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Title: The Sea Came in at Midnight by Steve Erickson ISBN: 0-380-80658-4 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Luminous. Does the work that tragedy should...
Comment: In 1991 I read Erickson's *Tours of the Black Clock*, and came away touched to the core by his reckoning with evil, loss, and the secret history of the Twentieth Century; I felt in finishing the book as if I had been given an incredible gift. He was definitely going to be one to watch.
Well, I devoured *Amnesiascope* and *Arc D'X* and *Rubicon Beach*, but despite the appearance of the same tropes (like J.G. Ballard, Erickson obsessively redeploys the same imagery, in his case fractured time, deserted Chinatowns, flooded cities) they didn't bring me off quite the way *Tours* did.
Now *Sea* does, again. It's a haunting and beautiful meditation on time, loss, evil, and redemption - call it a scruffier alternate take on DeLillo's *Underworld*, for post-boomers. It's uneven in spots, but it did the work that all great writing is supposed to do: it triggered the simultaneous grief, acceptance, and joy in that acceptance that means you've arrived, at long last, at your own life. You should buy this book.
Oh, and: thanks, Steve.
Rating: 5
Summary: So good it¿s scary
Comment: 'The Sea Came in at Midnight' is so good it's scary. I'm worried that it will be a long time before I read another novel that is so accomplished and successful in its intent. Maybe I shouldn't worry...maybe I only have to wait until I read another of Erickson's novels before I encounter such mastery again.
For me, the most enjoyable aspect of this novel was the elliptical paths the characters took. The way they crossed and re-crossed paths, never knowing the significance of the other in the way their lives have been shaped. Erickson manages this without forcing the relationships or situations in an artificial way.
The story itself, though, is artificial and contrived - but I mean that in a positive way! Erickson's settings, the novels events and the characters motivations are grandiose and on an epic scale. He wants you to be confronted by his themes - the decay of society, the power of redemption and self-belief - so they are enlarged and made more bold by their scale. 'The Sea Came in at Midnight' is a novel that trades in challenging the reader and the reader's perceptions. You will never forget the desperation of some characters and the despair of others. Never forget the hyper-realistic imagery - Tokyo memory hotels, the mass suicide, the shattered aquarium. And finally, never forget that you have been privileged to read a novel of truly stunning accomplishment.
Rating: 5
Summary: If a dream is a memory of the future...
Comment: A sometimes beautiful, sometimes disturbing "memior of the future", this novel contains plot twists that in themselves are nothing short of amazing. The books many protagonists live as if in a surreal dreamworld of cultural movements, apocolyptic fear, horrific urban legends and even worse histories of the last century. The writing is very lyrical, but the narrative also has a frenetic science-fiction like pace that keeps you turning the pages with each cosmic coincidence. Very much like Delillo in delivery and Pynchonian in plot.
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Title: ARC D'X by Steve Erickson ISBN: 0671742965 Publisher: Poseidon Pr Pub. Date: 01 April, 1993 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Days Between Stations by Steve Erickson ISBN: 0805050701 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: April, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Amnesiascope: A Novel by Steve Erickson ISBN: 0805053611 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Tours of the Black Clock by Steve Erickson ISBN: 0380709449 Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: August, 1993 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Rubicon Beach: A Novel by Steve Erickson ISBN: 080505071X Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: April, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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