Review: The Swimmers

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Perhaps because I’m a swimmer that I didn’t find the beginning half of the book too strange. Although the swimmers’ believes about the crack led me to think perhaps this was going into some sort of fantasy or magical realism story. That it did not. Rather, the second half of the book should have a warning for any elderly person for disturbing content! Whilst I myself frequently go in and out of aged care facilities and I can certainly understand the potential for despair, loneliness in such settings, I felt it exaggerated. It felt like she was describing a dystopian state controlling these old people and manipulating these fragile vulnerable old people for their money. I sometimes I do feel like these facilities are inhumane and money grabbing but I fail to see the point the author wants to make with the story - is it to say that anyone of us ordinary person can develop dementia and die not knowing ourselves anymore??

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Review: A Little Life

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: Us Against You

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: The Passenger

The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m not a fan of Cormac McCarthy books having only read The Road. I was impressed by the stark landscape his words portrayed. It seems it’s the space between the words that conveys the loneliness between human beings. In The Passenger, Bobby Western is on the run for reasons no one really knows, including himself. But along the way, there are conversations that just seems to imply we are passengers in the ship of life, everything seems out of control. That’s my very simplistic interpretation of the overall picture. Along the way, physics, drugs, conspiracy theory and philosophy are discussed at length. More than once, I zoned out in the details but there are some awakening phrases like “no body wants to live if they don’t have to die” and the passage Bobby said on the beach to The Kid about grief. At the end, the scene that started the novel seems to bear no importance anymore. I hope Stella Maris would be a little more satisfying finish.

Regardless, at the age of 89, turning out two novels is truly remarkable and no one can fathom the wealth of wisdom and knowledge that McCarthy will die with, whenever that might be.

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Review: Sea of Tranquility

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Review: The Sympathiser

The Sympathiser by Viet Thanh Nguyen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It tells the story of a Vietnamese spy but it is so much more. It is a gripping thriller. It makes a lot of commits about the identity crisis, the racism that migrants, mixed race people face. He made some cutting observations about both Americans and Vietnamese culture.

“Americans saw unhappiness as a moral failure and thought crime” although nowadays probably also a disease.

“Our country itself was cursed, bastardized, partitioned into north and south, and if it could be said of us that we chose division and death in our uncivil war, that was also only partially true. We had not chosen to be debased by the French, to be divided by them into an unholy trinity of north, center, and south, and to be turned over to the great powers of capitalism and communism for a further bisection, then given roles as the clashing armies of a Cold War chess match played in air-conditioned rooms by white men wearing suits and lies.”

I finished feeling i had a greater understanding of the tragedy of Vietnamese history but also the general struggle of being a peasant in a world where the powerful controlled lives covertly like through capitalism or overtly like war and autocracy.



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Review: Metronome

Metronome by Tom Watson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Most people have commented, it’s an eerie story. In my mind, it’s set in a dystopian near future. I wonder if the metronome is an allegory on how we are tied to electronic devices nowadays. If we just try, we might find we can last that few minutes longer each day, to regain control of our lives. May be the little girl who appears in the latter part of the story, illustrates how much more we can understand each other, if we just pay the attention to each other instead of thinking of ourselves. The blind faith Whitney had to the metronome made me wonder if that is what nazi supporters who deny the holocaust are like - that need to believe in order and authority blinds the eyes to the truth. A fine tribute to a mother’s love by the end.

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