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Before page 65 I was already growing impatient with the premise: I didn't require any more extended descriptions of light pouring from wounds. I also found the writing/story a little sentimental, romantic, cheap, and obvious. Brockmeier's earlier novel A Brief History of the Dead, had an intriguing premise, but there the reader projected the inevitable conclusion the concept requires/contains (a Bardo-like city where the dead carry on their lives until all the humans on Earth who remember them are dead too) - and that propelled the story (at least for me - I was caught up in that novel and turned the pages quickly, and then thought about the story for a good while after finishing). The conceit in The Illumination is very interesting, but Brockmeier revels for pages in describing different manifestations of this light; he is in love with the concept. What is he going to do with this? Explore the implications! What about privacy? What about newfound empathy? Suffering as beauty, okay - that's been explored in Christianity and Buddhism. But the glorification of human pain for what purpose? It became unsettling for me. Why the bizarre extended lesson in self-mutilation? WHAT IS THE POINT? The characters don't become more empathetic. Saramago characters can see better than those in The Illumination! The Bookforum reviewer said this well: "The beautiful light spilling from people's bodies only emphasizes what many of us already believe: that we find other people's suffering fascinating, but not so fascinating that we'll do anything about it."

2022-11-14 18:27