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Paperback, 336 pages

Nederlands language

Published March 10, 2022 by Ambo Anthos.

ISBN:
978-90-263-5644-6
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Goodreads:
59839684
(2 reviews)

2 editions

An edit of this book could be amazing, but it does need the edit.

There's an excellent book in here. An engaging story about individual and collective self-delusion and amnesia, with some very clear political messages and a grim humour to it. But at times, especially in the second quarter or so of the book, the author seems unclear whether he's writing a novel or a NY Review Of Books essay about individual dementia, collective amnesia, and the selective remembering of nostalgia. It's clear that he could write a fine essay and I'd enjoy reading that too, but the hybrid is clunky. From the POV of a novel reader the essay portions make the plot drag slowly enough that I started to lose interest. From the POV of a creative nonfiction reader, the actually fiction parts are jarring and confusing.

#SFFBookClub

half of this is wonderful, but it's not clearly in the first nor the last.

An unraveling of memory and retreat into the past on a personal and national scale, somewhat disjointed and the author's fragmented voice comes through more irritatingly as we progress into an uncertain lack of future, but there's a lot to savor in a sarcastic sun-faded-sepia way.