An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter (Paperback)

from RossWilliam

Aira's prose was a bit dry and his rhythm was hard to find. The first twenty or so pages were a total loss and in a book this short I was unsure things would turn around. However things do pick up and the story has some intresting themes about art and life and the interaction between man and natu...

from snash

This was an easy enough read for a bizarre tale amid philosophical musings about reality and observation etc. Somehow, however, it never quite grabbed me. It seemed a bit cold and distant.

from DRFP

For better or for worse a more straightforward read than the other Aira novella I have read, The Literary Conference. Still... it just doesn't quite add up to much. The writing is quite nice, the ideas nice but at the end of the day it doesn't move me and it doesn't even really stir me to think e...

from MSarki

Three stars means "I liked it" so I guess that is good enough for me. Though my measly rating looks bad among all these five stars I see around me. The book was very easy to read and I liked some of the words the translator chose to use. More on this later. But I wasn't all that moved by the mons...

from JimElkins

A stupendous novel, a real achievement in a very brief compass. Aira is a strange and somewhat scattered novelist -- I am not sure if he has control over his forms, and sometimes, as in "How I Became a Nun," he seems to want to relinquish control -- but his pace, his wit, his descriptions, and ev...