Journal Entry 1 by indygo88 from Lafayette, Indiana USA on Wednesday, October 28, 2009

"Two cousins, irreversibly damaged by a childhood prank whose devastating consequences changed both their lives, reunite twenty years later to renovate a medieval castle in Eastern Europe, a castle steeped in blood lore and family pride. Built over a secret system of caves and tunnels, the castle and its violent history invoke and subvert all the elements of a gothic past: twins, a pool, an old baroness, a fearsome tower. In an environment of extreme paranoia, cut off from the outside world, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results. And as the full horror of their predicament unfolds, a prisoner, in jail for an unnamed crime, recounts an unforgettable story—a story about two cousins who unite to renovate a castle—that brings the crimes of the past and present into piercing relation.

Egan’s relentlessly gripping page-turner plays with rich forms—ghost story, love story, gothic—and transfixing themes: the undertow of history, the fate of imagination in the cacophony of modern life, the uncanny likeness between communications technology and the supernatural. In a narrative that shifts seamlessly from an ancient European castle to a maximum security prison, Egan conjures a world from which escape is impossible and where the keep—the last stand, the final holdout, the place you run to when the walls are breached—is both everything worth protecting and the very thing that must be surrendered in order to survive."

Acquired through PaperBackSwap.com (Unabridged on 7 CD's; read by Jeff Gurner & Geneva Carr)
 

Journal Entry 2 by indygo88 from Lafayette, Indiana USA on Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The elemental descriptions of this book really made me want to read it: a castle, a bloody history, a haunting past, secrets...it seemed right up my alley. But having said that, it was not at all what I expected, which isn't to say it was disappointing, but I'm not sure it lived up to what it could've been. At times I thought the writing was sub-par. But at other times, its uniqueness was quite compelling. The interweaving of several different stories left me with mixed feelings. In a way they fit together, but in a way they didn't. Or perhaps they did, but I just didn't feel like the fitting together was quite complete -- maybe a little bit disjointed. There was some open-endedness that disturbed me a little bit, and lots of points in the story where, as a reader, you have to try to decipher between what is real and what is not. I think this had the potential to be a really great story, but it wasn't quite refined enough to get to that point. Still, I enjoyed it enough to look forward to any future works from Jennifer Egan. 

Journal Entry 3 by indygo88 at Lafayette, Indiana USA on Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Oops...forgot to journal this a few days ago when I placed it into Carlissa's audio bookbox. So that's where it is now! 

Journal Entry 4 by NMReader at Herndon, Virginia USA on Friday, October 08, 2010

Removed from audio bookbox 

Journal Entry 5 by NMReader at Herndon, Virginia USA on Tuesday, July 05, 2011

As I am trying to catch up on rings/rays at the moment, I am going put this on my reserved shelf for the time being.