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Loading... Utopia Avenue (edition 2020)by David Mitchell
Work InformationUtopia Avenue by David Mitchell
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. This a book I really wanted to like, but a quarter of the way through, after forcing myself to read it, I gave up. Between unlikable characters, a boring plot, and dull writing, it wasn't worth my time. Of course, there is always a chance that it improves, but life is too short to read dull books.summing up a decade like the 1960s, in music and societal change, is a pretty ambitious project. and dropping into that a conclusion to a long and timeslippy book series like David Mitchell's Horologists, which began life set around the much earlier Dutch East India Company, is a dicey proposition, pulled off mostly by backgrounding that ending so the mainframe 1960s stuff doesn't get ploughed under along the way. the story centers around a fictional band called Utopia Avenue, and it works largely by making the band members live so vividly that as a reader you want them all so badly to survive and grow. it's beautifully written, like all of David Mitchell's work, and it's a work worth cherishing, for the time, the places, and the characters, while marvelling at how closely the author manages to capture the chaos, the aspirations, and the mad creativity of that time. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to SeriesHorologists (4) AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
"Soho, London, 1967. Folk-rock-psychedelic quartet Utopia Avenue is formed. Guitarist Jasper de Zoet, a shy, half-Dutch public-school musical prodigy, was hearing voices long before he dropped acid. Keyboardist Elf Holloway must defy the prejudices of her bank manager father, her housewife mother, and her age to forge her own career. Bassist Dean Moss cannot, will not, spend his life on the factory floor like everyone else in Gravesend. Band manager Levon Frankland--gay, Jewish, and Canadian--is not unduly burdened by conscience. The drummer is a drummer. Over two years and two albums, Utopia Avenue navigates the dark end of the Sixties: its parties, drugs and egos, political change and personal tragedy; and the trials of life as a working band in London, the provinces, European capitals and, finally, the promised land of America. What is art? What is fame? What is music? How can the whole be more than the sum of its parts? Can idealism change the world? How does your youth shape your life? This is the story of Utopia Avenue. Not everyone lives to the end"-- No library descriptions found.
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LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumDavid Mitchell's book Utopia Avenue was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Its very well writ… but I ask myself why am I reading this? And feel slightly alien when I try to get to an answer. ( )