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Title: Obscure and bleak....an unpleasant reading experience
Review: I should have heeded the warning at the back of the book. "Play It As It Lays" didn't sound like something I would enjoy. But I thought, "What the heck.....Joan Didion is a celebrated writer and PIAIL was after all shortlisted for the National Book Award". Having slogged through it and some USD11 poorer, I only regret not having gone with my gut. I was bored to death with Maria Wyeth and her decadent family and friends. They're an unsympathetic lot and deserve everything they get. The message may be biting and stark, but I found Didion's prose, with their "quick cross cuts and rapid dissolves", irritating and obscure. It's like watching a bad Robert Altman movie that's shot with a hand-held camera. It gave me a bad headache. Stay away......unless you're a Didion fan.
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