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Title: lyrically, weirdly composed
Review: I love this book. (I love Peter Carey generally, and especially here.)Many of the reviewers have confessed a certain bafflement when confronted with Carey, both in this novel and elsewhere. This is not, I think, because his prose is stylistically off-putting, or his themes too profound or personal.Rather, Carey's novels are constructed in an unconventional manner, and that novelty, I think, confuses: each of his many chapters serves as a floating, almost separate episode. The cumulative effect is less that of linked stories than linked prose poems. The reader does not feel caught up in a forward moving narrative, but instead awash, for lack of a better word. Sort of like Bruno Schulz.Beautiful, beautiful, haunting, haunting.
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