Experience Music For Torching Imagined By A.M. Homes Exhibited In Leaflet
wanted to like this book so hard after falling in love with Homes' "May We Be Forgiven" but I just couldn't, Every character was just so easy to hate, and the writing fell flat to me compared to some of her other work, This is my first book ofand I can't imagine anything that follows it will be quite the same,
This is the story of Paul and Elaine, They are profoundly and irreparably unhappy with just about every facet of their lives, Early in the story they are BBQing in their backyard yard when they decide to spray their house with lighter fluid, tip the grill over, and torch their house.
They have no reason or overriding goal other than simple and complete nihilism,
That their house doesn't actually burn is a metaphor for everything else that is incomplete and unfinished in their lives, What it does accomplish however is a setting in motion of profound consequences and misery,
As you can guess, this is a pretty dark story, One of the darker books I've read in a long timeand I like dark stories,
I was struck in particular by just how miserable these characters are and how hopeless they feel, They are extremely unloveable human beings and yet one can't help feeling sympathy for them, As Elaine says to Paul, "we're all we have, and we're not enough",
That is truly who these characters are,
Alone even in the presence of each other, After being rather disappointed with May We Be Forgiven, I actually enjoyed Music for Torching, although I wasn't overjoyed with it, Again, I can tell that Homes really, really likes Don DeLillo, and also makes several trips into Richard Yates country, After all, it starts with two sudden acts of random violence in a posh New York suburb, and goes on ad nauseam through extramarital affairs, accidental lesbianism, insurance fraud, and so forth.
Is it at the caliber of Yates or Cheever or Updike writing about these same things Or is the style at the same level as DeLillo's No and no.
Is it still a worthy distraction I suppose, I had to force myself to finish this almost plotless book, There is no clear sense of time for all those affairs and drama to happen in the span of one week, I mean really! Everything was just so unexpected and crazy that eventually crazy became normal.
And it's disturbing on so many levels, though I'm sure it somewhat reflects the problems of suburban Americans and the flaws of the American Dream,
The only character that I genuinely cared for is the one that Homes killed, A wild ride through the dark anxieties of a suburban family, Elaine and Paul, wife and husband, think they hit rock bottom, Theyre stuck. They cant get out of the hole their life has become, So they set their house on fire, take the kids, and spent the night in a motel room, The first chapter of this book was published as a short story in The New Yorker, It does feel like a very good story, to be honest, But the aftermath, how they navigate through this second chance they have, is just as thrilling and engaging, Its not a satisfying read though, There are epiphanies, but no so much character development, And its supposed to be like that, AM Homes purposely portrays the emptiness, the depression, the inertia of modern American life, What do you after youve reached the ideal of adult life A great house, a good job, a loving family, Are we, or in this case, the characters, suppose to ask for something else The author also dismantles other aspects of the American way of life: bullying, school shootings, insurance companies, and the river of secrets and compulsions that runs behind the perfect suburban facade.
Sounds heavy, but Music for torching is a comedy, A savagely funny and sharply written one,
Delightfully devastating. With this book, A. M. Homes paints a haunting picture of suburbia, The main characters, Paul and Elaine, have managed to keep up with the Joneses in their seemingly perfect suburban town, but their lovely house, friendly neighbors and two boys have left them with a life filled with boredom and despair.
They want to make things good again in their lives, yet are caught in a shame spiral that begins with a failed attempt to burn down their house and ends with a hostage situation.
Homes does a terrific job of creating painfully honest characters with terribly unfortunate lives to whom the reader can actually relate, Both the writing and plot entertain throughout and make you never want to set foot in a culdesac again, One of the worst books I've ever read, If a book could be written in a minor key, this would be the result, This could be beautiful, but there's no character development, the editing is disappointing with inconsistent details all over the place, and the ending The ending is ridiculous it's as if the author came up against deadline and needed to end it.
I wish I would have bailed on this book in the first chapter, like I'd originally wanted,
OH MY GOD is exactly what I said to my empty living room when I finished reading this novel by A, M. Homes. After Revolutionary Road and Little Children this is the third successive novel i've read dealing with suburban life in America, Paul and Elaine this time are the unhappy couple and a little bit crazy, certainly depressed, completely selfish, mostly unlikeable and somehow and i've no idea how but Homes makes you care about these two strangely believable characters.
The story starts when they burn down their house on a whim, seemingly just for the craic by kicking over the barbeque, The house isn't completely destroyed just some superficial damage and a hole in the dining room wall, They end up staying at Pat and Georges house, Pat being the stereotypical stepford housewife who isn't as most people aren't, all that she seems it is very funny and very weird when that little plot thread comes to a head and their two kids Sammy and Daniel are shipped off to two friends house Sammy staying with Nate the son of Mrs Apple, one of the women Paul is having an affair with, and Daniel with the Meaders who are the traditionally normal family but seem kind of odd against the cacophony of strange characters we meet.
The rest of the story then deals with this anything but normal family attempting to get back to normal, to rebuild and improve their house and well lives too.
I think this novel is about how people are never who they portray on the surface and that really everyone is a little bit crazy but even if it's about nothing but an entertaining story then that's more than enough.
Homes writes the kind of things other people are afraid to say out loud and she writes it well, I have a sad little confession, when I read a book I write down the sentences/quotes I particularly like, I couldn't do that with this novel, because I pretty much particularly liked every line in it, It's very funny, it's very dark, it's very twisted and it's very excellent, It may not be to everyones liking however, I imagine a good barometer would be if you like American Beauty then this you will love,
Finally, I wished more books had endings like this one, she's some writer, If the one advantage of being dark and twisty is getting to love novels like this then I say embrace the dark and twisty, it's occasionally worth it.
Jamás hubiese leído nada de Homes de no ser por su cuento “Una muñeca de carne y hueso”, el cual conocí gracias a Foster Wallace quien decía que era de sus relatos preferidos.
Todos los años se los leía a sus alumnxs, No lo culpo, es la clase de relato que por lo corrosivo dan ganas de leer en voz alta solo para ver la reacción de la gente.
En “Música para corazones incendiados” seguimos a Paul, Elaine y sus dos hijos, Una familia normal que viven en un barrio de clase media de Estados Unidos que, cansados de la monotonía que aseguraba su existencia, deciden incendiar su casa en una improvisada barbacoa para después alojarse en un motel con sus hijos con la esperanza de eliminar aquello que estaba fallando en sus vidas.
Pero, como anuncia la sinopsis, esto tan solo es el principio, Posteriormente se alojaran en casa de sus amigos y mediante una relación demasiado sadista entre Elaine y Paul, cada uno, por momentos, más humanamente insoportable que el anterior no hacen mas que querer salvar una vida familiar y una relación que ya no existen.
No son personajes hechos para agradar como la mayoría en este libro, pero son tan reales que por momentos llegan hacerlo,
Homes me recuerda ligeramente a Carver, pero más incisiva y desquiciada, Su estilo es dinámico y no para de provocar al lector continuamente con su acida ironía, Acierta con su visión decadente sobre el modelo de “normalidad” de una familia, disecciona su sistema y que es lo que llega a fallar, Vemos como poco a poco empiezan relucir los trapos sucios: infidelidades, envidias, hipocresía, insatisfacción, etc, Como pueden ver nada nuevo que hayamos visto o vivido en nuestras vidas,
En cuanto al final, se que parece sacado de la manga, Pero acaso no es así la vida Tan dolorosamente desgarradora, absurda, inexplicable y, sobre todo: incendiaria,
Desde aquel momento que leí aquel relato supe que no le perdería la pista y ahora no puedo hacer mas que confirmarlo, pero dejare pasar un periodo considerable de tiempo antes de adentrarme a otro trabajo suyo.
El único pero que le veo es que, por momentos, cuando llevaba la mitad leída, me sentí un poco saturado, aunque después se recupera bastante y al final, en mi caso, resulta en una lectura extrañamente gratificante que quedara rondando en mi memoria.
Aquí dejare el relato "Una muñeca de carne y hueso": sitelink com/cas/engt .