tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4938060587020568315.post8318446221437543614..comments2024-03-29T09:22:57.031+00:00Comments on Declan Burke: Absolute Zero Cool: ‘Serious As The World Series’, ApparentlyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4938060587020568315.post-57245216009407431792011-08-19T11:06:33.179+01:002011-08-19T11:06:33.179+01:00Hi Declan, Frank's review is on Amazon this mo...Hi Declan, Frank's review is on Amazon this morning when I checked. It's further down the page now due to all the reviews that are flooding the page...not a bad complaint! CarolineCarolinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06007603775761008841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4938060587020568315.post-24082782305623681942011-08-18T12:54:09.253+01:002011-08-18T12:54:09.253+01:00I'm glad the reviews are all so encouaging, De...I'm glad the reviews are all so encouaging, Dec. It takles a long time to get a book out there,m so sit back and ride the wave.<br />See you at No Alibis tonight.<br />Cheers, NigelNigelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4938060587020568315.post-81396602645235482982011-08-18T09:04:16.167+01:002011-08-18T09:04:16.167+01:00Here is my full review, which for some reason is d...Here is my full review, which for some reason is delayed by the Amazon gremlins:<br /><br /><br />This is not a "crime" book in the normal sense of having a detective, a killer and an an easy to follow plot. It is a stunningly beautiful and achingly funny work which probes the type of existential questions raised by works like "Notes from Underground" and "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoyevsky, and works by Sartre, Camus ("The Plague"), Kafka, and Ireland's Beckett and Flann O'Brien. <br />It is an anti-novel, in that the connecting thread is the author's tone and voice, which produces such gems as "His face is deelpy lined, but softly, so he resembles a post-coital Beckett." and a remark that could have been made of any of Beckett's characters: "If there's one thing women love more than talking, it's talking about talking." (Think "Happy Days." - "Debs adds a few more strokes of blusher to the masterpiece-in-progress that is her perception of herself") <br />The basic storyline centres around Billy Karlsson and his plan to blow up a hospital. He provides the same type of justifications as Raskolnikov provides for killing the old woman in "Crime and Punishment" - the type of justifications used by the Nazis and a certain Norwegian currently in the news. The author dialogues with Karlsson, probing his rationale, and in so doing probes the rationale of all of society's outcasts and "rebels." <br />This is classic and be read in a hundred years' time, when many contemporary bestsellers are long forgotten. Read it!@frankamcgrathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16172806678745818817noreply@blogger.com