Plot summary: venture capitalist gets caught up in money laundering scheme, flees the country with a suitcase full of $30 mil, is pursued by two cartel hitmen, ends up losing his memory and ending up in Guuanajuata to try to piece together his past while still being pursued while romancing the woman who set him up?

I didn't get it. At times the mists cleared and I was able to see a story unfolding, the threads of the plot coming together, in a coherent way. The rest of the book is padded out with asides, references (esoteric and otherwise), narrative rabbit holes, and lists of financial products, weaponry, etc. There are parts that are fun, or that resemble fun, while most of it reads like a series of inputs (Cervantes, Wittgenstein, Hegel, McCarthy, Wallace) were fed into an algorithm and this novel was spit out.

What is the purpose of the novel in 2019? In the post-post-truth era? It's an antiquated model for storytelling, for creating the essential narratives that define our collective values. Most people nowadays ingest their narratives pure from cable news or political speech, uncut and unstepped on, with the punditry artlessly just telling people what to think, cherrypicking examples for maximum partisan effect. "Novel Explosives" is the stereotypical doorstop novel hoping to achieve "Great American" status by pummeling the reader with his erudition in what seems like a deep insecurity. The authors is not confident in his craft, so he throws everything against the wall, with the thought that it is always better to overwhelm than to disappoint.

Don't get me wrong - I appreciate books like this, for their ambition, their willingness to deconstruct the form - but hasn't the novel been damaged enough in our late age? Where does the solipsism end and the empathy for the reader begin?
( )

This guy watches too many movies. The author suffers from the illusion that drug cartels are inherently interesting, that "woke up with amnesia" is a plausible beginning to a story, and that freeze-frame descriptions of an action scene are appropriate to a written narrative.

These last tend to be crammed with superflous detail (brand names, technical terms, historical data), which exposes another flaw: the tendency of the author to liberally distribute irrelevant information, occasionally in lecture form, while neglecting to attend to core events of the narrative. After sitting through that five page summary of drug cartel history, the development of fuel-air explosives (leading to the terribly misappropriate title, unless the title is intended to warn you of the the topic for the longest, most egregious digression in the novel), and so on, one discovers that a character has entered the car and sat in the passenger seat, or that two gunmen in a standoff have surrendered their weapons, or some other significant action has happened in the background, without the author bothering to inform you. I charitably assume that this is due to mere sloppiness, as the notion that it is by design betrays an astounding lack of competence in basic writing and composition.

Still, an enjoyable enough reading experience, due largely to a cynical tone which proves entertaining in a way that the many failed attempts at humor do not. The run-on sentences work, somewhat, as an efficient depiction of the mental processes of the addled narrator (though when the narrator changes, they are still in evidence - no doubt more sloppiness). The irrelevant detail seems impressive, until the author inevitably stumbles upon an area in which the reader is well-versed, whereupon it becomes clear that much of the alleged-information is gleaned from Wikipedia articles or, worse, online forums.

Reading guide: Skip the first two chapters entirely. You won't miss anything. Hastily skim long paragraphs in action scenes: these are massively redundant, saying the same thing many times, rewording an idea or description, as if demonstrating by example the inherent value of the editorial position, and the danger in allowing unfettered self-publishing. And don't worry about missing something in the course of this speed-reading: in the last third of the novel, the author helpfully includes what I presume are his notes on the novel, re-capping everything that has happened up until now as if he were afraid of losing his place (again, a charitable assumption, the alternative being that he believes the reader is stupid enough to need this, which given how little actually happens in the novel would be an indication of the author's limitations more than the reader's). Come to think of it, given the fact that there's a narrative recap every ten pages in the last hundred, you could read just the last two or three chapters of the novel and not miss anything. ( )

Video review free giveaway of the new edition!
https://youtu.be/IiRZ5mm5hMw

[5 June 2019]: Original video review here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkJCh97CTFg ( )

Whoever the person was that had burned the midnight oil, learning so much about computers and stack frames and assembly language that it literally made my head hurt, must have been the same person who was struck on the head, and while that person was clearly me, I had an unhealed wound to prove it, it was equally clear that I no longer lived there, and had forgotten to leave myself a forwarding address.

Superlatives come quick in our day and age and the cheaper ones will flow from on high after Friday. It is with a weight of self-awareness that I regard Novel Explosives as a towering ethical novel of our bleak, fragmented time. So, I ponder--why is this the sixth review on GR of such an important endeavor? It may be easier to probe why it isn't more popular. The cover and, frankly, the title don't pretend to tingle a proverbial spine. But just let anyone crack that garish TV adaptation Logan's Run cover and-- well, this is a novel of ideas, certainly, but removed from taxonomy and thrust into our organic reality.

The novel concerns a venture capitalist, one penning a memoir and dealing with some crippling dependence issues. There's a varnish of American Psycho present, but don't allow that to confuse. The other two timelines (all of which transpire in the same week in April 2009) concern an amnesiac in Mexico, the cartels and two narco footsoliders at the point of impact of these divergent narratives. This is the novel I wish Vanessa Place would have penned.

The details about hedge funds, pharmacology and munitions are savagely over written in a stylized overly technical argot. Characters speak in these nuanced manners about features of sidearms and wireless networks in completely implausible specificity. Yet it pulls and holds. The reader becomes word drunk. Then when the fauna and flora of highland Mexico have received their fair over-descriptive due, it is time to turn to the ideas. Poetry and philosophy receive equal billing. the former in a fascinating, though ominous, conversation about the political implications of Portuguese verse during the Salazar regime. The latter is trickier. This isn't about Popper and Wittgenstein. Forget about the poker, this is Wittgenstein agon Heidegger--and fuck the firewood, ponder the utility of a Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife. The theory keeps tumbling into the reader's lap. Kristeva? Wait, her work on melancholy, abjection and severed heads? Perfect- but who thought of that before? This is a scorched cornea of a work and that is a compliment. I bought this for my best friends and we've sweated pale ale and High Life while texting about it. Do yourself a favor and venture forth. ( )

Written in three parts, the novel has some very distinct characters. The first is a man who loss his memory and wakes up in a hotel in Guanajuato. Mexico. Readers will follow him through an in-depth search for his identity, beliefs, and journey through his subconscious. The next character is Raymond, a thug who may have double-crossed his boss or is deep into a drug-induced nightmare. Then there is Gomez, who wants his ill-gained money back. The author entwines philosophical leitmotifs, particularly Soren Kierkegaard’s existentialist beliefs, with the men’s choices and actions. ( )