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tendermarimo's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
futurama1979's review against another edition
4.0
this book really puts you in the headspace of being on the very verge of figuring something out. this book goes the furthest into the abstract, with a frankenstein form made up of poems, transcripts, notes, a book within a book, characters transmuting and mirroring and echoing on and on. i feel like i need to reread it, maybe more than once, with a lot of focus to really parse through each layer of fiction and map out connections etc. but maybe that's not the point. his literal closing statement is who fucking cares about what happens in this town or the people in it. i think this book exists as a mirrored and total collapse of closer, any and all embellishment, stylization, in ballard’s use of the term, fallen not just away but apart, overly self aware and still unable to stop or slow the collapsing. lots to think about i don't know.
ezrasupremacy's review against another edition
5.0
maybe 4.5 ⭐️. maybe 5. hard to make up my mind yet.
this was a fucking amazing trip. i read the entire george miles cycle over the course of five days, and i personally think that’s the perfect way to do it, though i think it’ll only get better after one or two re-reads.
this book was the finale of the cycle, and reintroduces george miles as an actual character (as he was in book one, and sorta in book four). the narrative mirrors itself, constantly leaving you questioning whether what you are reading right now is “reality” or “the novel”. who is who, who is when, who is where? which one is more real, nate or etan? leon or noel? when/who/where is walker? is dagger george, is george the only one in either reality?
i would say as far as the violence and gore factor goes, this book is by far the most harmless in the cycle, but it is also the most mind-bending. cooper makes many stylistic choices, which show why he is so hailed as a transgressive writer, much beyond just the subject matter of his books.
overall i was FASCINATED by this series, and i’ll have to do my hardest to stop myself from doing any more research on it until i’ve re-read it at least once, so i don’t let my own thoughts and ideas be influenced and led by those of others (even including the author himself, lol). yesterday, after reading guide, i was a little weak and ended up looking at cooper’s blog, where i read his explanation of the narrative structure of this series, and i was amazed to find that i had correctly interpreted it thus far (yes i’m easy to please, thanks). i’d love to get deeper into it and write a proper analysis, but then again, what right do i have to do so after only reading these books once?
maybe if i’m still annoying enough after reading them a second time i’ll add onto this. until then, catch me in the reviews section of virtually any other cooper novel.
this was a fucking amazing trip. i read the entire george miles cycle over the course of five days, and i personally think that’s the perfect way to do it, though i think it’ll only get better after one or two re-reads.
this book was the finale of the cycle, and reintroduces george miles as an actual character (as he was in book one, and sorta in book four). the narrative mirrors itself, constantly leaving you questioning whether what you are reading right now is “reality” or “the novel”. who is who, who is when, who is where? which one is more real, nate or etan? leon or noel? when/who/where is walker? is dagger george, is george the only one in either reality?
i would say as far as the violence and gore factor goes, this book is by far the most harmless in the cycle, but it is also the most mind-bending. cooper makes many stylistic choices, which show why he is so hailed as a transgressive writer, much beyond just the subject matter of his books.
overall i was FASCINATED by this series, and i’ll have to do my hardest to stop myself from doing any more research on it until i’ve re-read it at least once, so i don’t let my own thoughts and ideas be influenced and led by those of others (even including the author himself, lol). yesterday, after reading guide, i was a little weak and ended up looking at cooper’s blog, where i read his explanation of the narrative structure of this series, and i was amazed to find that i had correctly interpreted it thus far (yes i’m easy to please, thanks). i’d love to get deeper into it and write a proper analysis, but then again, what right do i have to do so after only reading these books once?
maybe if i’m still annoying enough after reading them a second time i’ll add onto this. until then, catch me in the reviews section of virtually any other cooper novel.
mostnegnancy's review against another edition
challenging
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.0
loki_the_gnome's review against another edition
5.0
I don't feel fit to review this, so instead I'll just describe phenomena that happened as I read, for now. Maybe this will all shift into something else halfway-through, I don't really know where I'm at. Slowly as I read my book's pages seemed to slip out of its spine, falling, shifting, scattering, drifting. I would push them back into their "place", they would always be a bit off, catching the edge of the spine too early or too late, not being pushed far enough in, crinkling from being pushed too hard. By the end of the novel, my book's clean edge had become jagged and layered, pages splayed outwards towards me at random angles and heights; the book along with me had changed as I read it. I'm sure this was unintentional, a printing flaw, random pages not being attached properly to the spine. Another friend who read the book experienced the same thing, which I knew going in. For some reason something about the loose pages and the disoriented state of the book after I finished reading felt profound though, maybe in a sort of pretentious way, but it did feel right, almost by design even if it certainly wasn't.
I've always been afraid to love, I think Dennis Cooper has finally given me a reason to be. A book about the impossibility of representing love and loss and about the obsession of both the artist and reader in tandem to comprehend that impossible object of one's obsession; I will never know George Miles, or Dennis Cooper, or understand what any of this really meant to him, but within the confines of the page I can safely project myself into its text. I can escape and delude myself into thinking I'm like the various lonely, hurt people in the confines of Coopers terrifying prose, or the person all those people represent, but I can't ever know that person no matter how many representational images I take in. All I'm left with is a vague idea of some ghost disappearing through my shaking fingers, as I sift through a book's pages. Eventually I close the book, done, shaking, crying, and I'm safe. It's over now, and I can write some review about how meaningful it was to me and how much I "get" it, but I'll never really "get" it, will I.
I've always been afraid to love, I think Dennis Cooper has finally given me a reason to be. A book about the impossibility of representing love and loss and about the obsession of both the artist and reader in tandem to comprehend that impossible object of one's obsession; I will never know George Miles, or Dennis Cooper, or understand what any of this really meant to him, but within the confines of the page I can safely project myself into its text. I can escape and delude myself into thinking I'm like the various lonely, hurt people in the confines of Coopers terrifying prose, or the person all those people represent, but I can't ever know that person no matter how many representational images I take in. All I'm left with is a vague idea of some ghost disappearing through my shaking fingers, as I sift through a book's pages. Eventually I close the book, done, shaking, crying, and I'm safe. It's over now, and I can write some review about how meaningful it was to me and how much I "get" it, but I'll never really "get" it, will I.
s0on_'s review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
reubenlb's review against another edition
3.0
there’s some substance to this in it’s conclusive nature and the end of george, but it’s disjointed and experimental in a way that doesn’t quite mesh
motifenjoyer's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
5.0
"So there’s someone exactly like you. In that mirror. Am I right? Another you. You like you were before that awful thing happened."
corisbooks's review against another edition
i have finished the george miles cycle. i enjoyed it. i am wary of anyone else that enjoyed it.
cowboyjonah's review against another edition
4.0
Probably my favorite one in the GM cycle, or tied with Frisk
Disappointed with the overall series but this one did feel like a satisfying conclusion, while a lot of the ideas explored and some certain paragraphs stood out to me in these books none of them impressed me as much as my first Dennis Cooper read. I like Copper most when his writing includes more horror aspects as opposed to just fiction. Still, worth reading the series just for the weird trip each one takes you on
Disappointed with the overall series but this one did feel like a satisfying conclusion, while a lot of the ideas explored and some certain paragraphs stood out to me in these books none of them impressed me as much as my first Dennis Cooper read. I like Copper most when his writing includes more horror aspects as opposed to just fiction. Still, worth reading the series just for the weird trip each one takes you on