Seven Types of Ambiguity

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Second Novel
Review: Elliot Perlman wrote a very interesting novel in his Three Dollars which said a lot about contemporary life. The Australian writer more than fulfills his promise in his second work. What does really happens to us and how do we know if our impressions of life's twists and turns are correct and appropriate?
Seven Types of Ambiguity lets us explore what goes on brilliantly. Each witness sees the same accident differently and in this novel there are seven versions. None of which is completely wrong or right. Perlman writes very well and I found some his asides interesting, especially the one on card counting in blackjack. Some say the book is too long. Maybe, but it is more than worth the effort.

Rating:
Summary: No Ambiguity: This Is A Masterpiece
Review: Every now and then, a novel comes along that is so masterful, so breathtaking in scope, that everything you read afterwards pales in comparison. This is such a book.

The author employs seven narrators, all of whom ultimately impact each others' lives. Each character is fleshed out so that the reader knows him or her through and through...right down to interior thoughts. One can only imagine the research Mr. Perlman had to go through to "get it right" -- from investment banking to gambling...from prostitution to literary matters...from psychiatry to research analyst. If there is a false note in any of these narratives, I wasn't able to detect it.

The novel, seemingly, is about the trial of Simon, an unemployed teacher who, in a fit of obsessive love, kidnaps the son of Anna, the woman he has worshiped for many years. In reality, each character in this novel is going through his or her own trial. Each will end up in a different place than when the narration began. Each will go through the harshest judge of all -- himself or herself; some will make it, some will not.

There is, indeed, ambiguity in literature, as there is in relationships and life in general. This novel can be read as a pure page-turner or it can be read for deeper meaning. I closed the book understanding a little more about myself. It is a rare book that allows the reader to do that.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant but confusing
Review: I raced through this 640p novel in 3 days, couldn't put it down and I will probably read it again. I loved it.
But, having said that, I'm afraid that Eliot Perlman simply doesn't have the technical proficiency to carry off the very clever device of having six narrators tell the same story. Each character needs to have a distinct voice, and they don't. They all sound pretty much the same.
The last section left me somewhat confused. I got tired of having to sort out who is "I" and who is "you," and again this is a failure of technique.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely haunting
Review: I simply cannot stop thinking about this book. It is easily one of the most clever and imaginative (and haunting!) works I've read in years. Thematically, it takes you on a transcendent trip through the range of important human experience. The characters you meet are unforgettable: worthy of your affection or not, they will all inspire some degree of sympathy. And then there is the structure of the narrative. -- The interwoven plotlines are delightfully impressive. Contrary to reports of this book being "Rashomonian," it is NOT a repeated retelling of the same event! Rather, each new narrative voice advances the action. One last point: Perlman writes in a thoughtful, clear language that often proves perfectly evocative. In short, the book is a tour de force.

Rating:
Summary: Bound Brilliance
Review: I think the last time I was so impressed with a novel was when I read David Mitchell's "Ghostwritten". This was published at the very end of 2004 and for me it's the best of last year and probably this year as well. Billed as "an epic novel about obsessive love in an age of obsessive materialsim", the basic thrust of the story is about a man who never having gotten over a woman who left him ten years before, kidnaps her son.
The brilliance of the novel is in it's construction. The book is segmented in seven parts, each narrated by a different player in the unfolding drama with sections and scenes overlapping in a 'Rashomon' like narrative. The only criticism I have with the book echos other reviewers, that many of the characters voices are similar. They all seem cut from the same Mensa cloth,being incredibly insightful,bright,and in tune with the human condition regardless of age, sex, or social standing.However as criticisms go, it's a small one, and one that doesn't detract from the awesome magnitude or scope of what I think is a phenomenal piece of literature.

Rating:
Summary: Heavy book and sentences needing a bit downsizing
Review: No question this book has grabbing story lines and intriguing characters. The way it's told, by seven players in the story, each rolls the story forward and often repeats the same scene that has been presented by a different character before, is creative. It can be a powerful tool to cast happenings in different lights and enhance our memory of important events. However I find the same story sometimes is presented similarly by multiple voices and occasionally even by the same person twice in almost the same words. In addition to the over-repetitiveness, the characters speak the ubiquities long and heavily-structured sentences in their monologues, as if they are all influenced by the central character, the well-read, poetry-loving English teacher Simon. In contrary, the dialogues are more successful -- I totally enjoy the courtroom exchange when Angelique frustrates the prosecutor. I like the book enough to finish it. But it would be a great read, if it were only 1/2 or 2/3 as long, by cutting some of the twice or thrice told pieces, and each person spoke his/her own language. Given the book's 600+ page count, it would still be sizable literature piece after the proposed weight loss.


Rating:
Summary: An outstanding read !
Review: Perlman's epic is superbly written and once more we are re-introduced to Joe Gergahty from his earlier (and occasionally as good) debut novel, "Three Dollars." For fellow Finance professionals any reader will quickly develop an affinity for Joe and Mitch and their time at the Corporate Retreat will bring back fond memories. The time invested in reading is paid back tenfold as I often found myself doubling back on sentences merely to saviour their construction or the clarity in which he'd captured the moment. I have often found books like this off-putting becuase soon as you become absorbed in a character they move on to another but Perlman's writing style pulls you in quickly and ensures the rythmn and pace of the story never let up. This is a beautifully written book which ranks as one of my own personal best ever reads ... I recommend it to everyone I know.

Rating:
Summary: Quite good
Review: Perlman's SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY is a terrific book. It's an arresting tale of love and human relationships maimed by contemporary culture's preoccupation with "consumption and competition." Told in a byzantine but breathtaking fashion, this book takes one captive until the end. It's impossible to put down, and will occupy your thoughts.

It's not perfect, however. Although told by seven different people, they all come out sounding the same. Same intellectuality, same verbal adroitness, same introspective melancholy. Even the boorish character comes off as a professor. Now this could have been Perlman's intention. It is, after all, a book about the failure or inability of people to genuinely connect with one another, and if they all were very much alike it would only further illustrate the dysfunction of the characters. Even if this were true, it still doesn't work for me. I would have liked to have seen greater differentiation.

Perlman is also a bit self-indulgent. On numerous occassions his characters engage in all kinds of intellectual explorations: gambling, literary criticism, public policy, and so on. Some times this was interesting, other times not. He seemed like a drunk man walking the line, the line in this case being between engaging intellectualism and self-important pedantry.

In the end, it is still a remarkable book, and highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: incredible novel
Review: The premise of the book seems fairly straightforward- a man living his life in love with a woman who left him a decade ago, so deeply entrenched in her world that one day out of the blue he picks her son up from school to save him from his parents bad marraige. Simon sees his act as benevolent, the world sees it as a felony.
What makes it so intriguing is the perspective...7 chapters in 7 voices, all unraveling the puzzle in time. Perhaps the author suceeds most in making Simon both believable and sympathetic. He is incredibly talented in nailing down relationship dynamics, mostly the difficulties, and in describing love at its most desperate and therefore sincere.
Be prepared for a lot of discourse on many a topic ranging from managed care to poetry. The ONLY flaw is that the author is possibly TOO pedantic in his lectures(esp. with Simon) but it feels real to the character and is tolerable.
In Summary- an incredible book with extremely well developed characters.

Rating:
Summary: Best novel of 2004
Review: This daring and intriguing novel was my favorite of 2004. Australian author Elliot Perlman has chosen to tell his story from seven different points of view-not a new idea, but one that seems completely fresh and surprising in Perlman's hands. The characters he chooses as his narrators and the voices he gives them are what propels "Seven Types" ahead to an end that comes all too soon for the besotted reader. The publisher's tag line deeming this "an epic novel about obsessive love in an age of obsessive materialism" does not do it any sort of justice. This novel is about much more than that and should not be missed.