Ariel

Rating:
Summary: bemused and befuddled over this book
Review: ARIEL is great, and repersents Block as a novelist in rare form, and yet trying to strike out a new path as well. This, in the end, is what makes ARIEL both enjoying and frustrating. There are too many tales being told...the adolescent coming of age (which is done amazingly well between Erksine and ARIEL) the madness/occult/supernatural tease (it never is really clear what happened) and the 'grown ups story' of Roberta and David and Jeff/ Jeff's own family. All of these stories could've been made into a novel, but because they are all here it's sort of a literary mess. In this book we are told what some of the characters are thinking but not all of the time. In this sense, the narrative is at fualt because its at times omnipresent, and at others centered solely on ARIEL and her diary. It's an uneven book and yet I am so drawn to it, I have to say its a great book at the same time. Except for the electra complex scenes toward the end...I felt I was being hit over the head with that point. I think too that the book should've been fleshed out, but Block, being the amazing mystery writer that he is, is still writing with the urgency of a mystery. Still, read ARIEL and decide for yourself..it's still a great and provoking read, definitely worth it...you really can't go wrong with Block.

Rating:
Summary: An understated, underrated psychological thriller.
Review: From time to time, it is important for an author to stretch, to try writing something very different from what he or she is best known for. ARIEL is mystery writer Lawrence Block's experiment with the sort of feverish, madness-tinged horror for which Shirley Jackson became famous, and if he doesn't quite pull it off, one at least has to appreciate the bravery of the attempt. Block is one of the best prose craftsmen working today, but he is at his worst here, switching perspectives wildly, invoking too-familiar ghost story devices without the deftness required to make them seem fresh, peopling the story with unpleasant characters, and ending the book on a sour and very unsatisfying note. To be fair, Block has picked a tough genre -- most of the time, Shirley Jackson wasn't able to pull it off either. Chalk it up as one of Block's (extremely) rare failures, and move on. (For a Block horror success, try the truly terrifying Matt Scudder thriller A TICKET TO THE BONEYARD.)

Rating:
Summary: Lawrence Block's attempt to channel Shirley Jackson
Review: From time to time, it is important for an author to stretch, to try writing something very different from what he or she is best known for. ARIEL is mystery writer Lawrence Block's experiment with the sort of feverish, madness-tinged horror for which Shirley Jackson became famous, and if he doesn't quite pull it off, one at least has to appreciate the bravery of the attempt. Block is one of the best prose craftsmen working today, but he is at his worst here, switching perspectives wildly, invoking too-familiar ghost story devices without the deftness required to make them seem fresh, peopling the story with unpleasant characters, and ending the book on a sour and very unsatisfying note. To be fair, Block has picked a tough genre -- most of the time, Shirley Jackson wasn't able to pull it off either. Chalk it up as one of Block's (extremely) rare failures, and move on. (For a Block horror success, try the truly terrifying Matt Scudder thriller A TICKET TO THE BONEYARD.)

Rating:
Summary: An understated, underrated psychological thriller.
Review: Originally marketed as "occult horror", Ariel is neither. It's a story of the madness that lies just under the surface, and what it takes to bring it out; the need to give evil a face and a name. Who better to scapegoat for unexplainable tragedies than the one who is Different? Ariel is adopted, and looks slightly unusual. Her unstable mother never fails to assume the worst, almost deliberately misreading the girl's ordinary teenage perceptiveness and need for privacy. By the book's end, almost everyone believes that Ariel is a monster -- including Ariel herself.

Great characterizations, wonderful descriptions -- I want to live in Ariel's house. I could wish for a sequel, or just for more books like it.