Rating: 
Summary: Stop, pause, wait
Review: This is probably my favorite book from Nicholson Baker, the modern master of minutiae. Mr. Baker has a gift for capturing the essence of habits, thoughts, reactions, and objects that are so small, so insignificant that most people don't ever notice them ... and yet when Mr. Baker puts them on the page, he gets it just right. None of the half dozen of so books I've read from Mr. Baker sound like much when the plots are summarized, and that is certainly the case with The Fermata. The book's story line is based on the ability of the 35-year-old narrator Arno Strine to somehow stop time, and most of the pages are used up with explorations of how he decides what he can and can't do while time is stopped. The unimpressive story line means that the value of the book depends almost entirely on Mr. Baker's ability to keep the prose engaging. Sometimes it doesn't work (as with his more recent effort Box of Matches) and sometimes it works well, as with The Fermata. As always, what holds it together when it works is Mr. Baker's memory for trivia, his intelligence, and his eye for detail: witness the title: "Fermata," the noun form of the word "stop" in Italian, is also a musical term that means holding a note longer than the time value -- a perfect name for a book with this kind of plot. Ultimately, my criticism of The Fermata is one shared by all of Mr. Baker's books and all literature based on prose rather than memorable plots or characters. In my mind, they're like the old cliché about Chinese food, which tastes great but leaves you hungry a few hours later. In the case of this book, the prose keeps the pages turning, but when you're through, very little of it sticks with you.
Rating: 
Summary: File this one under: bizarre / erotica.
Review: This is the fourth book by Baker I've read and it's closest in content to Vox. The Fermata is narrated by Arno Strine, a 35-year-old temp who has the ability to stop time and move around in an arrested moment. His chief use of this power is to undress various women in order to ogle or grope them. He also engages in various masturbatory experiments which involve placing his own typed up erotica where it'll be found by various women and then watching their reactions to it. The Fermata is graphic, lewd, and sometimes very funny. It is both sexually explicit and intelligent writing ' a very odd diversion of a book. I was getting bored with it about halfway through its 300 pages but then read a little more and with a bemused smirk settled on my face, finished it off. Nicholson Baker is nothing if not inventive. Even the euphemisms he comes up with to describe female genitalia are inventive, from "flowerbox" to "Georgia O'Keeffe." This is definitely the most sexually explicit book I've ever read. The next book I'm going to read is going to be something more "normal." This was twistin' my melon, man.
Rating:
Summary: Weird, fun, brilliant and sexy
Review: This is the story of Arno Strine, narrating his autobiography, as he writes it. Arno is a 35-year-old office temp who discovers he has a bizarre, unique ability. He can stop time, that is, stop everything going on around him, while he, alone in the world, can do what he wants, while time is stopped. What would you do? He uses this ability mostly to sexually molest women, although he has a certain honor about how he goes about it. For example, he won't do anything that constitutes rape. Nor will he do anything else that is illegal (except for a lot of groping and fondling). A strange premise, but Nicholson Baker carries it off with humor and style. This is the funniest book I have read in years. Quite possibly I laughed more at this book than any other I've ever read. Beware though--this is not for the faint of heart or those who are disgusted by pornography. Parts of this qualify as hard core porn, but that's part of the plan. Just how far can a person's thoughts go before a line is crossed to depravity? Perhaps we all have our own answers to that. Read this book and find out your own answer. You'll probably have a great time!
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