Tom Rachman

I thought this was good. It's not much like what I normally read, in that it's very aggressively "literary" and has lots of "deep" and "meaningful" undertones, but I still found the book to be engaging and well written. The different perspectives on the newspaper combine nicely, and the book has a good pacing that makes it enjoyable to read even when certain sections are really quite depressing.

The book really does lay bare some of the sadder aspects of the human condition, so if you are not a fan of books that lead you to some self reflection, stay away.… (plus d'informations)

This book contains everything that makes a book great... settings that are vivid, exciting, real... characters that are complex, imperfect, and seem so real, and a story that is not predictable, and an ending that stays with you.
Pinch wants his father, Bear Bavinsky's attention and tries through acquiescing to all Bear's emotional demands and foibles. He tries to become an artist, and when that fails, he spends his life trying to make human connections and be understood through teaching and studying languages.

Ultimately, he finds his talent and reunites his family through art and memory. The ending was surprising and thought-provoking.… (plus d'informations)

It’s awfully easy to satirize the uppermost layer of the market for contemporary art, where new works by name artists sell for millions to hedge fund managers and Russian oligarchs. Which isn’t to say doing so would be wrong. When a market shaping dealer in this novel is credited with the quip, “Success in art is fifty percent timing, fifty percent geography. The rest is talent”, it’s funny because it seems true.

Within that rarified community of artists, collectors, and dealers, one suspects, are more than a few raging narcissists. “Bear” Bavinsky certainly qualifies. He passes through the novel trampling over the well-being of his wives (7 or 8 of them in succession) and children (more than a dozen), leaving emotional carnage in his wake. Thankfully for the reader the novel’s focus is not on him but on his son Charles, aka Pinch.

Pinch struggles with a desperate need for his narcissistic father’s attention and approval, which can never be held with anything more than the most tenuous grip, and with often painful results. It’s almost enough to make one feel sorry for others who seem to be in a similar place, like, maybe, Eric Trump perhaps. They sometimes behave badly; they are badly damaged. But Pinch hopes that by finding a way to make himself useful to his father, and to his father’s identity, he will matter.

Of course it’s not to be. No matter who you are, you can never be important to a narcissist, not really. “Hear this. You work for me. Get it? You always worked for me,” Bear spits at Pinch, as he ultimately ejects Pinch from his life. “I win. You hear? I fucking win.”

The novel continues on from that point and Pinch proceeds to pull a fast one on the art world, a line of action which seems to have some believability issues, but hey, might could happen, never know. It’s fun to root for him, anyway. Later in life, on his deathbed, Pinch reaches an acceptance that feels real, and full of a grace we should all grant ourselves:

And his own life? Viewed at any point along the way, it seemed to Pinch to have so little direction. But from the present vantage, what happened feels inevitable - not because events were beyond his control but because they were within it. He couldn’t have been other than he was. That doesn’t hurt anymore. Just another ant, marching up and down.

… (plus d'informations)