Friday, June 20, 2008

Of dreams and things


The Invention of Everything Else is one of those books that I ought to have enjoyed more than I did. Samantha Hunt's dreamlike writing is beautiful, her characters well drawn, and her plot intriguing, but it just lost me somewhere toward the end. I loved Louisa and her part of the story, but Tesla's memories were touched just a bit too much with that essential fogginess of memory. The way Hunt captured memory and its flaws is one of the things most enjoyable and most frustrating about the book -- I wanted more understanding, yet clearly it was meant to be vague. Really, I would certainly recommend this book, even though it didn't work for me. Maybe more of a wintertime read?

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