The Tesseract

Rating:
Summary: Easy to miss the point
Review: I am surprised that so many people on Amazon did not like this book. The purpose of the novel is not to illustrate the Philippines for those of us who want to travel there nor is it supposed to be a mere thriller. Granted, it may be too complex and elaborate at a few points, but these points help serve the ideas behind the novel. It is about the chaotic nature of how lives come together for absolutely no reason and how we come to explain the tragedies that occur in our lives. Some of the characters use religion(corazon) while others subscribe to sciense (alfredo), but what I think Garland was trying to do was show how senseless life can seem at times and how we deal with that. It is very compassionate and mature, and for those who wanted more of "The Beach" I can only say that to expect that of an author is very narrow minded and not realistic. It you have the time check out The Tesseract because it is an interesting and unique read that is both exciting and intelligent.

Rating:
Summary: Flat and insipid
Review: I was drawn to this book based on both the hype and the Graham Greene comparisons. Boy, does Garland have a PR firm or what? The dialogue in this book is silly. Read aloud, one can only cringe. As for the structure, it may be cool and of-the-moment and postmodern, but it isn't handled well enough to engage a serious reader or to even entertain a serious thought. The most sagacious, smartest moment of this book is the epigraph.

Rating:
Summary: A winning formula, wrong book
Review: The Beach was a good book. Why? Because it combined travelling with adventure in a way that many guide books do not. I snapped up a copy of The Tesseract hoping to travel through the Philippines without actually going there and be persuaded that I should. I read this book three months ago and cannot remember anything about it, other than it was set in the Philippines. If you want a suspense thriller with travel, buy Le Carre. If you want travel pure and simple, buy that guide book. If you want to waste your money, try Las Vegas. Don't buy this. Mr Garland should takle several leaves from Mr Grisham: develop the winning formula first, then repeat it. And then repeat it. My advice for a third novel: Call it "The Boat" set it in Indonesia, have a lead character that keeps Leonardo Dicapprio in work and give the twenty-something something to think about.

Rating:
Summary: Maeve Binchy with guns
Review: After the beach, which I quite enjoyed, this book was disapointingly pedestrian and predictable. It was like a mills and boon set in the tropics - nearly 'her heaving bosom' sort of fiction. The title was mysterious enough to have me running to the dictionary during the book but, like the Beach it did'nt deliver. You feel the book was published on the strenght of the Beach's success as opposed to the literary merits of either book.I don't think I'll be reading any more Alex Garland.

Rating:
Summary: completely disappointing
Review: ALEX GARLAND SHOULD HAVE WAITED AT LEAST TWO OR THREE YEARS BEFORE PUBLISHING ANOTHER BOOK. BY THAT TIME , MAYBE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE BEACH. HE WAS A GENIOUS WHEN HE WROTE THE BEACH AND I ADMIT THAT IT IS ONE OF MY FAVORATE BOOK OF ALL TIME AND ALSO LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING LEONARDO DICAPRIO IN THE MOVIE VERSION OF THIS BOOK.BUT FORGET ABOUT THIS BOOK. IT JUST SSSSSSSSSSUCKS THE ENJOYMENT OF READING OUT OF YOUR BODY.

Rating:
Summary: not bad for a second novel
Review: the tesseract is obviously not as well written as his debut novel, the beach. hence the three stars. the extra star added because he's cute.

Rating:
Summary: Garland's talent is present but often wasted this go-round.
Review: A bit of a bummer coming after The Beach, this one really feels like what could have been a terse, tense short-story padded with filler into a slow-moving (despite its brevity) novel. The connections at time seem strained, and the constant flash-backs and attempts at scope really just slow things down. You certainly get drawn in with the first part, but find yourself wandering considerably until a very well done payoff. If anything, though, the end of the book only shows the considerable talent Garland possess but never fully realizes this time out. But I'll still be waiting for the next one.

Rating:
Summary: A fine, interesting novel but not as cohesive as the Beach
Review: Garland makes a great effort to weave together three stories in this novel. Sometimes it works nicely, other times its pretty loose.. I feel like the stories individually are solidly composed but they feel sort of thrown together at the end. This may well have been the point, the arbitrariness of it all, but it seemed sort of hollow to me. For instance, the explanation of the title is presented as the climax of the book; I found the relationships in Rosa's family and the first chapter (similar to the beginning of The Beach) to be much more compeling reading. I liked reading The Beach a lot and enjoyed it's mysterious round-about style. The Tesseract started so promisingly for me but didn't cohere and not cohere in ways I found particulary satisfying.. Still curious to see what Garland's third book will be like (assuming he's working on one..)

Rating:
Summary: Dissapointing, it's definately been done before
Review: Dissapointing and unoriginal, I would have expected so much more from the man who wrote "The Beach". I couldn't help feeling so much more could have been done with the rather cliche and dissapointing ending, I was expecting a huge climax. The stories involved came together in a way which felt oddly familiar. Not to say that Alex Garland isn't a truly impressive new writer, which he is ("The Beach" was one of the best debut novels I have read), but if you read this and hated it, "The Beach" will restore all your faith in the world. One question: Why is Leonardo DiCaprio to play the lead in the movie?

Rating:
Summary: A pretentious mess of a tale
Review: "The Beach" was hyped far beyond its merits. Now we're told it's to be the basis of a movie. If it were not for these facts, I doubt if this rambling mess of a book would have made it into print. Novels are stories - or should be. And they should try to do more than pose. This book's great weakness is that it has no good, new or tangible idea. But did that worry the publishers? Of course not...