted with Tea

At risk of sounding trite and pretentious, I would say this book is more of an experience than a novel. As with his earlier work, "Dictionary of the Khazars", Pavic uses his unique style to bewitch readers. Pavic is the consummate story-teller. In fact, at times, his "telling" overshadows his story. One can never be sure where Pavic's "story" is going next but one can be sure the ride will be wondrous.

"Landscape" is full of both wisdom and foolishness. It also abounds in complex and, for lack of a better word, bizarre characters. If you are insistent on a well-formed plot, consistent characters, and transcendent meaning, this is NOT your book. If you enjoy unremitting surprises, unpredictable twists, and a somewhat disjointed reality, show more this is your book.

Undoubtedly a unique author with unique talent. show less

Every Pavic I pick up seems more inventive than the last. This is a much more straightforward story than the extremely experimental Dictionary of the Khazars, but it still has some playfulness in its second half which is arranged as a crossword and invites the reader to choose to read "down" or "across". Of course the exact explanation for how to do this doesn't come until 80-odd pages later, but the challenge of interpreting a solution will likely be a fun challenge for some readers.

With works like these I tend to let the language and imagery just wash over me and Pavic does not disappoint in that regard either: there is a lot of clever wordplay, fairy and folktales which seem too delightfully playful to be real (or are maybe just show more presented that way expertly by Pavic), wise women making hauntingly mysterious speeches to the men in their life, and anything else you might want in a surrealist novel by an accomplished poet. show less

Milorad Pavić was a masterful weaver of stories. This novel is a surreal patchwork of allusions, history, religion, conflicts between generations, magical realism... Diving into any of his books is a literary adventure unlike any other.

I wanted to like this book, but ultimately I couldn't bear it. Every single sentence is a metaphor or simile, every single word means something different than it says. Nothing happens, yet at the same time _everything_ is happening--there's no critical engagement of a story, just a sort of hazy and selfish verbal hedonism. It read like the work of a student who's been taught that using concrete phrases--that saying, "he was, he said, he did"--is the mark of an unimaginative and immature writer. Some of these metaphors are, to be true, quite beautiful (the man whose "smile closed his eyes," for example) and some, I imagine, suffer in cultural translation (I thought there was a weird preoccupation with facial hair), but instead of giving show more us a handful of gemstones, we're given a ton of them to carry, and they broke my back (if you'll excuse my own metaphor). show less

This is the first time I have abandoned a book since 1961 when I gave up on Finnegan's Wake. It is too clever by half for me. In my quest for the perfect quirky dreamy novel, this one exceeds even my patience.

It is ironic. I bought this book because I was taken in by the title and the cover. Has the lesson been learned? Let us hope.

Don't judge a book by its cover! Alone. It needs to have additional known redeeming qualities.

This is so sad. I have been hauling this book around since 1990 when it was shiny and new. It should have been read (and abandoned) long ago, and now I have given up at page 18. Not a happy day. Alas.

A moment of silence, please.

Only made it about 20 pages into this.

If you like reading, just to read words on a page, then I would suggest this book. I mean it does have some value, if you like words these are some pretty neat words and phrases and sentences you probably have never heard before. Each line seems to be mystery, or maybe every other line. You read it and then think, "I wonder what that means?" or "Wow, that is a very strange thing to say." It almost seems like some kind of Buddhist exercise. You could read this book for months, analyzing each line and maybe coming up with a couple of theories about what it means and then move on to the next line. It's a different kind of reading experience.

Basically, when I was in college in the early 90's I went show more through a post modern phase and this book was on a list of post modern books, so I picked it up. It's been sitting on my shelf for more than 20 years and I finally picked it up. show less

I'm not sure how to understand this book-- but I'm thoroughly enjoying it all the same. Some really creative use of language here.

Later: still not sure how I feel about this one. The presence of pseudo-folklore/folkloric practices got to be old pretty quickly.