I love John Sayles ('Union Dues', 'Brother from Another Planet' and 'The Milagro Beanfield War' all being amongst my favorites). He is all about exposing the moral incoonstencies of government abd society, and siding with the average man--especially if the average man is a person of color.
It is good that I know that, because there is a lot of racism in this this new book of his, set at the dawn of the 20th century. The book is expansive--both physically (it almost tops 1000 pages, and is hard to balance when on eis either at the beginning or the end of the volume), and in the scope of the story told. It weaves several narratives together in a way that is very well done--the scenes are the American West, the American South, and the wars that take place in the Phillipines and in Cuba--so far reaching and difficult to make all the characters distinct and interesting over the course of this very long book, and Sayles is successful at that. I did not love this book, at least not at first glance, but it is a 'big' book, and it successfully pulls that off, hanging on to the story in a tight and compelling way throughout the book. I just wasn't sure the length was entirely necessary to tell the story.
No comments:
Post a Comment