This is beautifully written, a very powerful story. I won’t go into the allegories of the book, which are plenty and deep and very meaningful. Simply the writing, the story itself is so simple and yet grips you by the guts.

I am happy I read this book. I am happy I discovered Coetzee.

Thanks you Swedish Academy.

I just picked it up becaue it was lying around the house. Thank God you can go through it in a few minutes.

PS: i taged this one as “non-fiction”. I’m feeling kind today.

I cannot stand it when people add incomprehensible bits and pieces to their work. Consider the following bit, in the middle of a perfectly normal conversation:

 - You’re wearing a gas mask

- No I’m not. You are wearing a gas mask

- Oh yes. That is true.

… really? How do you say “WTF?!” more politely?

Don’t get me wrong. I love the unreal, the magical - I am a big sci-fi fan after all, and I love some magical realism books. But, BUT, it has to make sense. If a story, or a piece of it does not make sense, that’s it. There is no story, so end of story.

No. Pinter is not my cup of tea. I’m happy for him he got the Nobel, but I would have chose differently.

L’écrite est magnifique. Le Clézio arrive à être extremement poétique, sans pour autant utiliser un langage forcé, sans trop de fioritures. Un tour de force pour un écrivaitn francophone! De plus, il réussit à entrer dans l’onirique et le magique sans devenir incompréhensimpe, ce qui pour moi est un argument majeur.

Le livre date un peu – de 1980 si je ne me trompe pas - et ça se sent un peu dans certaines approches. Je crois que le même livre écrit aujourd’hui aurait été différent. On sent bien que la manière dont on pensair “l’autre” en 1980 et en 2010 n’est plus du tout la même.

Mis à part la simplification réductrice “gentil touareg – méchant européen”, ce livre est vraiment magnifiquement écrit. Je comprend tout à fait que l’auteur ait reçu le prix Nobel de litérature.

The book is OK. I found the language a bit off at points, and some of the (internal) dialogues of the characters were unrealistic: nobody – at least not these characters – should be made to think in terms of literary theory. “huh, I will use another instance of this simile”. Nah… There also too much reference to mythology for my taste. Don’t get me wrong, I think Greek mythology is absolutely fantastic! I just don’t think it sneeks into peoples thoughts and dialogues like that.

The character development is very nice though, and saves the day.

The book examines the recent history of the interaction between man on the one hand, and the four main fish we eat today on the other. And in every case the picture is not very pretty. Thankfully, Greenberg does not take a radical “green” stance. Instead he argues rationally, in what is overall a balanced and open way. His arguments only gain from this.

The book really makes you think. Special praise should go to Greenberg for making this remarkably dull topic (at least on the surface) so interesting. He even manager to have the reader holding his breath to find out what happens to a group of sea-bass. I think that says it all.

It is just as amazing and mesmerisng as I remembered it. A truly wonderful book, no question that it deserved every bit of the Nobel. It is taking from beginning to end. It is touching, and stroke a string deep inside. Noone should miss it!

This is the first book