Jesse Ball

This tale has a lot of artistic analysis juxtapositioned with the inner monologue of the central character. He is on a journey with his childlike adult son, and as the story is written in the 3rd-person, much of it is a reflection piece of his past alongside the forward journey to his inevitable conclusion. While there are parts that feel a bit dense in the handling of the artists recollected (his wife and a performance artist, an author he is obsessed with and references many times), the themes persist and reassert themselves for an overall cohesive story. There is much talk of birds, using the car as a means of transportation and mobile home, outdoors observations, visiting strangers for the census, his evolving role and adherence to the responsibility of being a census-taker in the unidentified time and place of the novel. I especially liked the philosophical arc as it focuses on the role of artistic expression, impending mortality, documenting life and lives, leaving the reader with many quotable takeaways.… (mehr)

If this was a thriller, the reader probably wouldn't find out till the end that Sotatsu was innocent; as this is literary fiction we find out right from the start, as the book has a more philosophical aim.

It probably would have been better as a thriller.

As it is, it's an account of an attempt to Kafka-ize a modern progressive society, which lacks the required heft to make a compelling argument, and lacks the required characterization to make up some way for it.

Not a bad book, but very forgettable.… (mehr)