⇒ Download The Same River Twice Ted Mooney 9780307272737 Books

The Same River Twice Ted Mooney 9780307272737 Books

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The Same River Twice Ted Mooney 9780307272737 Books

I enjoyed reading this book. I enjoyed it every time I picked it up and always found it difficult to put down. And that's also what left me a little frustrated. The ingredients were there to give a reader top-notch satisfaction. Many of the story arcs were intriguing and compelling. But the total work ultimately failed to fulfill it's potential. If you like books that make you think, this is a good one. If you like books that reward that thinking, well, you might get a little irritated here.

My biggest question is, "Why?" For a number of the big plot "twists", I still don't know why the characters felt they needed to do what they did. I feel like I still don't know them. Heck, I don't even see any indications that the machinations of this narrative have allowed them to understand THEMSELVES. And I still don't know why the author chose to include certain aspects. Despite the ending, I regret that I cannot anticipate happiness -- or even any sort of peace -- for these characters.

I like books that make the reader think. I neither require nor desire every single loop to be closed and every little question to be answered. Life is not like that, and so therefore fiction shouldn't be either. But that's one thing. It's another entirely to build, build, build (or emphasize, emphasize, emphasize), then allow an element or aspect simply to evaporate unresolved. It's wonderful to make your readers think(!); it's cheap not to reward them for it. Twists are fine, but twists that appear to be for shock value alone (or perhaps the author is just tired of dealing with a character he created?) are not value-adding for this genre.

[And don't get me started on the moral angles the book adopts; that's a separate discussion entirely.]

What a shame, to be able to write compelling prose and to be able to engage a reader and to be able to compel that reader to desire to go on ... ... ... and then to disappoint.

It's a fun book to read. My advice, though? Stop reading about 80% through, while you still have all your questions. Then misplace the book!


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The Same River Twice Ted Mooney 9780307272737 Books Reviews

"The Same River Twice" is certainly not a standard thriller but the very bright and sensitive description of our own image in our society today. Ted Mooney reveals what surrounds us but unfortunately we do not see growing technology, art and money, nationalism, black market, our relationships. It is the "Comédie Humaine" of our daily life in 2010, directed by a very talented and visionary writer under his own universal flag.
All the hype on this book by renowned authors. A stunning review in the NY times Book Review. And a fairly boring read. a 30-ish something woman who has an affair with another man and not she or the author can explain why. And her husband, a film-maker, takes it all in stride. If you want to read a literay thriller try Ron Carlson's "The Signal", or Cormac McCarthy's "No Country For Old Men." These are the real deal. This book was tiresome, double so for the good authors who hyped it.
a reasonably good read with a lot of implausible action. One has the sense that the author. after writing several chapters of what he thinks is serious prose. thinks he needs to liven up the plot so he dumps in some action that is totally out of place. A Russian mobster trying to kidnap a brilliant scientist that is about to corner stem cell development. Oh Please!

The ending is another disappointment. Rather than leave a little to the imagination the writer ties everything up with a little pink bow, and it just makes the whole thing surreal. There are too many great books out there to waste time readimg this one.
Walking through the absurd plot, colliding with one another in a miniature Paris that appears to have more streets than people, the cast members find it impossible to avoid one another. Somehow, a husband and wife become involved with the same set of criminals while leading their separate lives. He begins filming a girl because she looks good and she tries to find her limits by having an affair with a rogue. Her lover is irresistible but she daydreams while they have sex. She finds that she is, as others have observed, capable of murder, but only by proxy (she points, he shoots). The pirates of his early film masterpiece add a new ending (as an "experiment") and put the address of their shop on the DVD label. He finds that by filming random scenes, he can create great art. She gives up meat, then food, as an "experiment," while consuming all the common herbal teas in sequence. Keeping her costs him his integrity, but they appear to value one another in the epilogue. Nice folks.

During a public radio interview the author mentioned the points that he wanted make in the book, noting however that it was necessary to give the reader a reason to turn the page. In my case I finished the book because I was curious to see how he would attempt salvage it as a novel. The book itself illustrates the author's premise that the cash value of a work of art is determined by marketing. Intrinsic value is a whole other thing and it's absent in this case.
I'm in the camp of those who express disappointment, as I felt after reading a glowing NYTimes review. Mr. Mooney can write and has a wealth of information about art, too much, in fact, to carry his story with the momentum and sense of logic, dare I say realism? A prime example, a shooting near the end, both unexpected and unexplained, as was the rather sudden infidelity earlier of the filmmaker's wife who until then had gathered a good deal of empathy during the author's build up of her character, the pillar of a second marriage. The kind of plot twist that stalls rather than fuels a story. Eventually, after more details about a boat's renovations, its reemergence on the Seine, a tanget that led nowhere, I grew tired of following these characters. Made sinister and glamorous, the rich Russian could not carry it to an end, nor could the reunited couple, all sins of the wife either ignored or forgiven, we never learn which, yet sanguine and satisfied in their post murder state of being, unlike this reader.
I enjoyed reading this book. I enjoyed it every time I picked it up and always found it difficult to put down. And that's also what left me a little frustrated. The ingredients were there to give a reader top-notch satisfaction. Many of the story arcs were intriguing and compelling. But the total work ultimately failed to fulfill it's potential. If you like books that make you think, this is a good one. If you like books that reward that thinking, well, you might get a little irritated here.

My biggest question is, "Why?" For a number of the big plot "twists", I still don't know why the characters felt they needed to do what they did. I feel like I still don't know them. Heck, I don't even see any indications that the machinations of this narrative have allowed them to understand THEMSELVES. And I still don't know why the author chose to include certain aspects. Despite the ending, I regret that I cannot anticipate happiness -- or even any sort of peace -- for these characters.

I like books that make the reader think. I neither require nor desire every single loop to be closed and every little question to be answered. Life is not like that, and so therefore fiction shouldn't be either. But that's one thing. It's another entirely to build, build, build (or emphasize, emphasize, emphasize), then allow an element or aspect simply to evaporate unresolved. It's wonderful to make your readers think(!); it's cheap not to reward them for it. Twists are fine, but twists that appear to be for shock value alone (or perhaps the author is just tired of dealing with a character he created?) are not value-adding for this genre.

[And don't get me started on the moral angles the book adopts; that's a separate discussion entirely.]

What a shame, to be able to write compelling prose and to be able to engage a reader and to be able to compel that reader to desire to go on ... ... ... and then to disappoint.

It's a fun book to read. My advice, though? Stop reading about 80% through, while you still have all your questions. Then misplace the book!