Scan barcode
1umbrella1's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
arrkay's review against another edition
5.0
Absolutely loved this in every way. Kellie should recommend all my books.
seak's review against another edition
2.0
What started out so promising, full of cleverness and interesting mysteries, turned out being something I just wasn't enjoying and thus I had to put it down. There's just too much out there that spending time on something just to finish it will no longer be an activity I pursue.
Ben Mendelssohn commits suicide to be with his wife, Marian, who died a year earlier. He discovers a world, the Other World, that is both similar and completely different from our own world, but completely different from anything any religion has ever predicted.
It was impressive that Gafla is able to handle this topic without any religion at all, except maybe a passing mention at the beginning when Ben laughs at those around him for their misconceptions of the afterlife.
What's also impressive is Gafla's unique humor and creativity. Ben is an epilogist, which is a word that exists but not (that I've found) with the meaning that is given in this book. He rewrites endings, mostly to popular books. He's a genius at his job and saves even the best of writers from poor endings (I guess Stephen King could use his services eh?). In other words, he's a "righter." I loved the clever little details that pop up such as this, it's also what sold me from the beginning when I could have easily moved on to something else.
The World of the End is also unique in that it follows Ben's pursuit of his wife, but alternates between random chapters following for instance the life of a photo or someone from the living world. These began as interesting and fun interludes, but they also take away from the narrative and make it a bit scattered and less cohesive of a narrative, at least until later in the book when they start to fit together a bit more ... well some of them.
As we enter back into Ben's new world, we discover this new world that is extremely well put-together. From the multi-wheel to the godget, we find out more and more of this world of Ben's death, but at the expense of Ben's character. All we know is that he's passionate about finding his wife, but that's about it. We learn about this interesting world, but it gets really hard to care at all about what happens.
And while the world is interesting, some of the things people do is just odd and mildly to deeply depressing. For instance, people don't have the need to eat, but they can and you have to do so immediately or you lose the desire to eat entirely. But this also goes for just about any other vice you want so you have people deliberately falling back into bad habits.
The following are more spoilery, so you've been warned:
Ben goes to meet his parents only to find out that while his father was dead, he fell in love with some one in the Other World and when his mother came to her death years later, she no longer mattered as much. Then, he finds that she really doesn't care either although she definitely did at first. But now she's found she enjoys being single.
So now Ben doesn't even know if Marian will even feel the same about him when he finally finds her.
Add to this the actor who takes his roles a bit to seriously, so much so that they make him a bit insane, or his pedophile brother whom he protects through attempted murder. I couldn't even help but think Ben's initial entrance to the afterlife was a bit of a glorification of suicide.
I just found these impossibly depressing. Yeah, people do feel this way and they probably would in such a world as Gafla has presented. But like I said, it depressed me to no end. Maybe people just change, but maybe it's because they've failed to work at it and they're selfish. The latter is more how it felt in this novel and its affect on other people, purely out of selfishness, is sad ... and did I mention depressing.
Maybe I'm a romantic (okay, I definitely am), but this novel just wasn't for me. I want to look forward to happiness, not more misery and sadness.
I fully acknowledge that I may be a unique case for this novel. As I mentioned, it's full of unique, clever, and even beautiful ideas and writing. I didn't enjoy it in the end, but then again I did enjoy plenty of things, it's all the pieces together that didn't work for me. I'm sure plenty will be highly impressed and enjoy it very much.
2 out of 5 Stars (did not finish, but enjoyed certain aspects)
Ben Mendelssohn commits suicide to be with his wife, Marian, who died a year earlier. He discovers a world, the Other World, that is both similar and completely different from our own world, but completely different from anything any religion has ever predicted.
It was impressive that Gafla is able to handle this topic without any religion at all, except maybe a passing mention at the beginning when Ben laughs at those around him for their misconceptions of the afterlife.
What's also impressive is Gafla's unique humor and creativity. Ben is an epilogist, which is a word that exists but not (that I've found) with the meaning that is given in this book. He rewrites endings, mostly to popular books. He's a genius at his job and saves even the best of writers from poor endings (I guess Stephen King could use his services eh?). In other words, he's a "righter." I loved the clever little details that pop up such as this, it's also what sold me from the beginning when I could have easily moved on to something else.
The World of the End is also unique in that it follows Ben's pursuit of his wife, but alternates between random chapters following for instance the life of a photo or someone from the living world. These began as interesting and fun interludes, but they also take away from the narrative and make it a bit scattered and less cohesive of a narrative, at least until later in the book when they start to fit together a bit more ... well some of them.
As we enter back into Ben's new world, we discover this new world that is extremely well put-together. From the multi-wheel to the godget, we find out more and more of this world of Ben's death, but at the expense of Ben's character. All we know is that he's passionate about finding his wife, but that's about it. We learn about this interesting world, but it gets really hard to care at all about what happens.
And while the world is interesting, some of the things people do is just odd and mildly to deeply depressing. For instance, people don't have the need to eat, but they can and you have to do so immediately or you lose the desire to eat entirely. But this also goes for just about any other vice you want so you have people deliberately falling back into bad habits.
The following are more spoilery, so you've been warned:
Spoiler
Ben goes to meet his parents only to find out that while his father was dead, he fell in love with some one in the Other World and when his mother came to her death years later, she no longer mattered as much. Then, he finds that she really doesn't care either although she definitely did at first. But now she's found she enjoys being single.
So now Ben doesn't even know if Marian will even feel the same about him when he finally finds her.
Add to this the actor who takes his roles a bit to seriously, so much so that they make him a bit insane, or his pedophile brother whom he protects through attempted murder. I couldn't even help but think Ben's initial entrance to the afterlife was a bit of a glorification of suicide.
I just found these impossibly depressing. Yeah, people do feel this way and they probably would in such a world as Gafla has presented. But like I said, it depressed me to no end. Maybe people just change, but maybe it's because they've failed to work at it and they're selfish. The latter is more how it felt in this novel and its affect on other people, purely out of selfishness, is sad ... and did I mention depressing.
Maybe I'm a romantic (okay, I definitely am), but this novel just wasn't for me. I want to look forward to happiness, not more misery and sadness.
I fully acknowledge that I may be a unique case for this novel. As I mentioned, it's full of unique, clever, and even beautiful ideas and writing. I didn't enjoy it in the end, but then again I did enjoy plenty of things, it's all the pieces together that didn't work for me. I'm sure plenty will be highly impressed and enjoy it very much.
2 out of 5 Stars (did not finish, but enjoyed certain aspects)
molokov's review against another edition
4.0
There is life after death. But it's not heaven, hell, Valhalla or Limbo. It is the Other World.
This book came to me as an unexpected gift, and it was a very welcome one! The story can seem surreal at times based on the changing narrative styles, but it all culminates in a very interesting and curious story with a lot of holistic interconnectedness of all things. The Other World created by Gafla is strange, unexplained and yet hopeful, and probably wouldn't be such a bad afterlife if one such exists.
This book came to me as an unexpected gift, and it was a very welcome one! The story can seem surreal at times based on the changing narrative styles, but it all culminates in a very interesting and curious story with a lot of holistic interconnectedness of all things. The Other World created by Gafla is strange, unexplained and yet hopeful, and probably wouldn't be such a bad afterlife if one such exists.
theartolater's review against another edition
4.0
I'll always give a decent shot to books with a take on the afterlife. The World of the End got heaps of praise when it first came out, and I finally got a chance to read it and it mostly deserves what it's gotten.
Ben loses his wife and he's inconsolable about it to the point where he kills himself in order to spend the rest of eternity with her. He quickly learns that eternity exists in a different dimension or plane with every other dead person. It's not heaven or hell or purgatory, it just is, and his goal is to find his wife to the point of hiring an investigator in this place to find her.
The story is really weird, as intended, and while it kicks off in high gear, the story does tend to waver a bit once the setting is established. That doesn't make for a bad thing, as the world this book primarily takes place in is a fascinating one, but it does result in the reveals as time progresses being less and less impactful.
I can't help compare it to the superlative A Short Stay in Hell or an also-good afterlife read that has a name that escapes me. There's just a lot here that I loved, and a few things that just ended up throwing me off a bit on a whole. It's definitely a worthwhile read, however, and one I can certainly recommend.
Ben loses his wife and he's inconsolable about it to the point where he kills himself in order to spend the rest of eternity with her. He quickly learns that eternity exists in a different dimension or plane with every other dead person. It's not heaven or hell or purgatory, it just is, and his goal is to find his wife to the point of hiring an investigator in this place to find her.
The story is really weird, as intended, and while it kicks off in high gear, the story does tend to waver a bit once the setting is established. That doesn't make for a bad thing, as the world this book primarily takes place in is a fascinating one, but it does result in the reveals as time progresses being less and less impactful.
I can't help compare it to the superlative A Short Stay in Hell or an also-good afterlife read that has a name that escapes me. There's just a lot here that I loved, and a few things that just ended up throwing me off a bit on a whole. It's definitely a worthwhile read, however, and one I can certainly recommend.
vylotte's review against another edition
3.0
A man searches the afterlife for his wife. Parallel stories intersect in a very satisfying web, while the world (both alive and dead) bursts with innovation and depth. I didn't like the ending as well as the rest of the book, so it moved back to a three-star average.
Worth reading for the utterly unique view of life-after-death.
Worth reading for the utterly unique view of life-after-death.
beccak's review against another edition
I'm going to be up-front: I didn't finish the book and don't plan to.
For several months, I'd been looking forward to reading Gafla's first novel to appear in English, and when I started it, I really enjoyed the creativity of Gafla's premise and his quirky storytelling.
A few chapters in, our hero meets a rapist who is in turn raped in prison, has his prison term extended after he kills his attacker, then he's finally murdered by his victim upon release. The entire scene is chock full of vulgar language and violence. Now, occasionally, I'll tolerate this in a book if I feel that it's essential to the plot/meaning/what have you.
So, I spent a couple days contemplating whether the scene had real artistic value or not.
I decided that I was not willing to finish. While the scene wasn't gratuitous, I felt that the points it served to demonstrate--1) karma/middah k'neged middah, and 2) the extremes of obsession can even continue to the next world--could have been demonstrated without the language or violence. In fact, I felt that this plot element was clicheed. Perhaps if I were immersed in Israeli culture, I'd feel differently, but therapist who is in turn raped is such a prevalent American pop culture meme that it even appeared in a Sublime song in the 1990s. If would have actually added artistic merit to the work to use different means of proving the points Gafla needed to prove.
Despite this, I hope to read Gafla's work in the future. I enjoyed his original take on the Orpheus legend and his curious way of looking at the world.
For several months, I'd been looking forward to reading Gafla's first novel to appear in English, and when I started it, I really enjoyed the creativity of Gafla's premise and his quirky storytelling.
A few chapters in,
So, I spent a couple days contemplating whether the scene had real artistic value or not.
I decided that I was not willing to finish. While the scene wasn't gratuitous, I felt that the points it served to demonstrate--1) karma/middah k'neged middah, and 2) the extremes of obsession can even continue to the next world--could have been demonstrated without the language or violence. In fact, I felt that this plot element was clicheed. Perhaps if I were immersed in Israeli culture, I'd feel differently, but the
Despite this, I hope to read Gafla's work in the future. I enjoyed his original take on the Orpheus legend and his curious way of looking at the world.
More...