Fermata, The

Rating:
Summary: A flat-out curious read
Review: If you can make it past the first few pages, you won't put this down. If you put it down physically, it stays with you mentally. To think that another person had the same youthful fascination to stop time is one thing, to write a novel about it is another. Although my fantasies were not as pornographic as Baker's, I found myself, once more, caught up in the possibilities. I felt guilty about reading most of the "fermata" sequences and even skipped a few pages because it got tedious. I must confess, I went directly out and purchased Vox and The Mezzanine

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fastinating
Review: If you're a fan of Hard Science Fiction, GET THIS BOOK. It'll blow you away. Bakers descriptions about stopped-time are breathtaking. Every question I had about the "Fermata" was answered in this book, as I was reading it. Baker doesn't miss a beat. I was worried that it might lean more on the Adult Content and less on the Science, but I was wrong. It was a good balance. His physics about the "Fold" couldn't have been handled any better, and the Author really took the time to explain in detail what everything was like, while his character "Dropped". Not to mention the very creative ways he would go about initializing the "Drop" itself.

I was suprised he was able to squeeze so much into that many pages. Every paragraph was intriguing. Baker didn't waste one word. I applaud Baker's bravery in writing this book. The Science Fiction world is a better place because of it, and I hope he writes some more in this feild. This book is a breath of fresh air, and I hope it sets new standards.

As far as the adult content goes, it got pretty heavy in parts, in fact, he puts new meaning in the phrase: Hard Science Fiction. But it all makes perfect sense in this book. It is almost natural. Baker's really got a good bead on human behavior, and I think this book explores some of the truth in us, whether we like it or not.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fastinating
Review: If you're a fan of Hard Science Fiction, GET THIS BOOK. It'll blow you away. Bakers descriptions about stopped-time are breathtaking. Every question I had about the "Fermata" was answered in this book, as I was reading it. Baker doesn't miss a beat. I was worried that it might lean more on the Adult Content and less on the Science, but I was wrong. It was a good balance. His physics about the "Fold" couldn't have been handled any better, and the Author really took the time to explain in detail what everything was like, while his character "Dropped". Not to mention the very creative ways he would go about initializing the "Drop" itself.

I was suprised he was able to squeeze so much into that many pages. Every paragraph was intriguing. Baker didn't waste one word. I applaud Baker's bravery in writing this book. The Science Fiction world is a better place because of it, and I hope he writes some more in this feild. This book is a breath of fresh air, and I hope it sets new standards.

As far as the adult content goes, it got pretty heavy in parts, in fact, he puts new meaning in the phrase: Hard Science Fiction. But it all makes perfect sense in this book. It is almost natural. Baker's really got a good bead on human behavior, and I think this book explores some of the truth in us, whether we like it or not.

Rating:
Summary: A risqué romp by a master of the tongue (so to speak)
Review: In 1994, very shortly after this lark of a book appeared, I picked it up on a whim at an airport bookstore just before embarking on a long overseas flight. It was the perfect choice, but my companion didn't think so; I kept interrupting her own reading to share choice passages, whether she wanted to hear them or not. It's just that kind of book, if you're the sort of reader who loves original and creative use of the language. Bostonian Arno Strine, reader, writer, and all-round intellectual, has made a career for himself as an office temp, simply because there are more important things in his life: Namely, the ability to drop out of time, to stop the world and get off, to escape the noise and bustle for the silence and solitude of the Fold. When the power is on him, he can cause the entire universe to come to a halt (via various mechanical and psychological mechanisms that vary over time), allowing him to go where he likes and do what he likes with no one the wiser. But Arno, being Arno, rather than using this ability to become wealthy, or snoop into international secrets, or wield unlimited social or political power, mostly just takes women's clothes off, and hides in their clothes hampers while they bathe, and writes personalized erotica (or "rot") for them to discover when time restarts. He's had plenty of "normal" relationships with women, but his one attempt to tell a woman about his activities outside of time was not a success. However, the story line is just Baker's excuse to indulge himself in highly creative (and often pornographic) flights of fancy in Arno's voice, who seems almost incapable of sticking to his subject. But there are plenty of quotable lines here, like "Each woman inspires her own fetishes" (which is very true when you think about it), and "Temps are prima facie alienated by virtue of their vocational rootlessness." Arno is also extremely analytical, not only of himself but of everything around him, including the impact of masturbation on carpal tunnel syndrome, social interaction between temps and full-time workers, the sexual impact of removing one's wristwatch in public, and the rotational capabilities of various types of centrifuge. Even his fantasy life is extremely detailed. At base, Baker is a hoot and you can't take him too seriously -- but on the other hand, probably you should. As in all his work, you know for sure he's paying attention to what's really going on.

Rating:
Summary: This is one of the worst things I've ever read.
Review: In fact it's so amazingly, unspeakably *BAD* that I couldn't stop reading it, like the hole in one's tooth one can't keep from sticking their tongue into, or like most of the material on rotten.com. This repulsive, purile book has only the thinnest tissue of a plot and spends most of its time obsessing over the main character's obsession with the minutia of sex. I felt like I was inside the mind of the average horny sixteen year old boy.
So why do I give the book five stars? Because it's JUST THAT BAD. It's almost so bad it's good. It's a putrid, stinking, utterly inspired and ingenious piece of cr*p. It's so bad I had to keep reading to see what happened to the main character. It's so bad I can't stop going on about how bad it is, anymore than I could bring myself to stop watching Pink Flamingos the first time.
Perhaps it's destined to become a cult classic.

Rating:
Summary: Stay up late and read this.
Review: It takes an unusual calibre of artistry to balance a storyline on a highwire over the pornographic, and not fall on the irrecoverable ground of smut. Not only does Baker pull this off, but it would take a cold heart and a real dearth of curiosity not to be pulled into the fun here... It is fun, and impossible not to fall into the fermata-cyclic rythym. The payoff is that Baker makes the absurd honest: you can't help but be seduced by the sexual "what if" game... That he is able to turn such a bizarre premise into a peculiarly satisfying, and strangely familiar allegory attests that Baker's VOX was just a sample..

Rating:
Summary: Nicholson Baker: The Kokomo Loco
Review: Like his previous books The Mezzanine, Room Temperature, and Vox; Mr Baker's bejewelled fingers glide effortlessly across his keyboard to produce yet another highly comical, detailed, and wonderfully crafted piece of work. And yet, I can't help but feel that his talents would be better served if he would write a story in a less specialised genre. Sci-Fi, Sword and Sorcery perhaps? He would make a wonderful addition to writers in those fields such as C J Cherryh, and Iain M. Banks. Another Fritz Leiber? The aforementioned titles demonstrate that he has all the knowledge and skills to hand. Sub sections in the Everlasting Story of Nory would be totally consistent with this possibility. Give it a thought Huh?

Fermata highlights: The tri-lastic MIT Machine, Marian the Librarian mows the lawn, and her UPS-man encounter, The Strine Inequality, Dr. Orowitz- Rudman and the MRI scanner, And Arno's kindred spirit - Joyce.

Well written though The Fermata is, it does tend to drag towards the end. N.B. could have ditched the very extended Adellle section with Arno in the fantasised Motel encounter. Good though it was, it didn't pace the book too well. Other readers have bemoaned the lack of an obvious plot, of which there is precious little. I think his books are akin to Iain Bank's stylised Use of Weapons; a story is there all right, but formed from a bunch of Vignettes cleverly welded together. So don't get hung up over the plot, read the book and just enjoy it. There's plenty to.

Rating:
Summary: Curiosity boggled the mind
Review: Most novels by mainstream authors have the same problem: they come up with an exciting story but have trouble writing it with any eloquence or style. The Fermata is the opposite. The plot, one must admit, is very sophomoric. The main character has the ability to stop time and uses it to go on weird sexual escapades. It's not an original plot to say the least. If it hadn't been covered by the Twilight Zone already, every person in the world has probably had this wish in their head at least once. Imagine all of the homework or housework (or other stuff) you could get done if you stopped time.

But Nicholson Baker has a very unusual gift of cloaking the obscene in tasteful description, even if most of it is graphic. It almost makes you forgive both Arno (the main character) and Baker for going into long pornographic episodes with dicey dialogue.

But not all of the book is easy to read. Graphic sections aside, some passages are trying just because they try to build as a tease. Chapter 15 is tedious, and 16 is just bizarre. And to be truthful, I can't decide between three or four stars for this book. The tedious description burdened me as much as the frank and intelligent description engaged me.

I feel the need to admit that the humor got lost on me. All over my paperback copy are comments from book critics saying that this an honest and hilarous account. Others say it's very truthful and funny. The point is there was an element of humor to Baker's writing that seemed to slip by me. The tone itself is not that humorous, but I suppose it might lie in the delivery. Perhaps I need someone with a wry, deadpan voice to read the passages about (...) to me.

Read a copy at work if you dare.

Rating:
Summary: An amazing foray into sex and fantasy
Review: Nicholson Baker is a master at taking what seems unusal, bizarre, or even ordinary (as in "The Everlasting Story of Nory") and make it interesting, fascinating and exciting. What Arno does during his "Fold" time is at once creative, enticing, and sweet. And Arno has an amazingly convincing way of justifying what seems immoral, to the point where I can actually wish to be one of the women he undresses and plays around with during one of his "Drops." Not for the inhibited, but this book is a must read for anyone who has ever asked him or herself "if I could freeze time and do whatever I wanted..."

Rating:
Summary: Pause, Play and Fast Forward
Review: OK, so VCR's have given us Pause Buttons, and the ability to watch soap operas at night. Great. Some folks call this "time-shifting", but the author has a better idea for this concept. If we could ever find the REAL "Universal Remote" under the couch, we could put the world on Pause. This book carries the idea of life as a VCR to the nth degree, and beyond. The author had a musical background too so there is a musical metaphor angle (Fermata=Pause). The first half is very funny, very clever, very "tongue in cheek"(!) and light. BUT the wheels come off in the second half, so you might want to fast-forward through the numerous, and extended (ouch!) dildo reveries. This flight of fancy comes crashing down in the second half, like Icarus, like the parabola symbol for the musical Fermata symbol that graces the cover and the chapter headings. Note bene, N.B. is a great talent, but is he wasting some of his time (maybe he has extra supply?) on the "creative rotting" (porno) sections of the book?