Linger Awhile

83-year-old Irving Goodman falls in love, in 2004, with a long-dead actress in some western movies from the 50s. He approaches a friend to either bring the actress to him, or send him to the actress. The friend does the former, and in his turn falls in love with her, or her black-and-white avatar from the movies, grown in a vat.

The novel is told in alternating points of view from pretty much all the major characters in the novel. Hoban is a master of language and has some delicious puns and references built in (the colloidal soup that they reconstitute the actress into is called the suspension of disbelief). The characters are all well-drawn, even when they only get short passages in which to introduce themselves. The book, at the show more beginning especially is both poignant and funny.

For me, its pleasures fade a bet when the idea is worked out a little more and its shown how the actress survives in the modern world. It lost the poignancy (though maybe not the humor). Still, at only 132 pages it's a fast read, and Hoban's imagination is active. show less

"Suspension of disbelief is the first step in doing anything hitherto thought impossible."

A quick and mildly amusing male fantasy gone wrong, with a dash of sci fi, detective novel and quasi-Buddhist philosophy.

An old man falls in love with an actress from a black and white cowboy film and gets someone to bring her to life by dissolving particles of her (from video) in a "suspension of disbelief" (conceptually very slightly like the Infinite Improbability Drive in Hitchhiker's Guide?), adding it to a primordial soup and zapping with electricity. The problem is, she needs blood to gain colour and stay alive, which causes problems for those who created her and comes to the attention of the police.

I like the idea that "I've never read the show more whole Heart Sutra, but if form is emptiness, then not reading it is the same as reading it", but the best line has to be, "Her feet looked open minded." show less

This was one of a small number of Hoban works that I hadn't gotten around to reading during his life, out of a vague fear that I wouldn't like them and would feel bad about that, and then kept putting off after he died. I finally did read it and the impression I had had earlier was more or less right: it's my least favorite of his novels, which actively bothers me rather than just being disappointing because it's loosely a sequel to a great book (The Medusa Frequency), and because there are just enough glimpses here of good ideas (the film-based twist on vampirism, the way different POV characters first figure out the situation from different angles, the idea of complicating the problem with a second experiment) to make it feel like a show more heap of missed opportunities. There's some cringey stuff of the "I just made a dumbass bad-taste joke but at least another character pointed out that it was one" variety, but mostly it's just flat. Of course since it's Hoban there are still some lovely turns of phrase here and there. show less

This reads like a novelisation of a screenplay and it can be 'done' in a few hours. It is a 'spin' on the classic vampire tale, a 'hommage' to Hammer horror, based in the Soho of old men and women who worked once in the media. It may be no work of genius but it is witty, fast-paced, knowing and good-humoured - showing that sex and violence can be quite funny and that the former can still be a live issue when you are well over 60 (which has to be good news). Very very British. Think 'Carry On Screaming'.

"Linger Awhile," written in 2006 was Hoban's 14th novel.
In his acknowledgments he said, "I find it impossible to stop writing, and I hope that Liz Calder, my publisher, may be forgiven for supporting my addiction."

My paperback edition's cover shows ten snippets of praise from press reviews, calling it "an adult fairytale," "magical fantasy," and the author "the best sort of genius."
I am an unabashed Hoban fan. My reaction to this action-packed book is difficult to express:
current news of three-D printing baffles me as does the book's reconstruction of a woman long-dead.
It's difficult to blame a woman for misdeeds that are due to her basic needs. Blame instead the men who set up her impossible show more situation.

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On page 44 one of the characters says, "I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in."
Did the Coen brothers read this before they made "The Big Lebowski"? show less

This is the weirdest vampire story I've ever read, and I've read a lot of them.

Een boek dat in zijn uiterlijke verschijnen zo overduidelijk de pulp op lijkt te zoeken mag - volgens de wetten van mijn boekenzoeken - niet anders dan inhoudelijk tegen bvb. Richard Brautigan aan te leunen (bvb. The Hawkline Monster). En indien niet Brautigan dan iets als Tom Robbins, waar ik zelf weinig affiniteit mee heb, maar in ieder geval wordt de lezer in diens boeken meegenomen op een wilde trip - en wanneer Tom Robbins een lepel met een sok laat praten, herinner ik me, is er geen lezers hoofd dat dat bij de haren getrokken vindt.

Bij Hoban speelt de kwestie van geloofwaardigheid niet eens. Onverschilligheid heerst van pagina 1 tot pagina enzoveel (de laatste 50 pagina's las ik diagonaal).
Het verhaal miste - heel wat, maar show more bovenal - dynamiek. De personages misten body. Geen grap was grappig. Geen emotie. Gaap. Na gaap.

http://occamsrazorlibrary.blogspot.com/2010/01/linger-awhile.html show less