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mkrupa16's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
wendycity's review against another edition
2.0
I read Mating a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed it, so was looking forward to Mortals. I didn't make it. After 300-400 pages, I had to return it to the library. It's heft made it a bit of a drag to read in bed (my only reading place apres le bebe)--but I could have overcome that if the narrative had pulled me along. It had occasional amusing shades of Our Man in Havana (small time spy, expat experience, funny), but was mostly a lot more information than I needed to know about the protagonist's fervent attraction/love(?) for his wife.
jdgcreates's review against another edition
4.0
Welcome to the mind palace of Ray Finch. It is obsessive and intellectual and full of quotes that non-academics will find annoying. And it is utterly charming in its weaknesses, namely its abiding love for Iris, his wife, and in its strengths, its amusing combinations of curse words: "...anything like this hellfuckshit hell going on."
Norman Rush has a truly amazing gift of writing us deep into the minds and lives of hyper-intelligent, politically involved, and normally neurotic people. I thank him for sharing it.
"Ray thought he would be willing to die if it was going to be pitch black, hello zero, diving through the zero like a clown through a burning hoop and then nothing. He hoped to God the atheists were right. Because if there was an afterlife it would be institutional because somebody would have to run it and he couldn't go through that again. And the only worse thing would be reincarnation and back to the ocean of human institutions again." Word.
Norman Rush has a truly amazing gift of writing us deep into the minds and lives of hyper-intelligent, politically involved, and normally neurotic people. I thank him for sharing it.
"Ray thought he would be willing to die if it was going to be pitch black, hello zero, diving through the zero like a clown through a burning hoop and then nothing. He hoped to God the atheists were right. Because if there was an afterlife it would be institutional because somebody would have to run it and he couldn't go through that again. And the only worse thing would be reincarnation and back to the ocean of human institutions again." Word.
leifq's review
4.0
4 1/2 stars - just shy of perfect
"Mortals" does expertly well what I love most in novels - it hangs a plot on the lives of a few people to better tell their intimacies and interactions, to better show their humanity and reveal our own to us. For all of the fighting, the bombs, the guns, the escapes, the spying (well, sort of), the fires, the danger, I was most tense and riveted during the early bathing scene between Iris and Ray. Their 50+ page (or near - I'm recalling off the top of my head) discussion, skirting around their relationship problems, Iris's need for newness, Ray's need for sameness, their mutual desire to get what they want while hurting the other as little as possible, their moves and words polished by years of loving one another was absolutely thrilling to me. This is a book about the ways that we love people and the sacrifices that we sometimes make thinking that we are done with them while later realizing that many of those sacrifices are instead rights of passage and cannot be skipped - doomed to be undertaken at the right time or the very wrong time. I found this book to be wildly daring and extremely satisfying. The ending in particular (the final 40 or so pages) which gives us Iris's point-of-view and her very human and rational reasoning, her final send-off to him (as well written of this type of scene that I can remember having read), and the conclusion to the one story and beginning of the next for each was true, real, refreshing, and remarkably gratifying. I loved Ray's arc and I loved Iris.
The ancillary characters were good (Kerekang in particular was compelling) but paled (as surely they had to) by comparison. Morel was a wonderful construct - perfectly built to be exactly what was needed for each character whom he fueled.
I loved this book
"Mortals" does expertly well what I love most in novels - it hangs a plot on the lives of a few people to better tell their intimacies and interactions, to better show their humanity and reveal our own to us. For all of the fighting, the bombs, the guns, the escapes, the spying (well, sort of), the fires, the danger, I was most tense and riveted during the early bathing scene between Iris and Ray. Their 50+ page (or near - I'm recalling off the top of my head) discussion, skirting around their relationship problems, Iris's need for newness, Ray's need for sameness, their mutual desire to get what they want while hurting the other as little as possible, their moves and words polished by years of loving one another was absolutely thrilling to me. This is a book about the ways that we love people and the sacrifices that we sometimes make thinking that we are done with them while later realizing that many of those sacrifices are instead rights of passage and cannot be skipped - doomed to be undertaken at the right time or the very wrong time. I found this book to be wildly daring and extremely satisfying. The ending in particular (the final 40 or so pages) which gives us Iris's point-of-view and her very human and rational reasoning, her final send-off to him (as well written of this type of scene that I can remember having read), and the conclusion to the one story and beginning of the next for each was true, real, refreshing, and remarkably gratifying. I loved Ray's arc and I loved Iris.
The ancillary characters were good (Kerekang in particular was compelling) but paled (as surely they had to) by comparison. Morel was a wonderful construct - perfectly built to be exactly what was needed for each character whom he fueled.
I loved this book
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