I'm not quite sure I understood everything, but it was very interesting and out of my usual book genre, so I did enjoy it.

Meh. For a while, I felt like this was teaching me how to read it; then it taught me how to put it down. I may return to it one day, but for the moment I'm too excited to tackle what's in the "to read" stack to piss away another night on this baffler.

If one requires a linear narrative that wraps up in a neat expository conclusion, then this will not be your book. I suppose it is inevitable that O’Bien must be compared and contrasted with James Joyce. Toward the end one gets the impression that the author might be taking the piss out of Ulysses, even. At a third of the length of Joyce’s most experimental works, this may be a more concise alternative; less bloody-minded than Ulysses and infinitely more coherent than Finnegans Wake, yet possessing something akin to both. There are numerous thoroughly enjoyable laugh-out-loud moments in the mostly ludicrous farce that fills the pages, but also passages that could be described as nothing less than tedious. O’Brien seems to be much more intent on emphasizing the absurdity of his story and the act of writing in general. There seem to have been long stretches of text that ultimately had no bearing on subsequent outcomes, if one could even say there was any explicit outcome. Effective descriptions of mood and gesture in conversation were impressive. O’Brien’s comedic style was enjoyable, and I would read more of his work, but likely after a brief respite with another author’s work.

Well, damn the star rating system! This is obviously a very, very clever novel, a wonderfully conceived experiment in literary rhetoric--exactly my kind of thing! It's fabulously against the grain of the false paradigm of the classic novel. Plus it's laugh out-loud funny, poignant at times, always merry and entertaining...

But, well, as much as I appreciated all of its intricacies, the literary references (I picked it up just after reading Haney's translation of Sweeney Astray when I came to understand the significance of the title), It just didn't quite move me in the way that a truly perfect novel does. I wanted it to, I really did. Intellectually, it was all there. Somehow a bit of heart was lacking, a slight je ne sais qua of profundity, of earth-shattering necessity. Anger or outrage perhaps?--and maybe I'm only yearning for that because of the Trump/Jong-un end-of-the-world zeitgeist, I dunno. Everyone I know loves this novel and I wanted to love it as much as they do but I have to confess that I loved it a little bit less than they do. It's still really, really good. And funny. I laughed out loud on the bus often, annoying people. Plus the writers within writers game was glorious--for this writer. I'm rambling. ...

Perhaps the craziest book I’ve ever read. Difficult, hilarious, bonkers, meta-meta. Patient readers will be rewarded.

When I first started reading this book, I knew nothing about it. I had heard it was a hilarious Irish classic, and that was enough for me to give it a whirl! As I started it, it was not at all I expected, and to be honest, difficult to get into. I had read it was similar to Joyce, but the beginning of the book had all the things that I disliked about Joyce without any of its redeeming qualities (i.e. purposefully convoluted structure, humor drier than a week old toast left out in the California sun). My internal rating of the book was starting off poor. I had no idea why this challenging metafictional book had the quote "This is just the book to give your sister – if she's a loud, dirty, boozy girl" on it [still don't really get that quote].

But, it starts to pick up. I realized that I was still on chapter 1, even halfway through, a cute little joke. The book really takes off when the book within the book really begins, and mirrors the Narrator's life. There are several parts in the back half of the book where I started actually laughing. It wasn't as funny as I was hoping, and more farcical in nature, and I was starting to find it endearingly amusing. To the surprise of my earlier self who couldn't get into the beginning, I was rushing through the book at this point. The crescendo of the book, particularly the ending where the Narrator receives a watch from his uncle, completely flipped my perspective of the book. The whole book became about wrestling with your creator/father, and how petty revenge (even if it is deserved and fruitful) can all burn away in a single moment of recognition.

As you can tell, the book has provoked a lot more thought than I expected, even after I finished. It is a weird feeling to dislike the start of a book, relatively enjoy the end of the book, and then become obsessed with it after you finish reading it. By the end of it, I feel like this book concluded with what was missing from Joyce (imo). It reminds me of Gogol's Dead Souls - parts of it incomplete, some parts shining, and overall well worth a read.