Get Started On Only Revolutions Assembled By Mark Z. Danielewski Compiled As Printable Format

every bit of love I felt for Danielewskis House of Leaves, which was quite a bit, I felt an equal amount of dislike for this one.
For me this book embodies a word I have recently seen thrown around Goodreads: Gimmicky, It was gimmicky with a capital G, Gimmicky with all caps. GIMMICKY. It was just bad, man, Bad, bad, bad.

The book tells the story of Sam and Hailey, eternal sixteenyearold roadtripping Romeo and Juliet types who drive across country and through history.
Their story is told by each of them, and is printed on two sides so that each cover of the book could be either the front or back cover.
One side is the story told in Sams point of view, and if you flip the book upside down and to what would be the back cover, you can read it from Haileys point of view.
I guess the layout of the book was aunique idea, Aninteresting concept. The problem was that Sam and Haileys story wasnt interesting to read, At all. The dreamy, often misspelled kiddie speak which they used reminded me a little bit of Francesca Lia Blocks books, but she does it ohsomuch better.


I almost never do this, but after I read the book I read

its Wikipedia page, I dont know what I was looking for exactly, Maybe I was looking for a special meaning that I must have missed because surely it couldn't have been that bad, right Wrong, Incidentally, the most interesting things about the book were found on its Wiki page, which leads me to believe that either the author himself or a huge fan must have written it.
But, nothing was enough to sway my opinion or call myself a dumbass for missing some earthshattering motif that another smarter reader would have picked up on.
The information below is quoted directly from Wikipedia:

The first letter of eachpage "section" is larger and bold when compared to the other letters.
When the reader puts the single letters together from Hailey's side they spell out "Sam and Hailey and Sam and Hailey, . . " etc. When read from Sam's side, they spell out "Hailey and Sam and Hailey and Sam, . . " etc.

Huh. Didn't catch that.

Each halfpage contains exactlywords, When both stories are combined, the words add together for a total ofwords per page, perhaps to symbolize thedegrees the reader must turn the book to read the opposite volume.
Also, with both pages open, the full word count is, essentially making a revolutiondegrees with every open page,

Didn't catch that either, But someone actually counted that shit

Get it Only Revolutions,

Yeah.

The only reason I gave Only Revolutions one star instead of zero was because I was so elated after I turned the last page.
I really wanted to like this book as I LOVED House of Leaves, and furthermore, I wanted to be the elitist one that could espouse, "ohhhh, you didn't like it well, it was a difficult boooook.
. . "

but

I just didn't like it, I mean, I get the concept, I get the format, I get the epic quality, but I think the entire thing could have been done in half the length with twice the impact, After a while the "flip the book" gimmick because almost unbearable as I would get distracted and forget in which voice I was reading, not to mention that the people at the coffee shop must have thought I was a psycho.
I really like the "events" in the sidebar, but by the time I would read a full page of them, I would forget what was going on in the actual text.
All in all, just too much, TOO MUCH I TELL YOU! But maybe you'll like it, who knows

Although I did hear a bit of the author reading from the text on the Only Revolutions's website, and it was really pleasing to hear.
So perhaps listening to it as a spoken poem in his own voice would be the preferable mode of ingestion, accompanying vlog sitelink be/zfBpvxatE,stars.

When I first started writing a review of Mark Z, Danielewskis Only Revolutions, I focused on my problem with artistic experimentation, I opened with a quote from Patton Oswalt, asserted that I have no inherent problem with artists who experiment, and began to tell a rambling story of my recent visit to Los Angeles Getty Museum.
If Id bothered to finish it, I probably wouldve worked in references to Pulp Fiction and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, made snarky comments about John Cage and/or latecareer Scott Walker and/or Lulu, the Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration, and proceeded to pen an evenhanded reaction to the book I described in my last blog post as both the monster under my bed and an unwanted cancer diagnosis.
It wouldve been oh so witty,

But about two paragraphs in, I realized what I think we all must realize, and it is this: Some works of art arent worth the trouble.
And so it is with Only Revolutions, which can generously be described as a talented author disappearing up his own hindquarters, The heart of what I would have said about experimentation in my original review is that Im all for it as long as it serves the story.
As soon as the point becomes the experiment, I lose interest, And that really is what Only Revolutions brings to the table: style over substance, Its all flash, all technique, and no heart, Its the literary equivalent of the hot blonde or the studly dude who look awesome from a distance or, okay, even up close but cant string two sentences together.


So whats the problem with Only Revolutions

The conceit behind the book is this: Its a road trip of sorts, told by two narrators, Sam and Hailey, who meet, fall in love, proceed to have “adventures” which include such compelling vignettes as Trip to Hospital and Waiting Tables in St.
Louis, and tell us their version of the story in competing firstperson accounts, Each account starts at one end of the book, and the catch is that you read eight pages from one perspective, mark your place, flip the book over, and read the corresponding eight pages in the other voice from the opposite direction.


Its not as much work as it sounds Danielewski helpfully indicates where to flip by beginning the ninth page with a boldfaced capital letter, but its still work that, as far as I can tell, exists for no other reason than to be work.
I didnt find the alternating voices to be particularly compelling, nor did one seem to complement the other, I could see it being worth the trouble if, say, Haileys narrative consistently gave us insight into what she was thinking or feeling during the events that Sam describes or vice versa neither character is a solo protagonist, and I dont mean to imply that Hailey exists only in reaction to Sam if anything, theyre a textbook case of codependency.
Instead, all Danielewski does is skew things slightly, which often means changing the name of a car or altering a line of dialogue, That, I suppose, is sort of interesting like his far superior House of Leaves, the changes left me offbalance, which I generally appreciate but it wasnt done to any necessary effect that I could tell.


Theres also a timeline running down the margin of each page which is, I think, supposed to indicate the universality of Sam and Hailey as archetypal lovers who have existed throughout and across time.
Its sort of an interesting idea, but is it worth doing something just to do it, or should we instead want it to be done well or not at all In other words, “Hey, man, cool timeline, but its just so goddamn busy.
Couldnt you just tell me a story”

Further adding to the problem is the fact that both voices are written in a slangheavy patois that, again, seems to be done primarily for effect.
I think its supposed to be cool, but Im just reminded of the episode of Seinfeld when Elaine calls Kramer a “stupid hipster doofus.
” I think I mightve been turned on by the quasiverse patter when I was waaaay into slam poetry for five minutes in the lates, but Danielewski just seems to be trying too hard.
I really wanted to pat him on the head and say, “Its okay, tiger, Youll do better next time, ”

More reviews at sitelinkwww, goldstarforrobotboy. net She knots up my hair, slurps
on my shoulder, so sobsloppily
tortured with shame and
remorse, though I'm the only
one here to blame of course.




My guts turning, splashes amp sweats,
DTs to kicks, I'm all dreck. Wrecking
everything. Remorsefully.
Ashamed. Tortured. The only one
here to blame, assured, .