Well, I've just finished reading The Famished Road by Ben Okri. I have to admit that it left me feeling less than satisfied.
Billed in many reviews as magical realism, and unlike anything I would have read before I was looking forward to it. It didn't live up to its billing. I trudged through the novel; was disappointed by its repetitiveness and found the dream sequences too frequent and far too similar to each other.
There are, however, many fantastic scenes, which are realised with flair and build genuine excitement: notably most of the fights that Azaro's father has either as a boxer or just due to his heightened sense of injustice. The 'stand-out' scene for me is Azaro's father fighting Yellow Leopard. The trouble is that the great scenes are few in number given the near six hundred pages of story.
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone not interested in completing all Booker winners. Out of five, I award it two.
Next, I'm reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Blood Meridian is in my top five, so I can't wait to get started...
Hello! I am a fellow Booker Prize Blogger so I thought I would have a quick look at your blog. Perhaps I won't read the book you have reviewed, but The Road is one of my all time favourites. You can consider me your first follower :). I would really appreciate it if you could have a look at my blog and tell me what you think. Again, nice work!
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