I sure seem to be losing the plot. I read with great curiosity Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje. I must admit, I returned confused and disappointed. It seemed like a rambling ambling short story (gone awry) which ran into 300 pages.
I did not feel for any of the characters, nor did I feel the pain or anguish of the various “heartfelt” moments within the book.
Look I am not complaining about the lack of a deep subterranean plot…..surely, you cannot hold that argument against a person who counts Kafka’s Trial and Coetzee’s Disgrace amongst the best he has read so far.
In the Trial, I felt pain, anguish and the deep disconnect which Josef K felt from the anarchist society around him….and Coetzee’s David feels like a real solid flesh and bones – someone you might bump at the neighbourhood speak easy.
In Divisadero – I felt nothing – just a deep innate emptiness – the cracked hollow arising out of the crummy knowing, that you have hacked into an erstwhile empty piggy bank.
I rate this supposed classic 3/10.
(The name of the book comes from a precinct in California…)
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