zaratustra reviewed Maxwell's Demon by Steven Hall
Review of "Maxwell's Demon" on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
- As it was pointed out by other reviews, the protagonist being a burned out author that can't live up to his first hit is an obvious self-insert character. This makes Thomas Quinn's wife an obvious stand-in for Steven Hall's paramour, Mark Z. Danielewski.
Hall's first book was about a ritual - a tightly scripted set of actions intended to produce a specific result on the world. This is about an anti-ritual - a metaphorical leap to perform a result not accessible by cause and effect.
Oh Andrew Black is a woman and she is much more accomplished than Thomas but hasn't finished her second novel because she needs a man to give her a baby come on
If I'm reading this correctly - the book explicitely tries to dodge a straight reading - at least part of the main premise is that the world of written books is dying because of ebooks and Twitter. I mean maybe a little, speaking as a manner of proportions? But I would wager there are more books released any given year of the 21st century than there were in the entire 19th century. Something like that, I haven't run the numbers.
Maybe your writer's block is not because of twitter, Steven. Maybe it's because you think Joseph Campbell is not a hack.
* Hall's word-art is unreadable on ebook form. This may be part of the premise.