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lowanamaker's review against another edition
Hard to get into. I did not care for the style of writing (very short blurbs).
dllh's review against another edition
2.0
I had never heard of Millet until recently, when I read that she was really great. So I picked up her acclaimed longish novel and sort of hated it from the beginning. It was a little hard to get into from the beginning. Once the premise began to unfold, I found it pretty appealing, but I didn't love the way she structured the book or her manner of writing.
The book is often a bit preachy, which I suppose is ok, but I felt like it could be done better. Often I thought the book felt like a mashup of Franzen's Freedom and some of Powers's books that try to ram interpersonal conflict up against some scientific conflict or notion. The result tends to be sort of unbelievable characters I'm not invested in and a general sense that while the aim was lofty and worthy, the execution didn't live up to it. This sort of book is always very disappointing.
Unbelievable characters were one of the chief flaws in this book. I can buy the fantastical idea that the fathers of the nuclear bomb have somehow been zapped into the future to go on a crusade against nuclear weapons -- I like the idea, in fact -- but I feel like when you're mixing absurdity with elements supposedly conforming to reality as we understand it, you sort of have to get the more prosaic reality bits right. So much of this book, and especially the relationship between Ann and Ben felt wooden and basically expedient, as if Millet knew she had to include sections in which people acted like normal people but didn't really know how to write them. In other words, it often felt like your standard potboiler but with lofty ambitions that it came nowhere near living up to.
It seems like another case here of every but me falling down over a wonderful book. Maybe I just didn't get it. Maybe what I read as clumsy writing was intentional, part of some bigger literary purpose I'm too dim to have picked up on.
The book is often a bit preachy, which I suppose is ok, but I felt like it could be done better. Often I thought the book felt like a mashup of Franzen's Freedom and some of Powers's books that try to ram interpersonal conflict up against some scientific conflict or notion. The result tends to be sort of unbelievable characters I'm not invested in and a general sense that while the aim was lofty and worthy, the execution didn't live up to it. This sort of book is always very disappointing.
Unbelievable characters were one of the chief flaws in this book. I can buy the fantastical idea that the fathers of the nuclear bomb have somehow been zapped into the future to go on a crusade against nuclear weapons -- I like the idea, in fact -- but I feel like when you're mixing absurdity with elements supposedly conforming to reality as we understand it, you sort of have to get the more prosaic reality bits right. So much of this book, and especially the relationship between Ann and Ben felt wooden and basically expedient, as if Millet knew she had to include sections in which people acted like normal people but didn't really know how to write them. In other words, it often felt like your standard potboiler but with lofty ambitions that it came nowhere near living up to.
It seems like another case here of every but me falling down over a wonderful book. Maybe I just didn't get it. Maybe what I read as clumsy writing was intentional, part of some bigger literary purpose I'm too dim to have picked up on.
viktoriya's review against another edition
1.0
Kind of ironic that I finished this book just days before the anniversary of Hiroshima bombing. It was a little strange reading this book. I loved it in the beginning, felt it was "ok" in the middle, and absolutely hated it towards the end. I felt that the character of Ann was useless. It felt like she was a piece of furniture or a vase that noone wants to toss out, yet noone knows what to do with it. As much as fictional this story is, I still wanted to believe it. It wasn't believable at all. It could probably be a good book if it was about 300 pages less than it is now.
mrs_h7's review against another edition
3.0
I would give 3.5 if I could. Loved the book, but I disliked the ending.
annamolpus's review against another edition
2.0
I've gotten two thirds in and I'm beginning to think I won't finish. Very creative, but it's a weird mix of silly and intellectual, and I can't seem to make myself pick it back up.
matthewcpeck's review against another edition
4.0
'Oh Pure and Radiant Heart' is a meditation on the irreversible changes to our world after the invention of the first atomic bomb. It's told in the form of a wacky road-trip story about Oppenheimer, Fermi, and Szilard spontaneously finding themselves transported from the spring of 1945 to the 21st century, having 'split off' from their other selves that lived through history and died. It's a credit to Lydia Millet's style that she can tell such a bizarre tale in a stately, dreamlike fashion, rather than as a cartoon.
The three confused scientists shack up with a timid librarian and her skeptical husband in Santa Fe, and ultimately lead a massive convoy traveling the country in support of disarmament, while warding off threats from shadowy government forces and from religious zealots who affirm that Oppenheimer is the second coming of Christ. Throughout this page-turning plot, Millet intersperses the history of nuclear weapons from 20th century to the present day.
As in Millet's subsequent novel 'How The Dead Dream', there is a somber but lyrical obsession with the extinction of a species and with the havoc wreaked on the environment by the human race. There is also an unfortunate tendency in both books to mock the SUV-driving, corn-syrup-eating American masses in a manner that straddles the line between accurate satire and downright misanthropy. But this is mostly overshadowed by OPaRH's haunting, hilarious, epic, and tragic vision. I hope there's a movie.
The three confused scientists shack up with a timid librarian and her skeptical husband in Santa Fe, and ultimately lead a massive convoy traveling the country in support of disarmament, while warding off threats from shadowy government forces and from religious zealots who affirm that Oppenheimer is the second coming of Christ. Throughout this page-turning plot, Millet intersperses the history of nuclear weapons from 20th century to the present day.
As in Millet's subsequent novel 'How The Dead Dream', there is a somber but lyrical obsession with the extinction of a species and with the havoc wreaked on the environment by the human race. There is also an unfortunate tendency in both books to mock the SUV-driving, corn-syrup-eating American masses in a manner that straddles the line between accurate satire and downright misanthropy. But this is mostly overshadowed by OPaRH's haunting, hilarious, epic, and tragic vision. I hope there's a movie.
survivalisinsufficient's review against another edition
4.0
It bogged down a bit in the middle, and the ending wasn't very satisfying, but I really liked this story of three nuclear scientists come back to life (interspersed with bits of nuclear history). Beautiful writing and entertaining characters (though some of them, like the landscaping wife, relied too much on stereotyping).
jordanpattern's review against another edition
4.0
Set in New Mexico with Oppenheimer thrown forward in time: what's not to like?
sistermagpie's review against another edition
1.0
I wouldn't say I actively disliked this book as a book, but halfway through I realized that whenever I got on the train to rain my spirits would sink knowing that I had only this book to read. The character I identified with most was the main character's husband, Ben, who spent a lot of time vaguely irritated at having to follow people around for vague reasons. The premise of three mid-20th century nuclear scientists appearing in 2003 sounded a bit troubling to me from the start (it just sounded too whimsical), and I just never felt the urgency or meaning of it all.
The scientists were the least annoying characters in the book to me, though. They're picked up by Ann, a librarian who longs for her life to be meaningful and thinks trailing around after these guys will make it so. Later they hook up with a bunch of pseudo hippies who babble about vegan menues and other impurities while smoking a lot of pot. Just when you think you couldn't find more irritating traveling companions, they pick up a bunch of arrogant fundamentalist Christians whose philosophy (that Oppenheimer is the risen Christ) makes little sense but no one will get rid of them despite their not only being obviously dangerous but incredibly tedious.
The scientists were the least annoying characters in the book to me, though. They're picked up by Ann, a librarian who longs for her life to be meaningful and thinks trailing around after these guys will make it so. Later they hook up with a bunch of pseudo hippies who babble about vegan menues and other impurities while smoking a lot of pot. Just when you think you couldn't find more irritating traveling companions, they pick up a bunch of arrogant fundamentalist Christians whose philosophy (that Oppenheimer is the risen Christ) makes little sense but no one will get rid of them despite their not only being obviously dangerous but incredibly tedious.
squidbag's review
3.0
Millet's book is a journey which is sometimes a slog, and a dark and brooding ridiculous comedy of a book that will leave you cold and sad and hopeful and determined to make the best of it. It is also a history lesson of a love affair, that of America's passionate wooing of nuclear weaponry. Interspersed with facts about nuclear weapons development and featuring Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard as protagonists, this book is not really fun, not at all, but it is, ultimately, worth it.
Two additional things: the book earns points from me at least for being rampantly anti-authoritarian and for reinforcing the idea that getting religion involved in a thing too heavily ruins everything, AND, this quote: "What is it in me that delivers the world into the hands of my enemies?"
Two additional things: the book earns points from me at least for being rampantly anti-authoritarian and for reinforcing the idea that getting religion involved in a thing too heavily ruins everything, AND, this quote: "What is it in me that delivers the world into the hands of my enemies?"