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Oct 2023
11:28am, 6 Oct 2023
29,640 posts
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fetcheveryone
Oh crap, Linds got in before me.
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Oct 2023
11:31am, 6 Oct 2023
20,754 posts
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Chrisull
It's got a classic set of bad reviews:
"I abandoned my attempt to read this at page 134. I'd had the suspicion since page 20 or thereabouts that this book was a practical joke, churned out by a computer. How else could a 900+ page work comprise of one sentence with almost all its subordinate clauses beginning with "the fact that"?
Surely a computer was the only answer, this being as tedious to write as it surely is to read. I rarely abandon works of fiction, remembering how I tossed aside The Tin Drum three times before recognising it as one of the finest novels I'd ever encountered. By page 134 I was happy to make an exception."
and
"I was intrigued by the innovative approach to this book. Got through about half before admitting I was waiting my time reading someone's mental, run on sentence. No story, just an illustration of why everyone should meditate to control our monkey brain - which jumps all over the place. Listening to your mind is better than getting through this."
and
"This is the most annoying book I've ever bought. A punctuation-free stream of consciousness from the writer. I'm sure it reflects the tedium of many lives (mine included) at times, but I don't need to read it. Only read the first quarter though, so maybe it improved. Don't care."
Only makes me want to read it more!
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Oct 2023
12:09pm, 6 Oct 2023
64,320 posts
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LindsD
 Great minds.
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Oct 2023
2:45pm, 6 Oct 2023
81,844 posts
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Diogenes
I happened to be in town so popped into Waterstones to check this out.
I did not make a purchase
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Oct 2023
5:37pm, 6 Oct 2023
20,759 posts
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Chrisull
Page 4 update:
Continued use of the clause "the fact that" to connect everything is going to annoy me. With another 994 pages to go this could be an issue. Maybe I'll stop noticing it, like the way if you look at lots of parallel lines long enough, you can't see them any more, because the receptors get fatigued. Maybe I'll get "the fact that" fatigue. Other than that it's quite good.
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Oct 2023
7:27pm, 6 Oct 2023
6,298 posts
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quimby
I found I already had Before the Coffee Gets Cold on my Kindle (can't remember why I bought it). Coming as I did from the latest Joanne Harris, which I found quite gripping, I am struggling with the style of Coffee. I'm about 50 pages in. I found myself thinking yesterday: "I think I would love this if Paul Auster had written it".
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Oct 2023
9:02pm, 7 Oct 2023
22,322 posts
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Columba
If I felt I had time to read Ducks, Newburyport I might embark on Proust instead.
Meanwhile, I've ordered the hot coffee from the library.
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Oct 2023
10:20pm, 10 Oct 2023
22,325 posts
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Columba
... and today picked up the hot coffee from the library.
Shan't start it straight away, though, as I want to finish re-reading The Three Musketeers first.
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Oct 2023
10:44pm, 10 Oct 2023
64,406 posts
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LindsD
I currently have the Fetch communal copy of Lessons in Chemistry. I just finished it. Does anyone want it? Happy to post.
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Oct 2023
7:20am, 11 Oct 2023
29,188 posts
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Serendippily
I would actually Linds
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