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Loading... Immigrant, Montanaby Amitava Kumar
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Good Lord, what a stinker! From the book description, I thought this would be an interesting story of a young Indian immigrant adjusting to life in the US. What I got was a little bit of Indian history in between the author's sexual experimentation. And believe me, he doesn't leave out any details. I'm no prude; I'm fine with sexual episodes in a book if they are part of the main story. But not when they ARE the story. I listened to the audio version, which probably made it even worse. If this is a memoir, he wrote it for himself, not for other people to enjoy. every time he reminisced about a woman in his past, he inevitably concluded, "I could almost taste her in my mouth." That's really all I have to say, and probably all you need to know. It was so bad that I tried to return it to Audible, but they wouldn't let me because I had returned another stinker a month or so ago. no reviews | add a review
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"The author of the widely praised Lunch with a Bigot now gives us a remarkable novel--reminiscent of Teju Cole, W.G. Sebald, John Berger--about a young new immigrant to the U.S. in search of love: across dividing lines between cultures, between sexes, and between the particular desires of one man and the women he comes to love. The young man is Kailash, from India. His new American friends call him Kalashnikov, AK-47, AK. He takes it all in his stride: he wants to fit in--and more than that, to shine. In the narrative of his years at a university in New York, AK describes the joys and disappointments of his immigrant experience; the unfamiliar political and social textures of campus life; the indelible influence of a charismatic professor--also an immigrant, his personal history as dramatic as AK's is decidedly not; the very different natures of the women he loved, and of himself in and out of love with each of them. Telling his own story, AK is both meditative and the embodiment of the enthusiasm of youth in all its idealism and chaotic desires. His wry, vivid perception of the world he's making his own, and the brilliant melding of story and reportage, anecdote and annotation, picture and text, give us a singularly engaging, insightful, and moving novel--one that explores the varieties and vagaries of cultural misunderstanding, but is, as well, an impassioned investigation of love"-- No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)824.92Literature English English essays Modern Period 21st centuryLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Entirely agreed.
Alas, that was the one line in the whole book that spoke to me. Admittedly, I went to the library about 2/3rds of the way through and got out three books I'm immensely excited to read, and thus skimmed the last third instead of reading properly, but I don't think I missed anything.
This book had so many things going for it. It has MONTANA in the title. You know what my favourite state is? Yeah, it's Montana. And I'm always up for a good immigrant story. And it's set up in seven parts, all revolving around a girl, and y'know, even that is a concept that's super fascinating to me.
But! It kind of...sucked? There are no moments that are interesting. I was glad to realise a chapter in that it was fiction, which made all the delusions of grandeur slightly more bearable.
Also, majorly explicit content warning! So! Much! Sex! Ugh! Seriously, publishing industry, let's get some content flags 'cause I'll happily live my life without reading about people fornicating in strange mannerisms. Sometimes it can add value, but when it becomes the focal point such as in this, well.
This is what I get for getting too excited about books based on their titles. And what I get for assuming that intriguing copy makes an intriguing book. Sigh. ( )