Lera Kroshinskaya Kroshinskaya itibaren Ариягаундэмпатти, Тамилнад 637406, Индия
This rating will no doubt seem harsh, compared to the rating I just gave another book, but I think at least in some ways, it's merited. I really like Sontag's essays, and think she's quite a wonderful writer and thinker, and a lot of that is on display here. I was curious to see what she'd make out of a novel, and she doesn't disappoint in that regard-- this really is a strange book, one that is as interested in argument and philosophy and culture as much as it is in more traditional novelistic concerns. It announces itself as a strange book, one that does very little in the way of traditional narrative scene setting, and instead, for most of the book, is happy to skim the surface of the action and resort mostly to comment. It's chilly and strange and for the first half of the book, I think it works in this idiosyncratic, deliberate way. I like the Cavaliere as a character, I am a bit of a collector myself, and I'm pretty interested in what Sontag has to say about collecting, late capitalism, and all the rest. But I can't help but feel she loses the script around the time the Cavaliere's second wife enters into a romantic triangle with Nelson. It just wrenches the story out of areas I'm interested into events that seem to have no thematic significance, that don't illuminate much beyond themselves. And then it drags on and on, without any discernible point-- I mean, there are glances at totalitarianism and repression and democracy, all of which are in Sontag's wheelhouse, but what she has to say here feels too provisional, too rooted in the particular circumstances of her historical romance. I do like the monologue that closes the book, which is obviously a very contemporary cri de couer about arts in the present moment. But it comes probably a hundred pages after Sontag lost my full sympathy.
Fun, quick read that's more respectful towards and detailed about math than fiction books normally are, though it can't escape from the "mathematicians must have mental problems to be mathematicians" trope. This would be a great vacation book (if I'd only had a vacation to take while I was reading it). It would work quite well for a pair of high school English and Math teachers who wanted to work on a cross-class project.