A review by rj42
The Fermata by Nicholson Baker

dark sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Is it possible to both admire a book and be repulsed by it? In the case of The Fermata, the answer is a resounding yes. The premise here is fascinating: Arno, our anti-hero, has long had the ability to stop time using various convoluted means. The exact mechanics and philosophy behind this are not especially important, and the author gives us a taster of his internal moral dialogue about his actions without getting too deep into it. What matters is what Arno does in his suspended animation, which is exclusively to take women's clothes off. This is discussed at length and the book subsequently digresses further into what is essentially the reproduction of detailed erotica Arno places in the possession of some of his subjects to enjoy seeing them discover and read it. Being a Nicholson Baker book, you can only admire the form of it all – the author lingers over details , savours pieces of language and ideas. There are some masterful paragraphs in this book, as there are in all his work. And yet it's a hard book to defend – Arno's moral ambiguity about his behaviour is fair enough, but you can't help feeling Baker is embarking on a detailed sexual fantasy masquerading as literature, and being a great writer may not quite be enough to get you off that particular charge. Even so, it's a long time since I read anything quite this original, or as strange – both of which are good things.