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jdscott50's review
3.0
Beautifully written and heartfelt endings that seem to go on a bit too long. It is the goodbye at the airport that is so dramatic, but then the flight is delayed, and that moment of perfect timing and magic is lost. Vollman lingers greedily in the last moment, squeezing the last drop of melodrama out of it. It sounds great as a concept and it is well executed, but is too lengthy with each story being uneven, disconnected. It doesn’t have a flow except for the theme, Last Stories. I felt even with that he pulled punches in some of the stories, making them fall flat. It reminded me of Bolano with the narrative tension and intense feeling surrounded by violence, but he just leaves out the punch. There are just the in-between emotions, not the ones to be expected at the end.
Vollman travels from the former Yugoslavia to Mexico and Japan, to tell stories of war, violence, myth, and loss. These are the last stories of the living and some of those beyond. There is a war journalist traveling with those in the firing lines, there are historical figures dealing with their own imminent death, and others. Some of the stories are filled with conversations and contemplations, others are more the inner workings of someone near the end. The stories are generally very uneven and seem to lack an emotional punch that Vollman is reaching for. It is too lengthy, too slow motion, to really make the story stick.
Vollman travels from the former Yugoslavia to Mexico and Japan, to tell stories of war, violence, myth, and loss. These are the last stories of the living and some of those beyond. There is a war journalist traveling with those in the firing lines, there are historical figures dealing with their own imminent death, and others. Some of the stories are filled with conversations and contemplations, others are more the inner workings of someone near the end. The stories are generally very uneven and seem to lack an emotional punch that Vollman is reaching for. It is too lengthy, too slow motion, to really make the story stick.
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