Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Jonathan Carroll is my favorite author by far and that's the only reason this book gets 3 stars from me. I've read all of his books and this was the worst in my opinion. None of the characters were likeable and I didn't care what happened to any of them. The magic that weaves through his earlier books wasn't here, either. It was just... stale. But, I'll still buy his next book no matter what!
Rating:
Summary: The Power of Love
Review: Jonathan Carroll is part of a group that is now being called the "New Fabulists". This group consists of writers who are writing fiction of the imagination; not fantasy, not sci-fi, not horror. Just imagination. Caroll has been a leader of this group, with novel after novel that are both touching, profound and, yes, very imaginative. Unfortunately, every great author meets a speed bump at one point in his carreer. White Apple isn't a bad book; it is full of philosophical ideas and lessons in morality that are all very interesting to read. But in the end, the book falls a little bit short, never achieving the levels of greatness that his other novels have in the past. Vincent Ettrich has died. But somehow, he is brought back to life. Why? For the sole purpose of love. In his new life, he must come face to face with a lover, Coco, and with the love of his life, Isabella, who is now also pregnant with his child. Unfortunately, some people aren't happy to see Ettrich alive. One of them, Chaos, will do anything to ruin his chance at happiness. Another one is one of Vincent's old co-worker who also died and who is now set on putting a stop to the happy reunions. They will follow Vincent through purgatory and through the maze of memory to try and stop him. There are long sections about the power of love and its meaning, long sections about the power of life and its meaning. And yet, in the end, you never really end up learning anything except that Carroll has a great vivid imagination. One thing Carroll knows how to do is to write great vivid characters. And he knows how to decribe scenery with beautiful prose. But overall, there was something lacking in this book, the very punch that made his other novels so memorable. A good effort, just not a great one.
Rating:
Summary: Returning to form
Review: Jonathan Carroll's breathtaking early novels were unique in the truest sense. Nobody else wrote like he did or captured the reader in the fantastic goings-on he created and shared. Somewhere along the way, Carroll seemed to get bored with the surrealistic trappings that turned his early work into marvels and he turned out a few run-of the mill novels. He returns somewhat to form in "White Apples" which bears more than a passing resembelance to Anne Rice's "Memnoch the Devil" in its attempt to define the infinite. "White Apples" is a love story strained by inplausible events, but you'll want to read it through on one sitting anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: Good (not Perfect) for Fans - not so good for Analysts
Review: Not everyone likes Jonathan Carroll. The irony (and generally helpful fate) of this is that it's not that hard to find many of his works in used bookshops for very little money, when, arguably, they should be worth considerably more. Most fans or semi-serious readers of Carroll pretty much cut their teeth on Land of Laughs, which has recently been reissued in paperback. I won't review Laughs here, but suffice it to say if you like this novel, then you will pretty much like most anything else he has produced, and there is quite a lot to examine and explore. What really did it for me was Voice of our Shadow, which perhaps has more relevancy here if you really want to do a serious comparison of plots between past works and this most current work, here published by Tor - I'll leave that critical job for a future more dedicated reviewer to tackle. I like Carroll. I like the fact that he challenges our assumptions of reality - I like the way he pushes the envelope of fantasy, and yeah, I kind of like him because he's a bit of a snob, literary, sexual, artistic, you name it, and doesn't make too many bones (ahem) about it. Recently, though, more naysayers are appearing. It's easy to jump on the bandwagon, and to be fair, there are some points to be made. It probably started around about the time From The Teeth of Angels was published, where Carroll felt it necessary to stretch his exposition, possibly to a point where even his best "non-plausible yet real" plotting couldn't hold things together without some serious mindbending or looking the other way. And yet, that kind of is the point, though there is now so much Carroll stuff it is now beginning to be possible to make judgments on whether or not works are "more" or "less" like classic Carroll, assuming such judgments are helpful. If you really wanted realism, you can always find any one of a number of earthly grounded, historically accurate stuff that will do that trick for you (read: Bernard Cornwell). Or, if you prefer, Stephen King also has a new novel which will again give us the same dose of the enjoyable and perhaps predictable, albeit in a new package (Like a Buick8). BTW, I'm not convinced he's done. We'll see. There are recent examples where Carroll is losing his touch. Marriage of Sticks didn't really quite do much for me (I didn't finish it) and I missed The Wooden Sea, so I can't completely fill the arc from a TRULY critical standpoint. But I have read pretty much everything else he's written, and it's hard to fault his oeuvre for the most part. To summarize, White Apples starts out as vintage Carroll. But our previous reviewer does have a point - there is an AWFUL lot of exposition and seemingly very little action in the middle of the plot. However, Jon does flip things around a little bit by giving you the first emotional shot between the eyes pretty much right from the start, and then unwinding it in a metaphysical past/future/pseudopast arc. It's a neat idea, however, Carroll may fare better in future by focusing more on the backdrop visuals rather than with the in-your-face elements When reading this novel some people might get a bit disrupted, or even thrown by the relative lack of details surrounding the unwinding of these story elements - (coin side one) (coin side two) but then, isn't that the POINT? Aren't we supposed to be feeling Ettrich's personal journey from that limited perspective? How is an editor supposed to resolve THAT? For me, it's the unstated stuff that generally tends to win fans (and perhaps our disgruntled first reviewer?) over, and there's really not much of that left over here, despite a very engaging journey which for many fans, will pretty much fit the bill. It's up to you to decide which side of that coin you fit on, because, as with most Carroll novels - you either like it/get it, or you don't. Simple as that.
Rating: 
Summary: way out fantasy
Review: Out of control womanizer Vincent Ettrich recently died, but in spite of his many women no one truly mourns his passing. However, ironically the philandering Vincent is a key player in the grand cosmic scheme. Thus, he is brought back to life to perform a key role that will enable the great plan to occur. He had left behind besides a wife, a pregnant lover. That unborn child is the critical person in the universe to insure the future goes according to the grand plan. Though the fetus Anjo needs his mother Isabelle, Vincent is to teach his offspring what he has learned from his death. The problem is Vincent remembers nothing of his death or what it is he should be teaching his son. If he fails to do his part of the mission, Anjo will lack the knowledge needed to insure implementation of the plan leading to a failed future yet Vincent cannot accept that he died and came back. When it comes to way out fantasy where readers peeping through the looking glass at death see a certain signpost ahead, it means Jonathan Carroll. His latest spin is all over the place as the story line is not linear in any sense with strange flashbacks that make the time continuum seem concentrically circular. Yet somehow the talented Mr. Carroll provides an insightful, weird, but entertainingly different perceptive on life, death, and the free will vs. pre-determinism debate that is not for everyone except those fans who want something unusual in their novels. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: from THE NATION magazine
Review: This is vintage Carroll: ingeniously plotted, richly metaphorical and metaphysical with a seditious and very witty take on reality. Magic is everywhere in his universe, a universe I'm very comfortable revisiting. The truth about Carroll is that he's a magic realist who plunders our unconscious for profound emotional truths. He's been compared to Calvino, Dostoyevsky and even Jim Carrey. A dear friend joked to me that if Carroll Latinized his name and titled his novels "The Saucy Pantaloons of Alfredo Garcia" he would instantly find an American audience fond of literary exoticism.
Rating: 
Summary: Very disappointed
Review: This was my first Carroll book, and while I had a little bit of difficulty finishing it, I'm glad I did. The only thing that kept me going was Carroll's words, he writes beautifully and so that made the book enjoyable. What I didn't particularly like was thinking I FINALLY had a grasp on what it was he was talking about only to have the plot take a 180 turn. So I was getting frustrated with Carroll for about the first half of the book. If you choose to read it, stick with it. This book will grow on you and you will want to keep it so that it won't fall into the hands of someone who won't appreciate it. It's difficult at first, but I give it five stars because of the writing.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written but difficult to keep track of
Review: This was my first Carroll book, and while I had a little bit of difficulty finishing it, I'm glad I did. The only thing that kept me going was Carroll's words, he writes beautifully and so that made the book enjoyable. What I didn't particularly like was thinking I FINALLY had a grasp on what it was he was talking about only to have the plot take a 180 turn. So I was getting frustrated with Carroll for about the first half of the book. If you choose to read it, stick with it. This book will grow on you and you will want to keep it so that it won't fall into the hands of someone who won't appreciate it. It's difficult at first, but I give it five stars because of the writing.
Rating:
Summary: Surreal Philanderer Seeks Beautiful Non-Committal Women
Review: Vincent Ettrich was once dead. Now that he's returned to life, he has discovered that he's soon to be a father to a child the world will desperately need. Isabelle, the mother, is the one that brought him back. Pursued by destructive forces, and helped along by benificent guardians (including the unborn fetus itself), the two attempt to protect their unborn child and themselves from death, chaos, and a sinister henchman known only as "King of the Park". Somehow this all makes much more sense in the book. Jonathan Carroll is one hell of a good writer and I look forward to reading some of his other work. Not one to be cubby-holed into a genre, this book spans fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and a beautifully portrayed look at metaphysics without so much as batting an eyelash. The dialog is written wonderfully. The scenes between Vincent and his women really sparkle. I tore through this book in a day - which I haven't done for any book in quite some time. While the book is not without a couple of loose ends, the ambience more than makes up for it and makes this one you should place high on your reading list.
Rating: 
Summary: Annoying
Review: Vincent Ettrich, the suave ladies man, goes on a date one night only to learn that he has died and come back, but can't remember anything about it. His task in a nutshell: remember everything and pass the knowledge of the afterlife to his unborn son. Each chapter of White Apples contains a surprise. Carroll won't let a dozen pages slip past without throwing out a shocker. In the beginning, I was intrigued; as the book wore on, it became grating. I wanted to like this book, but it was just too annoying. The characters were interesting, but unlikable. The bad guys were undefined and incomprehensible, and the same could be said for some of the good guys. New "rules" were constantly popping into existence to justify or limit sudden miracles or newfound powers. The characters did a lot of explaining to each other, because nothing made sense. Through it all, the reader suffers. By the end, I gained the strong impression that Carroll was making it all up as he went along, without ever having a clear idea of where he was going. That's great as a creative exercise, but not as something to sell to others in the guise of a novel. Avoid.
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