by Karen Tei Yamashita
|
| List Price: | $16.00 |
| Amazon Price: | $11.84 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
| You Save: | $4.16 (26%) |
| Average Rating: |  |
| Lowest New Price: | $9.13 |
| Availablitiy: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
 |
|
Product Description
This fiercely satirical, semifantastical novel ... features an Asian-American television news executive, Emi, and a Latino newspaper reporter, Gabriel, who are so focused on chasing stories they almost don't notice that the world is falling apart all around them. Karen Tei Yamashita's staccato prose works well to evoke the frenetic breeziness and monumental self-absorption that are central to their lives.-Janet Kaye, The New York Times Book Review
Customers who bought this item also bought
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 A postmodern view of urban complexities, 2008-12-08
I wrote my senior thesis on this book at UC Berkeley. The complexities of multiculturalism, borders and the constant movement of today are on display here. It also reminded me of the movie "Crash" but with more depth to the cast of characters. One line from the book sticks with me and appears in my thoughts from time to time: "...progress and other things in which they foolishly believed..." This concept of the "myth of progress" is a central theme of this novel, as it demonstrates how even though we're making strides in so many ways (technology, connecting across borders, knowledge/information), we're digressing in other ways (morals, human contact, wisdom). Although I loathed it while trying to articulate a thesis from it, I now look back with fondness and upon rereading it, have come to appreciate its depth.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Tropic of Orange as "borderlands" being born on Pacific Rim..., 2008-03-26
I reread Tropic of Orange and was amazed how its portrayal of LA all the more holds up in terms of the grids and forces the novel engages with via its crazed set of characters and criss-crossing emplottings and imaginative methods. In larger contexts of urban literature on the Pacific Rim, this reader admired the play of learning and fantasy to create an apocalyptic yet hopeful grid of crazed multicultural LA where the south bleeds into the north and vice versa creating inter-spaces and modes of adaptation combining old and new. Urban sublime for sure. It is more "borderlands" Latino/Asian CA than anything I could mention on the literary Rim; it's a feat, will outlast many novels that come and go with yesterday's news
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Best Book About LA Ever, 2007-03-03
Brilliant and beautiful! Definitely the best book about LA in the last ten years. Not your typical wannabe Hollywood drama or wild drug haze. This is the real Los Angeles. The structure is unlike anything I have ever seen in a book before. You can read it straight through, or follow the Hypertext and follow each of the seven characters through their own experience. The plot is simply extraordinary, with touches of magical realism and noir fiction; an orange growing directly on the Tropic of Cancer makes its way north, completely distrubpting everywhere between it and Los Angeles. Between the lines of the story is the complexities of culture and stereotypes in LA and the fragility of the town itself. Everyone should read this book!
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
 Awesome magical realism, 2002-09-22
I was assigned Tropic of Orange in a class and found myself totally engrossed in the scewed story lines. if you like books that make you stop and think, what the ... is going on here?! Then you will LOVE this book. Great criticism on the US, media and Los Angeles too!
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
A Movie in Waiting, 1999-03-12
Yamashita's book is just short of a tour de force. It's engrossing, jauntily satirical and multicultural to a fault. I agree with the other reviews that find it a direct indictment of materialism as well, but I was more intrigued by her apocalyptic vision for LA. The city of angels has always been a focal point for artists, and many think its time of burnout will come. Yamashita thinks that the destructive impulse will come from within and from nearby borders, and that makes this book even more fascinating as a possible scenario for the end of LA as we know it. Why hasn't this become a movie, or even a movie of the week? The fever pitch she manages to end chapters with at times would directly translate to the large or small screen. Maybe the Hollywood vultures haven't found her yet. It's only a matter of time.
Price is accurate as of the date/time indicated. Prices and product availability are subject to change. Any price displayed on the Amazon website at the time of purchase will govern the sale of this product.
|
Store Categories
|