Kirjailijakuva

Christopher M. Struck

Teoksen 8 : A Song for the Peach Tree in My Master's Garden tekijä

3 teosta 13 jäsentä 6 arvostelua

Tietoja tekijästä

Includes the name: Christopher M. Struck

Tekijän teokset

The Sun Never Set (2022) 3 kappaletta
Kennig and Gold (2019) 2 kappaletta

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Yleistieto

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Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

Tämä arvostelu kirjoitettiin LibraryThingin Varhaisia arvostelijoita varten.
I'm not sure if Christopher M. Struck's novella, "the sun never set "(sic) was autobiographical or just a story. I hope it was complete fiction because it would be sad to think of it as the actual experience of the author (or anyone else). This is the story of a (probably 20-something) doing some kind of undergraduate 'education' in Bangkok, Thailand for either the world's longest semester or a year. Along the way, he talks about friends from different countries and about all the places that he seemingly went to drink. A lot. I cannot imagine how he had any time for any kind of class or homework.

Between the drinking escapades, he longs for one of the other ex-pat 20-somethings in his apartment building. Since he doesn't know her at all, his writings about 'love' for her are comical and childish misnomers for lust. He seems to have some kind of standard sexually in a city known for prostitution and debauchery, and yet he doesn't seem like someone of character.

Between the lustful pinings for the most perfect girl in the world, and copious volumes of alcohol, the first-person narrator, Jake, shares his nonsensical musings on life. They are not incoherent ramblings as much as they are simply pseudo-profound babble. For example, toward the end of the book, he shares this, "Truth is beyond us. Unreachable. Unknowable. To find an answer is to only invite more questions. We know this, and yet we still pursue a corner of enigmatic singularity." and "We have nothing to fear save out won incapacity of knowing when we must admit that we are going forward as what we are and have not more way to coax the future from its prison to warn our own hears of certain doom that we have to alter the shape of the Hydrogen atom." If you think that these were simply plucked out of context and that they actually make sense, you give the author far too much credit.

This book represents a few hours of my life I will never get back. I have a personal compulsion to read review books to the end, and I am now regretting that self-imposed rule. This work only received 2 stars because it is not completely incoherent or offensive--it is simply adolescent and silly in an unintended kind of way.

I received a complimentary copy of this e-book with the expectation I would provide an honest review in return. This is that review
… (lisätietoja)
 
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gpaisley | Jan 14, 2023 |
Tämä arvostelu kirjoitettiin LibraryThingin Varhaisia arvostelijoita varten.
Overall I liked this book. I really enjoy books that introduce me too or explore alternate cultures than my own and that was the case here, though, as others have noted, I’m uncertain of the accuracy and so may look up some of the items or details myself. Regardless, it served as inspiration and this is all I can hope for as I maintain my own critical thinking.
I did find the dialogue a little hard to follow and long at times, along with the characters internal struggles; while important to the story, many stated too often?
As I said though, overall an enjoyable story and glad I read it. :)
… (lisätietoja)
 
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kustomambition | 4 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Apr 5, 2021 |
Tämä arvostelu kirjoitettiin LibraryThingin Varhaisia arvostelijoita varten.
NOTE: I won a free eBook copy of this book in PDF format from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers (December 2020).

I selected this book on the basis of the advertised synopsis, which made the plot seem like an epic action saga with a romance story line woven in. What I found as I read was nothing of the sort. The novel is actually an introspective, fictionalized account of the life of legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi, although this isn't made clear until the second half of the book. Once the historical figure who inspired the story was revealed, I was able to learn more about him from other sources, which helped the book as a whole make more sense.

Musashi's tale begins when he was a boy named Hachi and chronicles his transformation into the famed samurai. The peach tree of the title serves as a symbol of the protagonist's connection to his former life: once his transformation is complete, the physical tree disappears from the narrative entirely, remaining only in a painting displayed on a woman's wall. Musashi narrates in the first-person; however, some third-person passages are featured, which raise questions as to how reliable the protagonist is as a narrator. Though the novel records Musashi's inner thoughts and mental state in detail in every chapter, it often gazes at its own navel for extended passages. Dialogue markers are often ambiguous and hard to follow. Readers would be wise to approach this book as they might with works of Japanese art and haiku - in other words, by examining the details on their own merits and reflecting on the overall impressions that they give.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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msoul13 | 4 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Apr 5, 2021 |
Tämä arvostelu kirjoitettiin LibraryThingin Varhaisia arvostelijoita varten.
Unfortunately I was unable to get this book into a readable format. I was looking forward to reading it so I was greatly disappointed. Perhaps I will pick it up on Amazon at some point.
 
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Shookie | 4 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Mar 28, 2021 |

Tilastot

Teokset
3
Jäseniä
13
Suosituimmuussija
#774,335
Arvio (tähdet)
3.0
Kirja-arvosteluja
6
ISBN:t
6