Author | Alessandro Baricco |
---|---|
Original title | Oceano mare |
Translator | Alastair McEwen |
Language | Italian |
Publisher | Rizzoli editore |
Publication date | 1993 |
Publication place | Italy |
Published in English | 1999 |
Pages | 226 |
ISBN | 88-17-66043-4 |
Ocean Sea (Italian : Oceano mare) is a 1993 novel by the Italian writer Alessandro Baricco. Its narrative revolves around the lives of a group of people gathered at a remote seaside hotel. The novel won the Viareggio Prize. [1]
Richard Bernstein reviewed the book for The New York Times , and wrote: "Ocean Sea unfolds in its poetically elliptical way. Mr. Baricco is a literary cubist, a stylist who looks simultaneously at the several sides of things. He switches from one rhetorical mode to another, from a kind of symbolist poetry to grand adventure narrative to picaresque comedy." Bernstein continued: "This style of writing can be precious, artificial, a kind of verbal craftsmanship for craftsmanship's sake, but generally I read Ocean Sea transfixed by Mr. Baricco's linguistic originality, the boisterousness of his characters, and the skill with which he weaves the threads of a seemingly disjointed plot into a single narrative strand." [2] Tom Boncza-Tomaszewski of The Independent called the book an "extraordinary novel", and wrote: "A book about being, metaphysics juggled like the best trick of a wise old clown, this is a novel that at least suggests there's more to life than what any rationalist would tell you." [3]
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