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Chargement... Open Throat: A Novel (original 2023; édition 2023)par Henry Hoke (Auteur)
Information sur l'oeuvreOpen Throat par Henry Hoke (2023)
Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. More contemporary litfic misanthropy. “People can’t see it but I can / their end makes everything okay”. The conceit of a mountain lion overhearing and understanding spoken English and thus much about human society - although somehow, despite all it knows, no one must have ever uttered the word “zoo” or the concept around it - was one I was never able to buy into, so the book was never going to work for me anyway, likely. Give me the mountain lion from Ducks, Newburyport instead, please. On the positive side it was occasionally funny. Having an older teenaged girl “adopt” the mountain lion following a Wiccan-like ritual performed in her back yard (“I summoned you” she tells it) and naming it Hecate (or “heckit” to the lion’s ears, following Shakespeare) while treating “her” as a goddess figure (“I can see its goddamn dick” her angry father points out after discovering it in his daughters room) was amusing and ends poorly as one would expect. A short book, written in sparse prose, intelligently and deeply about an important and existential subject. After Wolf and the Woodsman, I don't know why I put myself through another sad animal book. I literally cried multiple times reading this book. As someone who empathizes a lot with animals, who has held my cats as they trembled through my neighborhood's firework antics, Heckin, the mountain lion's struggles made my heart ache so hard for them. This is a book for people who recognize that, just because they cannot communicate or think like we do, animals are intelligent. The results are haunting. I knew this was based on the P-22 mountain lion that lived briefly in Los Angeles, but after I read the book, I had to do some more research because I had forgotten his story. He lived in one of the smallest ranges for a male mountain lion, after crossing two major highways that most animals don't manage to survive. He was captured by the National Park Service and California Department of Fish and Wildlife after the alleged killing of at least two dogs and was euthanized after it was determined he could not be rehabilitated due to multiple health issues. Apparently, he had been hit by a car and had sustained internal injuries on top of having multiple chronic illnesses, being underweight, and having an extensive parasitic skin infection. It warmed my heart to hear he was honored by several representatives of Native American tribes in Southern California and buried in the Santa Monica mountains he once called home. He also inspired the construction of a wildlife crossing over the 101 freeway, which is expected to be completed in 2025. This is a book about more than a mountain lion though. It is about climate grief, "scare city", and the hubris, cruelty, and disconnection of mankind from its own nature due to urbanization. Rest in power P-22. I am so sorry for what humanity has done to beautiful creatures like you, and this planet as a whole. Sources: nps.gov, Wikipedia, and 101wildlifecrossing.org Another one I probably wouldn't have read without a nudge from the ToB. An interesting concept! Not many books follow non-human characters. But it was also tough to understand how this mountain lion would be using these words. At one point he says a particular word isn't a word he knows, but he seems to be doing pretty well with English. I love the dream sequence at Disney, but again, how would he know any of these things? So I couldn't just let many of the logistics fly. But that a mountain lion could have such an intricate dream is heartbreaking. Ultimately, this seemed a little too much like it wanted to end up as a movie -- it went places I didn't think it would. I think it knew to be a short book, and in that case, I don't regret reading it. *Book #143/340 I have read of the shortlisted Morning News Tournament of Books This novel from the point of view of a mountain lion in the Hollywood Hills, surprised me with its tenderness. The lion is based on the real P-22, but we see people and dangers through his eyes. He wants to be a part of the world as much as he's confused by it. Pax, a novel from the POV of a fox, hit me more deeply, but that's probably because I read it first. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
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A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity's foibles, the lion spends their days protecting the welfare of a nearby homeless encampment, observing obnoxious hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. "I have so much language in my brain," our lion says, "and nowhere to put it." When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call "ellay." As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief, while scrambling to avoid earthquakes, floods, and the noise of their own conflicted psyche. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate question: Do they want to eat a person or become one? In elegiac prose woven with humor, imagination, sensuality, and tragedy, Henry Hoke's Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world told by a lovable mountain lion. Both feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings mythmaking to real life. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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It's a sweet tribute to P-22, and I understand why the people of L.A. (or ellay, as he would call it) felt such comradery with him. ( )