Read Online As Primeiras Quinze Vidas De Harry August Conceived By Claire North Displayed In Digital
on As Primeiras Quinze Vidas de Harry August
Claire North being overyears old, in a child's body, . .
No no wait
Imagine being a centuries old child for theth time now,
Still makes no sense
Imagine living out your life, only to be reborn on the same date, same place, in the same body with all your memories intact.
. forever
That's basically what Harry August's entire existence entails,
I am Harry August, born New Years Day,
I am sixtyeight years old,
I am eight hundred and ninetynine,
Doesn't that sort of remind you of a certain man child from The Umbrella Academy
HA NO, Numberhad an actual personality, Harry however didn't, even considering the fact he had centuries to perfect it,
The book was written in the first POV, although it felt more like a third because there was not much emotion in the way the hero spoke,
I know now that there is something dead inside me though I cannot remember exactly when it died,
Everything was spoken in lyrical sentences that upheld a clinical clarity for most of this book, I could never tell what Harry was feeling, Not to say that there weren't many emotional scenes or phrases that had my heart beating out of my chest,
Because truly this book has one of the most gripping concepts I've ever read,
Harry August is an orphan in every life, A spy in several. He has been a monk that travelled most of the world, . . and a soldier who has seen the great patriotic war more times than anyone ever should, He has fallen in love and killed in cold blood, Worked as a doctor for one lifetime, committed to asylums in the next, Died as a little boy just as he did in old age from a sickness he can't escape,
Harry has lived through so many extraordinary lives, each one the same yet so different,
Death holds no fear for us,
It is rebirth where the terror lies, Rebirth, and the lingering fear that no matter how much our bodies are renewed, our minds cannot be saved,
Until finally he discovers a secret society that lives within time itself: The Cronus Club,
It holds members that possess abilities much like his own and so they call themselves "the Kalachakra"
The worldbuilding was unique, unlike anything I have ever read before which isn't surprising since I read complete trash but BEAR WITH ME.
They communicated back through generations of time, left messages to be found in the future, helped members and just as well, ruthlessly terminated those who couldn't follow the rules that kept their club alive for thousands of years.
And I don't say "ruthlessly" lightly, This book had some torture techniques that were hard to get through,
if nothing is to change at all, then we must watch our own kind constantly and punish ruthlessly, and live without remorse
But the story of Harry's life really starts on his death bed, histh death bed to be precise.
When a little girl with a german accent comes to him declaring she is from the future and carries what might be, the most important message of any of his lifetimes.
The world is ending, And with each rebirth, it's getting closer amp closer to theth century,
What did I say about that Umbrella Academy reference cough
This would've beenstars, IF MY BRAIN WASN'T ABOUT TO EXPLODE FROM THE PRETENTIOUSNESS OF THIS BOOK
Here is a simple sentence for all of us simpleminded people example:
Is it bad to add too much sugar to a coffee Seems unhealthy, so I'll refrain with one teaspoon.
How this book would phrase that sentence so we have the maximum probability of brain death:
Is it a factual statement that adding glucose to your morning drinks, makes your body pressure rise above levels mortals unlike myself should concern themselves with Or is it just a theory that holds no scientific validity whatsoever, in order to scare our race into compliance
Yes yes, you people are allowed to make fun of my shitty attempt at sounding even remotely sophisticated
Now here's a real quote AND PLEASE SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT HERE
“that there are only two solutions to this paradox That onethe universe, finding itself unable to sustain this great burden on its being, simply ceases to be Or that twothe universe, finding itself still somewhat confused, fixes itself in a way beyond our ken and which, by its express interest in the events of our time traveller, rather does imply conscious structure and thought more than a mere amalgamation of matter might be expected to provide.
Are we to posit God”
If you're wondering why I sound like ath century snob in this review which if you know me, you'll know is not my style at all, it's because I have been reading THAT for the pasthours.
AND when I tell you thatof all conversations were structured that way
But even with all of my complaining I'll come out and admit: I actually didn't completely hate the writing.
Despite it being way too poetic for its own good, it was actually easier to read than it seems, I DIDN'T EVEN USE AN AUDIOBOOK, that should probably stand for something,
The thing that this story really excelled at, in my opinion, was THE VILLAIN, oooooh and what a villain he was, Fucker played dirty and you know what I liked him, It takes a certain amount of genius and determination to achieve what he has,
But unfortunately for him, our hero had all that and more, The game of lies, manipulation and deceit they played around each other was something to behold, That part of the book, by all rights, deserves ALL THE STARS,
Le prime quindici vite di Harry August è uno dei libri migliori che abbia letto negli ultimi anni, Parla di un uomo che nasce, vive, muore e rinasce esattamente nello stesso punto e alle stesse condizioni della volta precedente si presume per leternità, Un Ricomincio da capo dilatato Sì e no, ma più no che sì per quanto la commedia con Bill Murray sia simpatica, questo libro è meglio, Non fa ridere, è vero, ma è perché tiene col fiato sospeso mentre scava dentro a un mondo piuttosto cupo e violento, Se fosse un film, sarebbe scritto da Christopher e Jonathan Nolan,
È una spy story metafisica, Cè una cospirazione, ci sono grandi avversari, Ci sono persone che vivono la stessa strana immortalità di Harry August, unimmortalità mortale e piena di morte, Lidea dei loop apre la porta al paradosso più bello di un libro sul viaggio nel tempo perché Harry August è a tutti gli effetti un viaggiatore temporale come in effetti lo siamo tutti noi, con la differenza che noi viaggiamo solo in avanti, mentre August quando arriva alla fine torna sempre indietro.
Linfinito viene racchiuso in una serie progressiva di loop, Il tempo viene quindi raccontato come lineare, ma i personaggi hanno la possibilità di trasmettere informazioni allindietro: il tempo diventa un ipertesto dove ogni punto può essere collegato allaltro, anche se le informazioni devono essere succinte ed essenziali per essere passate.
Un ipertesto sobrio, minimale, insomma,
La struttura narrativa è eccellente, incastrando il racconto delle prime quindici vite di Harry August in modo non lineare, ma seguendo un ordine di senso: ogni aneddoto raccontato è linkato al precedente e al successivo per ragioni logiche, suggerendo unidea di simultaneità, anche questa volta ipertestuale.
Le atmosfere urban fantasy prendono una piega fantascientifica, concedendosi qualche lazzo steampunk, È un romanzo per adulti che ha la freschezza dei migliori young adult, ma è dotato di una complessità narrativa superiore, e indugia su temi cupi, sul dolore e sulla morte, sulla violenza, descritta sempre minuziosamente nel dettaglio, con una discreta quantità di secchiate di sangue e gore che vivacizzano latmosfera, ogni tanto in modo fin troppo estremo quasi torture porn.
Un po sitelinkDavid Mitchell, un po sitelink Tutti gli uomini sono mortali, e un po qualcosaltro, qualcosa di bello, Piacevole e ben curata la traduzione, Spero con tutto il cuore che qualche editore italiano decida di riproporre gli altri romanzi della ragazza prodigio Claire North nello specifico, proprio quelli scritti con questa firma, visto che lautrice ha diversi alias.
I'm a little torn as to how to review this book, Obviously, I liked it since I gave itstars, I even think this would be a great movie!
I love the premise and I really wasn't expecting this,
This SciFi/Thriller really intrigued me but at the same time, some parts were a bit slow, It makes sense if you think that we're literally talking aboutlives though, A lot will happen but the back and forth was a bit much sometimes,
Overall I totally recommend it if the summary interests you!
SMALL SPOILER not really in my opinion but just in case, . .
I was a little disappointed that there was so many other kalachakra, anyone else WARNING: There are 'spoilers' in this review,
This is possibly the dullest book I've ever read, I suppose that deserves credit of some sort, Like The House of the Seven Gables, the author excelled at making me feel so claustrophobic and trapped in a realm of endless tedium that I related to the narrators disgust with life after suffering through just fifty pages.
Thats not the mark of a good story, though,
The 'plot', if you will and if I sound like I'm speaking in a pretentious poncy way, it's because I've been infected by the style in which this narrative was composed.
. . ahem:
Harry the narrator is one of many who live their natural life, only to find that following death, they are reborn in the same life, to start all over again.
Most people with this condition can't remember details of their previous lives when they're reborn, Harry is one of the rare few who remember 'everything', He is labelled a 'mnemonic', Why does this fail so spectacularly as a plot device Because they also repeat ad infinitum that no matter what you do in each successive life, 'you cannot change anything'.
It even says on the back of the book, 'Nothing ever changes,' and, ', . . he tries to save a past he cannot change, ' However, if you alone remember your previous lifetimes, you are a wild card, You are going to start influencing your environment / the people around you / the events that occur, It is not possible for everything to be exactly the same, Things WILL change potentially quite big things, Think of the butterfly effect, At the very least, you yourself will change dramatically, This story simply does not work,
Now, before I go on, I would like to address certain comments on this review, saying I'm listing 'supposed' plot holes and simply didn't understand the book, Let's examine the most obvious plot hole of all: the entire premise, So, you live maybeyears, die, and you're reborn, . . into the same family, the same life, and you remember everything, This means you have to redo all of infancy, childhood and adolescence knowing you lived before and anticipating every event, Think about the title of the book this happens to you at leasttimes over, That's a minimum ofyears spent growing up, over and over again, How frustrated would you be
Overall, you would have lived maybe,years, That's,years of witnessing the same events, meeting the same people, being forced to do the same things, hearing the same 'news', etc, This would send you crazy, There'd be no excitement anymore, Music, films, etc. would never be new again, Politics would have no meaning, You'd have to get to know people again and again, even though you already know them, You'd never fall in love for the first time again, unless you sought other people and abandoned your whole childhood setup, again and again, Death would lose all significance, because you'd know you'd see everyone again, Your own death would be meaningless, because you'd expect to be reborn, The back of the book says this story is 'totally original', It's not it's 'Groundhog Day' over a longer timescale,
So, what would you do What would you do if you were being treated like ayearold but could remember beingYou'd definitely start rebelling and doing whatever you liked.
With time, I expect you'd possibly start dabbling in suicide, or maybe even murder, You'd be skydiving and potholing and taking up all kinds of other dangerous activities, You'd pursue a different career path in every life, to try to mix it up, It would be hell and you would be doing absolutely everything you could to make the best of it, to stay sane but I don't think you'd succeed,
I'll tell you what you would NOT do: spend every boring life sitting around in someone's living room talking about politics which is pretty much what Harry does through this whole book.
Remember, if we take this premise seriously, he's doing,years of this,years of tirade after endless boring pointless mindnumbing agonising souldestroying pretentious tirade about things like communism as if ANY of this is new and interesting and insightful inand what does it matter, if you can't change anything anyway You're just going to die and end up back in the same political climate with no evolution.
How do you even know the future exists This is how you would likely start to think, if this were real, Moreover, the political ideas she promotes in this book actually offended and angered me, They showed so little regard for the victims of history that I was disgusted,
I suppose the point is that I came away from this book thinking the author doesn't understand people and basic human psychology / behaviour, This was reinforced by the fact that I had to keep reminding myself the narrator was meant to be a man, He sounded so like a woman, to me, He was not convincing at all,
There is also zero characterisation in this book, Even the narrator I can't tell you a thing about him, He's the most soulless character ever thought up, He has all this time to think and grow and develop as a human being and he does none of that, He just stands in dreary stuffy rooms drinking whiskey and speculating that life is meaningless, At one point, he says he loved a woman named Jenny and she put him in an institution because she thought he was mad when he told her he knew the future.
She's never mentioned again forpages, Finally, it turns out she's married to Vincent, Harry says he's heartbroken, andIve pretty much worded it the way the book did, Thats as deep as it gets, I
also found it incredible that every character happened to be brilliant at quantum physics, Isn't that convenient
Everyone was an elitist middleclass snob, as well and there were a LOT of them: there was a new character in every single chapter I don't think anyone but Vincent was ever seen again in future chapters.
There was no one to hold onto, And when I say chapters, I mean segments ofpages, That's how long every chapter was, and they all went nowhere, They just dropped off into nothing, Turn the page scene over characters gone why did I read it
This is without even touching on the attempted scifi elements to the novel that are not thought through or explained at all.
For example, Vincent says he's inventing a machine called a 'quantum mirror' that will allow you to realise you're actually God, That's about all the explanation we're given, There's no visual description. There's no science. There's no philosophical insight. There's no ANYTHING. I must have read that section ten times before I was willing to accept that the author didn't bother to think this idea through, It isn't even an idea it's an idea of an idea,
A lot of other reviewers here said the science and philosophy went over their heads, No, it didn't. The ideas presented in this book are actually very basic the author rehashed a bundle of clichéd popscience without much original insight, The reason these concepts confused other reviewers is that they're so badly 'explained' it's clear the author herself doesn't know what she's talking about, They didn't relate to anything else that was going on, either,
What bothers me most is that this book was promoted as a time travel story, It's NOT A TIME TRAVEL STORY, He repeats his life over and over again, He's not jumping back and forth through time, Yet the author decided to write it as if he did, so you had no idea what was going on, Back and forth, back and forth the only reason I can think of for her doing this is to disguise the fact that nothing happened,
I also have to note that it speaks volumes that all the fans who take the time to comment on my review are hostile, nasty and think it's appropriate to make personal attacks on me without having met me.
You're welcome to your opinions, but I'm deleting any abusive comments not because my OPINIONS are 'wrong' or I'm 'too stupid to know how to read' honestly, someone has thought it okay to say that.
Those are the types of people driven to defend this novel just another reason I HATE this book, .