MORE FICTION B.S.

A new review, of a book I just tried to read:

THE NERUDA CASE – by Roberto Ampuero 
(2012, Riverhead Books, Penguin Group)

9/29/2012

I saw this recommended somewhere and tried to read it. But I found it very confusing. At the same time, I started rereading “Seabiscuit” by Laura Hillenbrand and her writing is a thousand times better, more engaging and clearer.

I can’t read this Ampuero stuff. I can’t tell where we are or what is going on. I found the sentences convoluted and confusing from the get-go.

The beginning: 
 

“What could be bothering the partners of Almagro, Ruggierio & Associates, who had asked him to appear at their headquarters in such a hurry?”

What? Why not just say they called him and they were on the rag? Even the names are boring. The sentence is long and wordy.

I managed to wade through the first chapter, but then I got lost again. Slow, boring and complicated. Not my kind of stuff.

Where did this guy learn to write, in a law firm?

His purpose seems to be to obfuscate. To bore. To cloud the mind.

He's a typical acadmeic. Required to publish, whether his work is any good or not. You might know he teaches at a university and is Chile’s ambassador to Mexico. This writing is sad.

-- Roger

Copyright © 2012, Roger R. Angle